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But I think you’ll see in this book a girl who does find herself, not by success in the music industry but by taking the opportunity to sensibly and truly lose her marbles. The thing being that after losing them, one finds them and plays the game better.
To be understood was my desire.
If I hope for anything as an artist, it’s that I inspire certain people to be who they really are. My audiences seem to be people who have been given a hard time for being who they are.
An altar isn’t sacred, apparently, if it doesn’t contain some part of the body of the dead. Sounds more devilish than God-ish to me.
He also said he was the kind of man who loved other men. I’d never heard of such a thing before, so he had to explain a little. He said sometimes God just makes men who fall in love with men, or women who fall in love with women. He asked would I mind keeping what he’d told me to myself because he said people didn’t really agree with men loving men. He said people didn’t often recognize what God loved, and he said they sometimes didn’t love what God loved.
In real life you aren’t allowed to say you’re angry but in music you can say anything.
Her face turns to the window as if she’s searching for birds. Her job is to mind sad girls and she’s a sad girl herself.
We really are a very messed-up family. We don’t even suit that word, family. It should be a comforting word. But it’s not. It’s a painful, stabbing word. Cuts the heart into pieces. And all the more because it’s too late to go back and do anything differently.
I’d be lost without John in my life. I’d be nothing without the companionship and creativity and brotherhood and laughter and emotional support he has given me. He is the very anchor of my life. There just are not words. But the catalog of music we have made together over the course of the last thirty-five years says it all and is the legacy of our bond. A beautiful dance through life we have had together. And still have. And always will have.
In the New York office of my record company, the color of the employees’ skin is darkest in the basement, which is the mail room. Their skins get lighter as the floors go up. As do the stations the employees have their radios tuned to. Two floors from the top, “no females” becomes the scenario also. Unless they’re in secretarial roles.
Hence I once had Public Enemy’s logo shaved and dyed onto the side of my head so it would be seen on telly all around the world.
Similar to Christ’s, rap’s mission is self-esteem for those “previously deemed shit.” So it’s as dangerous as Christ’s. Because a lot of kids of all manner are listening, and no one in the industry wants their top floors threatened by either the wrong skin color or the wrong mindset—that is, anyone who cares about truth.
Wait till you see. When showbiz execs realize they can’t kill rap, they will hijack it. They’ll make millionaires of impostor rappers who say things like “You can’t be like me.”
I make plain as I’m refusing awards and award shows that I am doing so in order to draw attention to the issue of child abuse. And that I’m a punk, not a pop star. And that awards make some people feel more than and some people feel less than. And that music shouldn’t be such a competition.
My intention had always been to destroy my mother’s photo of the pope. It represented lies and liars and abuse. The type of people who kept these things were devils like my mother. I never knew when or where or how I would destroy it, but destroy it I would when the right moment came. And with that in mind, I carefully brought it everywhere I lived from that day forward. Because nobody ever gave a shit about the children of Ireland.
Very clever. A dress for women to behave badly in. One day maybe I will have a daughter who gets married in it.
Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I am a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame. In fact, that’s why I chose the first song. “Success” was making a failure of my life. Because everyone was already calling me crazy for not acting like a pop star. For not worshipping fame. And I understand I’ve torn up the dreams of those around me. But those aren’t my dreams. No one ever asked me what my dreams were; they just got mad at me for not being who they wanted me to be.
The matter is being discussed on the news and we learn I am banned from NBC for life. This hurts me a lot less than rapes hurt those Irish children. And a lot less than Terry dying. Which happens on the following Monday anyway.
A LOT OF PEOPLE say or think that tearing up the pope’s photo derailed my career. That’s not how I feel about it. I feel that having a number-one record derailed my career and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.
So, far from the pope episode destroying my career, it set me on a path that fit me better. I’m not a pop star. I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then. I don’t need to be number one. I don’t need to be liked. I don’t need to be welcome at the AMAs. I just need to pay my yearly overheads, get shit off my chest, and not compromise or prostitute myself spiritually. So no. It wasn’t derailed. It was re-railed. And I feel I’ve been extremely successful as a single mother providing for her children.
I always say that if one could discuss music, one wouldn’t need music, since music is for the things that cannot be discussed.
So there’s no internet but there are snipers. When there’s no war. Go figure.
Because to be a good Catholic, you had to think you were a piece of shit. That was the idea. The less you thought of yourself, the more God would think of you.
Of course, he scoffs at me, saying, “You can’t save the universe with a large empathetic heart.” I disagree.
If I have no other purpose in this life other than to put these four children on this earth, well, that’s enough for me to feel I did something useful in this world. I am not just saying that because they are my children. They are absolutely unusual, intelligent, loving, compassionate, spiritually advanced, funny, worthwhile, hardworking human beings, and I couldn’t be prouder.

