Rememberings

by Sinéad O'Connor

The totality indeed of what I do not recall would fill ten thousand libraries, so it’s probably just as well I don’t remember.

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.

My intention was to put all the pieces of the jigsaw that was me out on the floor and see if I could put it together. To be understood was my desire.

I don’t mind if you play me badly, I just need to be touched. Play me very softly, gently, gently, only barely, because I am a very tender thing, and the ghosts are very sore.

Sometimes people’s voices make me want to cuddle them.

She says I’m honest and never to say sorry if I don’t mean it.

I was never to believe any kind of love was wrong if it was true love and to always be brave enough to tell someone I loved them, because it was brave of me to have told him, and it had made him feel very happy.

There’s someone in the music too, it’s not a person Its hands reach out for mine, it isn’t human It’s dark blue and green and made of space It wants to put its arms around my waist It wants to dance with me and whirl me by It seems to know me but I don’t know why

Joe and I have been on the roof of the garage rocking out to “Freebird”

It’s really brave. He isn’t pretending to be nice all the time.

She laughs at me a lot, in a cruel way. I don’t like that, but still, there’s something about her I admire. I wish I were brave enough to be as rude as her. She says all the bad things she thinks.

Everything reminded me of my mother. The shops were full of hats she would have loved but I could never now give her.

When I told Fachtna about events, he said, “I think you should fucking shave your head.”

He has always been there for me as a friend even when I’ve been wrong.

A beautiful dance through life we have had together.

Crying-laughing is the greatest feeling ever and the funniest thing to watch.

They make me feel really nice about being a girl. But I like to look like a boy. They’ve never blinked an eye about it.

His eyes always brim full of gentleness when he looks at absolutely anyone.

He doesn’t have a temper and he isn’t afraid of people.

I was crying about my mother being dead. I’m still really messed up about it, even though I’m twenty-four. A little embarrassing. But there you go. I’m a girl.

Similar to Christ’s, rap’s mission is self-esteem for those “previously deemed shit.” So it’s as dangerous as Christ’s.

For the show, I wore a short top and a pair of jeans. I stuck the arms of Jake’s sleep suit through the belt loops at the back so that it hung down my arse. Later, when I got home to Ireland, I put it on my mother’s grave.

To the great consternation of many, I refused all the awards I was personally offered for my second album.

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.

I give my LA house to the Red Cross. I don’t want anything to do with the trappings of so-called success anymore.

Nor have I yet found myself that (much-fantasized-about) handsome rabbi who wants to marry me so I have to become Jewish because I truly love him.

i love how she’s so cool and accomplished and good hearted but she still talks like girl in her 20s

Igor knew what was going on. I wasn’t going to be part of humiliating him. I wouldn’t have eaten the soup if my life depended on it. He finally placed the bowl back on the tray and stood holding the lot, not knowing what to do, looking like he was gonna cry.

I thought they didn’t like me was why they were silent. But it ain’t anything other than they are watchers. They’re watching out for God everywhere. They’re like God’s security detail. That’s how they see themselves, and that is exactly how they are.

I’m playing that game where each person puts a frozen pea in one nostril and holds the other nostril closed, and whoever manages to snot the pea out farthest is the winner.

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.

we can’t know why people do the things they do

Everyone’s happy. A dead child far away is no one’s problem.

I know if I do this there’ll be war. But I don’t care. I know my Scripture. Nothing can touch me. I reject the world. Nobody can do a thing to me that hasn’t been done already. I can sing in the streets like I used to. It’s not like anyone will tear my throat out.

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. My own dream is only to keep the contract I made with God before I ever made one with the music business.

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.

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.

After SNL I could just be me. Do what I love. Be imperfect. Be mad, even. Anything.

I define success by whether I keep the contract I made with the Holy Spirit before I made one with the music business.

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.

He came back into the restaurant, stood about six feet inside, opened up his arms, and said, “Can I get a hug? Can I just get a hug?” Genius, I thought. And I ran up to him and leaped on him like a monkey.

After all, there is no point setting out on a healing journey if you’re not going to find yourself healed.

There is nothing I could write in this book or tell you that would help you get to know me. It is all in the songs.

If you could just get yourself out of your own way, tell the story, feel the feelings, the notes were in you.

everyone’s soul is individual and beautiful, but the ring in everyone’s soul doesn’t come out unless they’re singing in their own authentic accent.

Truth to tell, it’s very hard for me to get angry about my mother. It’s the way I’ve survived. I’ve convinced myself she didn’t know what she was doing.

this album was the first time in my life that I’d become myself and started to really look at what I’d been in the first twenty-two years of my life;

We’re still very fond of each other, though I’ve seen him once in the last maybe twenty-five years.

“I Am Enough for Myself” was a meditation about things I was going through in therapy. It was a meditation and a set of affirmations about the way I wanted things to be.

Let everyone see the humanity of God, the vulnerability, the moodiness, the emotionality.

His wife died ten years ago. He shows me beautiful photos of them when they were young and going out to dances, all done up and looking so happy together.

She said that although she works in bereavement, when you know you’re gonna lose someone close, it still breaks your heart. We sat a good hour. She was lovely. Apologizing all the time but not needing to. Not knowing she was the one doing me the favor.