Rememberings

by Sinéad O'Connor

I have left some people out because I know they prefer privacy and others because I want them to be pissed when they look for their names in the book and don’t find them.

I was very young when my career kicked off. I never had or took the time to “find myself.” 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.

Joe and I have been on the roof of the garage rocking out to “Freebird” and a song about husky dogs pissing in yellow snow. We pretend we’re a band. When the others aren’t around, I get up there by myself and rock out to “Honky Tonk Women.” I just shake my long hair about all over my face, like headbangers do.

Irene told my father and my stepmother to send me off to this place I’m now on the way to in my father’s car, looking at my own two eyes in the window. Knowing they’re the same eyes I’ll see all my life.

She has no mental illness. She’s never been a pain in the arse. She isn’t difficult or too emotional like I am. She isn’t vengeful like me. She has no mean streak. She can walk away from abuse without becoming abusive. I wish I were like her in those ways. Lord knows I’m working on it.

Though he went through a phase of wanting to be a priest, he wisely became a writer instead. And wrote, in fact, one of my two favorite novels of all time, Redemption Falls (my second favorite is Mistaken, by Neil Jordan).

From the time I turned eighteen, if I was sitting with people I had met only once or twice, I would see in my mind the insides of their houses. I’d see the carpets, the walls, the paintings on the walls, the tiny trinkets on bedside cabinets, the colors of the pots and pans, the stash of private letters, everything. It was as if I were floating about in their rooms.

There are always the lights of planes in the sky. Planes from all over the world always on the way in. Planes only fly past Ireland on their way to somewhere else. Unless they’re Irish planes carrying Irish people into and out of the country for amounts of money that increase toward Christmas, the very time anyone who’s had the intelligence to leave needs to come back for fear of being a bad son or daughter.

I hate Christmas. I feel pain in my soul like someone drove a tree through my chest.

He’s been playing me lots of the reggae singles that came out in the last year. I love the Barrington Levy one called “Here I Come,”

I don’t even know what town we’re in. I don’t care what’s for lunch. I don’t care why I made a record. I don’t even know what planet I’m on. Whatever Fachtna thinks is a good idea is a good idea. What he loves, I love. What he hates, I try to hate. All I want to do is keep impressing him. I say whatever I imagine will impress him. I become whatever I imagine will impress him. Sometimes I think I’m more like him than me.

He’s gay as Christmas

I like to look like John Maybury’s friend Alan, basically. He’s so handsome, with a crew cut, and he has a soft, lovely voice. His eyes always brim full of gentleness when he looks at absolutely anyone. His whole heart is in his eyes at all times. He doesn’t have a temper and he isn’t afraid of people. I wish I were like him. I have a temper, and I’m afraid of most people.

The man is such an (oxy)moron. How can a song be too personal? I imagined slapping him lightly about the temples with a large raw fish. That’s the only thing to do to stupid people.

Within months, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got is number one all over the planet, and Nigel hasn’t had to so much as lift a phone to make millions for himself. I’m pleased for him. Because an idiot can never get laid if he isn’t stinking rich.

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. There is outrage at me throughout the industry. In England, the Brit Awards are hosted by Jonathan King, a hugely popular television DJ. For some reason he spends ten minutes viciously attacking me for my stance. It’s quite baffling. His eyes are bulging and his mouth is foaming, he’s so angry. How dare the little Irish upstart associate music with child abuse? (Not too many years later when he’s convicted and jailed for repeated acts of pedophilia, his rage makes sense.)

In America I’m bullied very badly by certain men on the night I skipped the Grammys. In fact, I’m even spiked. At a watching party in Eddie Murphy’s house. Which scares the shit out of me. I leave LA three days later and go back to England. I give my LA house to the Red Cross. I don’t want anything to do with the trappings of so-called success anymore.

I’d heard that “Nothing Compares 2 U” and I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got had gone to number one in America. Appropriately, the moment I’d heard, I was sitting on a toilet (I can’t remember whose) with the door open as usual (for the purposes of easy chat). Whoever it was who told me got cross with me because I didn’t take the news happily. Instead I cried like a child before the gates of hell.

At nine p.m., from the darkness of my bedroom window, I see the long black limousine slink to a silent stop at my gate. I imagine I’m in a spy movie about to be driven to a secret location where I’m gonna be given my next mission. The stereotypical driver with suit and hat is behind the wheel. I’m a yapper, so on the way I ask him all about Prince and what the house is like et cetera. He never says one word, just looks at me scared every now and then in the rearview mirror as if I’ve asked him for directions to Dracula’s castle. Very strange. Usually drivers like to chat as much as girls do. We drive a long time before winding our way up a black-dark hill, at the top of which appears a large house, very dimly lit. We pull into its driveway. The front door is to my right. It seems we’re in a courtyard, beyond which, facing me about two hundred feet away, I discern some outbuildings. I get out of the car and the driver gestures with his head to say I can go ring the doorbell by myself. This I do. I wait several moments and nothing happens. I ring again and still nothing. I turn round to ask the driver’s opinion as to what I ought to do, but he and the limousine have vanished. Just as I’m realizing I have no idea where I am or how to get home in the event no one is in and that the road is so dark I won’t be able to see farther than my eyelashes, the door opens slowly with a creak. I’m thinking the person behind it is gonna say, “You rang?” like in the movies and be named Igor...

I’d fretfully fled to New York from London in the winter and I hadn’t remembered to pack a coat. I was frozen. Terry drove all the way to his house and got me one of his. A huge black leather parka. Waaay too big for me. I was swamped in it. All the guys were laughing at me. But I love it more than any garment from Chanel. Because it’s his. He’s become my teacher. I didn’t ask him to be. He took it upon himself because I wouldn’t shut up asking him questions about Rastafari. Sometimes the way he leans his head back and looks at me, puzzled, I know he’s asking himself, What is God trying to tell me via these questions?

Not all the old men are Rastas, but the majority are. They range from, I’d say, forty to seventy. There’s never fewer than three. They wait the night with one another. They don’t fall asleep. God doesn’t have to wake them and say, Could you not keep Me company in My madness? Jamaicans don’t do small talk. At first this is a bit uncomfortable because Irish people are always filling the gaps. I find myself in silence in fish-filled vans making deliveries, just like I did with my grandfather.

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.