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Allyson McCabe
1.1k Plays9 months ago
ALLYSON MCCABE is a journalist whose work is heard on NPR’s newsmagazines, public radio stations and programs, and podcasts. Also appearing in publications such as the New York Times, New York Magazine/Vulture, BBC Culture, Wired, and Bandcamp, McCabe is also the author of WHY SINEAD O’CONNOR MATTERS, UT Press, 2023.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante.
Meet the Hosts: Ken Volante and Peter Bauer
00:00:09
Speaker
Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Guest Introduction: Allison McKee
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I am just very excited to have Allison McKee on the program. Allison's a writer, reporter, producer, and often you can often hear Allison's work on NPR.
00:00:37
Speaker
uh, New York Times, BBC, Culture, Wired, and other publications. That's the official, that's the official thing, to give you an introduction.
Why Sinead O'Connor Matters
00:00:47
Speaker
Thank you. Allison wrote, um, Why Sinead O'Connor Matters and, uh, a book which I just recently read and, uh, a primary source of our chat. Allison McKay, welcome to the program. Thank you, thanks for having me on. Yeah, yeah, really, really exciting to, um,
00:01:07
Speaker
I had a mention, see, I got the, there's a link of, there's a link of how I end up in contact with you that sometimes I drop it out and like I figured out in my head, it was pretty simple, but these things kind of excite me.
Bookstore Connection with Allison McKee
00:01:21
Speaker
So I had Sadie Dupuis on the program and I think I saw
00:01:30
Speaker
with her regarding this book at Head House, the bookstore. And I had just had Sadie on the program, and I'm like, why Sanate O'Connor? For me, I'm like, somebody wrote the book. I want to read this exactly. And
00:01:50
Speaker
Got the book from Head House, ordered it, and contacted you. So here we are. But what about that event in Philly that kind of was this nexus of my program and Sadie, can you tell us a little bit about that, that kind of nexus there?
Ending the Book Tour
00:02:12
Speaker
That was a very special evening you know i had the book came out in may and i did a tour and i'm from philadelphia i talk about that a bit in the book and so instead of opening the tour in philadelphia
00:02:26
Speaker
I thought that I would end the tour in Philadelphia. So I had Sadie with me and also a guy called Mighty Joe Castro, who is a musician and also a collage artist that he made this incredible collage that was inspired by the book called Truthful Witness. And yeah, it was just like it kind of was like a full circle moment for me bringing that tour.
00:02:45
Speaker
Back to Philadelphia like literally steps away from where you know, some of the events that I talk about talk about in the book happened But I know Sadie from a little bit from we did a story together friend PR and even before that I think we did a I used to have a column in the rumpus. It was an illustrated column where artists share stories about meaningful objects and
00:03:06
Speaker
and so she talked to me about a farfisa organ so we go back a bit but yes i saw that she was on your show and i was very excited also so there's the nexus i know i i love that because for me like i'm an org i'm a labor organizer like by my trade um and my mind like
00:03:25
Speaker
ties into like where the connection was and all that type of thing because it's like a charting in my
Reflecting on Sinead O'Connor's Legacy
00:03:32
Speaker
head. And the problem with this, I've done the show for five years and the charting is getting intricate. So I got to tell you something. When I talking about Sinead, I didn't know
00:03:53
Speaker
how profoundly important to me she was until she passed away. And I'm still grieving from the death of Sinead O'Connor. And it was such a large thing for me. And part of it for me was like,
00:04:15
Speaker
what, like, you know, like how and why. And I think part of it is I've been a Sinead O'Connor fan the whole time and I listened to her music the whole time and I would play Sinead O'Connor and it's always like a thing to play Sinead O'Connor sometimes around people because like, oh, like everybody's tied to this story of like what happened with her.
00:04:38
Speaker
We all have a relationship with it. And you talk in your book, which I just adore. I'm going to go just for a tiny bit and I got to let you talk. In the book,
00:04:51
Speaker
I like when authors are talking real shit. Like, hey, I'm trying to write this. This is a big person. There's a lot of things around this. And I'm trying to get at this. And part of the reason I'm trying to get at this is because I'm trying to get at me as well.
00:05:10
Speaker
And I love that, and I love you going in after that, but approaches the question, what about your relationship with Sinead? Because I know she was on, you mentioned she was on the pop radio and you're like, shit. What's your
Evolving Relationship with Sinead's Music
00:05:27
Speaker
relationship with Sinead that led you to writing this book? Well, it's really evolved over time. I think that for me, and I talk about this a little bit in the beginning,
00:05:38
Speaker
I wasn't a lifelong Schneider O'Connor fan, you know, because my familiarity with her was really like, you know, originally in 1990, she had this big hit, nothing compares to you. It was all over MTV. And I sort of mistook her for being a pop star, which she was not. That was sort of an outlier and not just her whole catalog or musical catalog, but in her life, really.
00:06:00
Speaker
And so I kind of didn't see it. And then after 92, when she tears up the photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live, she essentially disappears from my radar. She does for a lot of people. So it wasn't until years later, and I'm a music journalist, that I was working on, as often happens, a totally different story when I just happened to stumble on a collection of videos that were actually not even Sinead initially. It was another artist, Fiona Apple, talking about Sinead.
00:06:29
Speaker
And I started to kind of go down this rabbit hole and I started to really, like, what happened to Sinead? And then, you know, two things. One, really being shocked by how prolific she was as an artist that long after she had these charters, she continued to make so much great music. So there was that aspect of it. But then there was this other aspect of it, which was how often she'd been right and how often others were wrong about her. You know, and then there was this other layer that you're talking about, which is how I connect to all of it.
00:06:59
Speaker
And typically when you're a journalist and you're thinking about doing a story, you may have that all kind of in the background, but you're kind of trained to suppress that or just definitely don't mention it. But I realized at a certain point that I had to because it wasn't really even about seeing myself necessarily, but it was about creating a space for the reader to see themselves.
00:07:23
Speaker
And I think that's something that Sinead really did that made her so powerful. When I talked to her, she said at the beginning, she just wanted to be heard. And by heard, I don't mean just like, hey, have a big audience. I mean really to be understood. And then pretty early on, she realized that she had this opportunity to also be that voice for other people. And that was the value of the platform. That's all the value it was. So I think that's kind of a little short condensed version, but that's how I got back into it.
00:07:52
Speaker
It just so happened that her tour, she was having a very small tour along the American West Coast that was paused by COVID, so I didn't get a chance to see it. But there was this thing that her memoir was coming out. And so as soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, here's an opportunity to see if I can initially tell a smaller version of the story for NPR, which I did in June of 2021 when the memoir came out. Yeah, I am.
00:08:20
Speaker
I immediately, not immediately, a little bit after, and thinking about Sinead, I was trying to figure out my, like,
00:08:29
Speaker
the influence like on the story, right? So like, I could remember, you know, I was in college and things were breaking. I didn't know, I would tell you that I had probably a very American norm. I mean, I'm, I think, and I'm open-minded stuff, but I'd be like, the reaction was like, why the fuck's her head shaved? And like, she's on like TV, like, I mean, it's on MTV. It was shocking. That was the whole, that was the whole point. So I was like, what's going on with this? I remember I had a friend of mine who said,
00:08:59
Speaker
Uh, it was like a music conversation and he was like, oh, this is neato connor and whatever and probably same thing I was like, oh i'm mtv and you know, like i'm listening to all this stuff And he said no, no, no, no, no, no, no he's going to maybe it might have been the cassette Like going through the notes. He's like look public enemy like look she loves public enemy and this is a weird time for like i'm i've always been into hip-hop like
00:09:22
Speaker
Forever. I'm 51 now, but my whole life I've been into hip-hop so he knows and says hey Yo, like Sinead is like she's down like and I'm like what what's this like Irish sacred? Like how she even heard of public and it was a different time And for me that was it initially. I'm like, oh wait a second. Like she's She's something else and she was always something. Yeah, always always something else. Um The
00:09:51
Speaker
I had a question that I wanted to ask. We're going to jump around if that's all right. Yeah, sure. Definitely. I wanted to ask a general question about your creativity talking about you. When was it that you saw yourself as a creator, as an artist? I think it's a great question.
00:10:21
Speaker
I'll just say as an aside, I think for a lot of artists, there's a reluctance to say you're an artist, right? Because you worry a little bit, people say that you're being an artiste. There's a little bit of a sense of have I earned it and is it too pretentious?
00:10:36
Speaker
But I think that for me, the kind of work that I want to do, I'm not very interested in just regurgitating a press release, or I'm not really very interested in just filling in little pieces of the canon. What I'm interested in is really something a little bit deeper than that. And so I think that the creativity is really born out of
00:11:00
Speaker
not just repeating things, but understanding how they're put together and how they could be put together differently. That's the kind of work that I'd like to do. I'm really drawn to
00:11:11
Speaker
people and events sort of in music, but not only music because I do also work in, you know, like with film, television and books. I'm interested in things or people that have been overlooked or forgotten or seen through a distorted lens or maybe never seen at all. You know, and in telling their stories again, it's not a matter of adding to what we know, but it's really about questioning what we know. So I think that's really kind of the drive for me. Yeah. I like, um,
00:11:38
Speaker
You know, it's a philosophy show so you can kick around in some, you know, that was, that was when I studied undergrad. So, you know, I'm all over that. Oh, shit. Well, we're all set up. I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew way ahead of time. We're all set up for success here. No, um, you know, your book, Why Sanito Connor Matters. And like, I think about the question mark too, right? And it's always controversy with, with, you know, with her. Um,
00:12:07
Speaker
On the bit with regards to your own creativity,
Art vs. Entertainment: Sinead's Perspective
00:12:16
Speaker
what is art? What do you think art is? What are we trying? What was Sinead O'Connor trying with her music? What is art? Maybe the best way to think about it is the difference between art and entertainment. From my point of view, entertainment is kind of surface level.
00:12:33
Speaker
It aims for the middle. It aims for the broadest therefore for the middle. I think that entertainment can affect your mood, but it can't really change the world. And I think that in contrast, art is really about putting you in touch with and sometimes also challenging your attitudes, your values, your beliefs, your feelings, how you feel about yourself and how you feel about the world. So I think that's a kind of way of thinking about Sinead
00:13:03
Speaker
She said that she thought being an artist was about being yourself at all costs. And I think that's really a great way of thinking about what she was trying to do. And again, it wasn't selfish. It wasn't like, I'm just going to express myself and the hell with everybody else. It was, no, I'm going to express myself because I care about everybody else. I think the whole point of why Sinead O'Connor matters is because it shows us that we matter.
00:13:32
Speaker
But I think the key to mattering is to think about our connections to each other. No change ever happens because one person's talking. Change happens because people are talking and other people are listening. And then we start to realize, hey, there's a way that we can move this forward. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But I think it's the trying that matters. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for that.
00:14:00
Speaker
I wrote down a question and I kept scratching it out because I wanted to ask you a question. I wanted the answer to this, but I didn't know how to ask it, but it's a little, it's a little, it's a little clumsy, but it's the, it's what's in my gut and what I don't get, um, after having follows to need and talking about the treatment of her.
00:14:24
Speaker
I, in reading about the things that happened with her and her as a focal point and the consistent, consistent, strong attacks against Sinead, I was like, my question was like, why this massive vitriol, almost all-encompassing, and to have extreme, on the Sinead thing, particularly after the controversy,
00:14:54
Speaker
You were defending, you know, the the 9-11 hijackers, right? I mean, it was like to defend her was was like a really difficult spot. What was this reaction? Every at times it seemed where she looked this way years later or looked this way or trusted in this person. And I'm not saying she was fault. I'm saying there was so much attack on her, it was
00:15:24
Speaker
So unsettling, I lacked words. That was my question, Allison. I was like, why this?
00:15:30
Speaker
Well, a lot of people think that, you know, everything was going really well and then she went on Saturday Night Live and she did this blasphemous thing and she drew up this photo of the Pope and that's what did it, right? But that's not really, you know, early on I realized that wasn't it at all because there are many events, many public events leading up to that. That wasn't like the, that was sort of like not the first straw, that was sort of the last straw, you know, because you mentioned public enemy. So her first prime time US TV appearance,
00:15:58
Speaker
She'd been on David Letterman, but the first prime time appearance was at the 89 Grammys. And she was up for best, I'm going to get messed this up because they keep changing the phrasing, but it was like best female rock vocal performance, I want to say. And she could have just come out and did her song, it was Mandinka.
00:16:18
Speaker
But that year, you know, the Grammys were really in the midst of a, I think, a long brewing problem that they were trying to resolve and did not, which was how to deal with rap. Because at first they tried to, the industry, not just the Grammys, but the industry as a whole tried to dismiss it as a passing fad or considered it dangerously subversive, but it was so popular, it couldn't really be ignored. So they're going to offer for the first time
00:16:42
Speaker
a Grammy, but they're not going to televise it. And they cited that they didn't have enough airtime, which obviously was patently BS.
00:16:50
Speaker
So, you know, she couldn't come out and just done her song and taken a bow and move on with it. But as you mentioned, she was passionately inspired by hip-hop, you know, on her first American tour before she became famous. You know, she had local rappers opening her dates. One of her very first shows was at a place in Jersey where she had a 16-year-old MC Light, you know, as the opening, and they go on to collaborate together. Oh, wow.
00:17:19
Speaker
So, you know, this wasn't something she just sort of came up with, but she wanted to be able to make a statement. And one of the ways that she could do that was she had this shaved hair and the shaved hair was a response to her label telling her that she should wear her hair long, her skirt short in an attempt to market her.
00:17:35
Speaker
Instead, she shaved her hair and wore like Doc Martens. But she also, you know, she had Public Enemy's logo, you know, really conspicuously dyed and cut into the side of her hair. So it was a way of making them present, even though the recording academy did not want rap categorically to be present.
00:17:54
Speaker
So that was just like one early thing, but every time she accepted any kind of a word or was interviewed, she always used, again, the platform as an opportunity to call out racism. Why isn't MTV playing these videos?
00:18:11
Speaker
you know, why isn't like, you know, the music press covering black artists the way that they're covering white artists and defining rock in white terms, you know, in racial terms. But also child abuse. She's talking about that very early on. She's talking about homophobia. She's talking about sexism. She's talking about all of these things. She pulls out of a SNL performance she was supposed to do in 1990 after learning that the comedian Andrew Dice Clay was going to perform.
00:18:40
Speaker
The thing that happens at the Garden State Art Center in New Jersey, which is in 90, which depending again, there's different versions of the story floating around. But what we can all say, I think we can concur that she was asked by people who are posing as reporters about her thoughts about the national anthem, which had typically been played before performers took the stage. And when she thought she was expressing a preference that it not be played.
00:19:04
Speaker
It went with she hates America, she's ungrateful for her success. So I think like all of this was building and building and building so that by the time SNL comes along, it's just like, okay, open season. And it never really quite went away for her. You know, people say she was canceled, but it was actually a little more complicated because she was like, continuously canceled. Like in other words, we didn't stop talking about her. We were kind of obsessed about talking about her, just not about her music.
00:19:33
Speaker
So where did this come from? I think it's complicated, but I think a lot of it had to do with the idea of this is a young woman and there's just like a way that you're supposed to be if you wanna be successful. And if you're not gonna play the game, that's not gonna make people happy.
00:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, there's like almost like no entry point, like shaved here, Irish brogue, you know, all of that. There's like such an intense reaction to the present, the presentation or what's being said. The the piece about the with the
00:20:11
Speaker
I remember after the Saturday Night Live thing, I went into work. I was studying philosophy, just like you, at the University of Rhode Island. I was working third shift in the supermarket, and I worked with some great, great, great people. I was paid shit. I was trying to get through undergraduate. Oh, sure. Yeah, been there. You know, I was doing 10 p.m., 6 a.m. at the grocery store, but these guys were,
00:20:39
Speaker
I don't know, they were older than me. They accepted, they were very important to me. They accepted my strangeness. I learned so much from them. But I went in after a Saturday Night Live thing.
00:20:50
Speaker
I was ready to get into the big rap with them and be like, yeah, she fucking did it, man. Like, fuck them. And that was not the vibe. And like, I got in a long argument with a good friend of mine and he was like, you know, talking about her career and like she did it, you know. And I'm like, dude, man, you're rock and roll. You taught me rock and roll. You taught me the fucking who, man, like.
00:21:14
Speaker
bullshit like not it's the same thing but I'm like you know you like that edge and somebody doing it but it was interesting because I walked in there I was like hey and there was nobody everybody was like you know she had just killed you know their best friend and I was like my initial reaction was like whoa I was like I was ready to have like fun and talk about it and um yeah so it was a shocker right off the bat I was like oh I guess my head's in a different space on this one
00:21:38
Speaker
Well, there's a couple things. I mean, I don't think people were talking, especially in the US, you know, at that time, so much about the child abuse crisis in the Catholic
The SNL Performance Controversy
00:21:46
Speaker
Church. Right. It wasn't even, it was like a weird joke that you would say or something. Yeah. And the other part of this is like, you know, she didn't come out on the stage and say,
00:21:56
Speaker
Hey, this is what this is what I'm doing. This is why I'm doing it. You know, I think there was like just I think the sort of just the shock of her tearing the photo, but I don't think people necessarily understood that nor do they understood that the photo belongs to her mother and that, you know, was a souvenir from the pope's visit in 1979 to Ireland and what it represented specifically for her because she wasn't attacking Catholicism. She wasn't really trying to attack the pope as a person. Right. But she was trying to sort of
00:22:26
Speaker
draw attention to this crisis, but also this idea about the corruption of the faith, the corruption of an institution that would protect predators and silence victims and survivors, I should say, silence survivors. I think that a little bit there was that going on that it was like not something she explicitly explained and also
00:22:50
Speaker
You know, just this idea of what this meant, you know, a lot of people still to this day misunderstand this. She herself did not experience abuse by a priest. You know, it was that her mother was religiously, she was devout, but she was also abusive and kind of like this disconnect between, you know, what the teachings of the church are, like what was really happening. I mean, I think that was what was so profound and why it was like a symbol of hypocrisy in a way, right?
00:23:18
Speaker
So she didn't do a great job of explaining that. Actually, she didn't explain it at all in advance, right? She tried to later explain it many, many times. But even years later, like, people never really forget for that. And even if they said, okay, now we all know that what she was saying, she was calling attention to something that was happening, even the church has said so.
00:23:36
Speaker
It was still this like, well, do you owe an apology to anybody? Not really asking whether an apology was owed to her. Never. Never. Never. So I think that's really stuck with her. But the thing about Sinead is that I also had to, in writing the book, I had to sort of approach her as a human, right? Not as a saint. And so it was also kind of like thinking about
00:24:01
Speaker
Sometimes she did things after SNL that were controversial, quote unquote, or that were misunderstood, or that were hurtful, or whatever it was, because I think that's the way to really understand her. I think that, you know, Glennon Doyle said this after she died, and I think it's true, that brave women are demonized while they're alive and sainted when they're dead. And what I try to do is actually humanize her in a way, and to try to understand where this was coming from.
00:24:30
Speaker
You know, the thing about her is sometimes she, you know, she tried to deliver a message and sometimes she did it imperfectly and sometimes it didn't land. But the thing that I really came to admire so much about her is that she just never stopped trying.
00:24:45
Speaker
It was always coming from a good place and she never stopped trying, and it was always motivated by trying to move this conversation forward.
00:25:01
Speaker
She is very imperfect. And that's the point. She's a very imperfect human. There was a component there, you know, she said a lot of things and folks who say a lot of things, it's not like every time they say the thing, it's the dark hit in the board. And, you know, when I think I saw some of her comments on lesbianism and her identity with that to be, you know, of
00:25:27
Speaker
uh clumsy clumsy about how she was talking about it but i could even see that in the context of it i don't there's not perfect statements that are going to come from her that's exactly the point you know and um but
00:25:41
Speaker
And why do we ask her to do that? I mean, I think that was really the thing also that I came up with is like, why do we hold her to this different standard? I mean, look at somebody who's like, you know, she she revered, you know, is like, for example, Bob Dylan, like how many comments he made that haven't landed. But we don't invalidate him in the same way. You know, very, very, very, very true. And I got to tell you on the on the Bob Dylan part, I'm a big Dylan fan. You see the the role of Dylan.
00:26:07
Speaker
the outsized the huge role of Dylan, um, which Sinead O'Connor, which I love reading about because it just, I don't know. It makes sense and it means a lot, but, um, you know, uh, wanted, uh, Bob Dylan to come to bat for her when she was on stage and being booed. Um, you have more details on that story, but I read that story in the narrative and I'm hanging it on and I'm like,
00:26:38
Speaker
Jeez, like, come on through. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, it's another controversy and it's, you know. So after, you know, after SNL, she's already been pre-invited to do this. It's a Madison Square Garden. It's a tribute concert to Bob Dylan for, I think, his 40 years at that point. It's been a while. You know, and she she wanted to sing a song from from his Christian era. You know, I Believe in You. And it's a song about
00:27:07
Speaker
You know dylan's faith in god, but in a way it's also a song like she performed She wanted to perform it as like about her belief in dylan and she really identified with him because he was somebody who was often misunderstood and criticized And also explored various genres also explored a spirituality, you know, I think there's a lot of a lot going on and yeah, she went to do the song but it was meant to be performed as a whisper and
00:27:32
Speaker
Chris Kristofferson, he's on the mic and he's like, I want to introduce an artist whose name is synonymous with courage and integrity. And then she comes out and it was reported in the press that she was booed off the stage, but it was a little more complicated because sort of half the crowd was booing and the other half was trying to drown out the boos, buoy the boos.
00:27:51
Speaker
and she tried to do the song but became kind of like unable to do it because it was meant to be performed as a whisper and she couldn't be heard above the crowd and there's this moment it's you can see it it's on youtube but she just looks terrified um and she decides in that moment to do an you know war which is the bob marley song that she actually performed on snl and it's at that point it's untenable and she you know she ends up leaving the stage but
00:28:17
Speaker
Comes back, you know, that's also something it's not reported for the panel that song comes back on, you know with everybody else So yeah afterwards she asked Dylan through his manager Could he say something about shot abuse and he just did not want to do that for whatever reasons he had he didn't didn't do it, you know, he didn't come through for her it's really sort of tragic but Yeah, I think that again you have this what if Dylan had been on SNL that night and swept the photo of the Pope I mean, it's an interesting question. I
00:28:47
Speaker
Well, then I think it would have been a 12 layer deep debate around protest, the role of authority, the church, belief, the gospel of Paul. Yeah, I mean, you know, really it would have been, not that our culture can handle that, but it would have been at the very least much more interested in the why.
00:29:11
Speaker
Right. Or what if Bono did? I mean, you could think of a lot of different kinds of examples, you know, if you wanted to put it sort of in this Irish context. But I think that the thing for her was, I think, revering Dylan as she continued to do, you know, throughout her life. She never gave that up. You know, I think I can only imagine how disappointing it was that that happened. But yeah, she really also credited him with keeping her alive because it was Dylan whose music
00:29:38
Speaker
know, older brother when she was a kid brought these records home. And that's what she was sort of listening to it kind of like, really was her like the thing that saved her. And also, you know, she had this again, abusive mother, parents split up divorce is not legal in Ireland, but the parents are split up.
Influence of Bob Dylan on Sinead
00:29:54
Speaker
And her father was able finally to get custody. But you know, she was 13 at that time. And
00:30:01
Speaker
She'd run into some minor shoplifting and things like that. She gets sent to this Catholic reform school and it's there that she meets this very important figure in her life, Sister Margaret, who basically gives her the love that her mother didn't have for her. It's a beautiful piece there.
00:30:20
Speaker
But she also, she does, she said in her memoir that sister Margaret didn't love her despite the fact that she was rebellious, but because she was rebellious, she just really saw her. So she buys her this book of Bob Dylan songs and her first guitar and a parka like from this punk rock shop called No Romance in Dublin. And you know, that's the thing where Sinead like really finds her voice, but it's also I think in some ways the moment where she's seen for the first time, you know,
00:30:50
Speaker
So I think that's why, I think that the relationship with Dylan was so complicated, but for all of those reasons. And I think that really throughout her life, she really never broke away from her, again, I think reverence is the right word, her reverence for Dylan.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know what's the way you describe that to up on stage is capturing the the you know, the tension. And I remember it's like one of those type of stories at times, like I don't know what it is in our head sometimes where you like you read it again and you're expecting a different outcome. And like the video doesn't lie or the text doesn't lie. What happened? What happened? But like in my head, I moved towards like
00:31:33
Speaker
You know, can you change the smattering of stuff to applause? Can somebody stand up and say, yo, like, yo, she's right. Or, you know, like, and it just kind of goes through where everybody's like, all the guys are like, you know, head down. Right. Right. It's going to be tough for her now. You know, like, you know, Neil Young was asked, he came on after her and was asked, like, why didn't you say anything? And his response was just like, oh, I've been booed a lot of times. Like, doesn't really matter. Who cares?
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah, have you been booed as a new artist, as a young woman who's already under the fire of a million billion devils? Yeah, right, exactly. No, no, that's all right. So stand up there. Anyways, yes. And Sinito Connor is very imperfect, despite the love and added duration. It's that type of moment that I'm talking about, though, Alison, where it's like,
00:32:23
Speaker
yo something happened like something like somebody be interested in the book the all right i'm not gonna act naive of polyanish but like like this all right let's say you look at it and say this woman went up and did this and tore a picture of the pope and you know she derailed her career like if you view it in that narrow sense then
00:32:46
Speaker
As a philosopher, why? Why did she impale herself? Why did she do that? Just a slight curiosity about a protest act. Well, she doesn't consider that she derailed her career. What she says is that she re-railed her career and set it back on the path. Frankly, some artists say that, and then it's BS, right? Because they're like, yeah, I never wanted to be a pop star because they stopped being popular. But isn't that true for her?
00:33:12
Speaker
But it was true for her because, you know, again, she's coming up. She's thinking she's she wants to be like Bob Dylan. She wants to be like John Lennon. She wants to be like Bob Marley. This is what she's thinking. She's not thinking about herself as a pop star, but there's no lane for that in the music industry at this time. And so they keep trying to kind of like create a pop star. They mentioned her shaved hair. I mean, Annie Lennox had shaved hair right at the same time. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
But she wasn't using all these, you know, again, awards ceremonies and interviews to talk about this stuff. She was, you know, involved somewhat politically. I'm not going to say that she wasn't, but it wasn't really the same. Right. They're not really like equivalent. So I think a little bit what happens is she, you know, she puts together her first album, The Light in the Cobra comes out in 87. I mean, these songs are deep. They're not pop songs. Yeah.
00:34:02
Speaker
They're very autobiographical. They're about the experiences that she's had. Can you pull off some singles? They were on college radio. They were on the infancy of alternative radio. This isn't somebody who's going for pop stardom. Even the story around nothing compares to you.
00:34:26
Speaker
Prince had a lot of proteges around that time. A lot of people assumed she was one of them. She wasn't. She didn't know him at all, at all. I think it was suggested to her by her manager at that time to cover that song. And it was not a major hit at that time in Prince's repertoire at all. He'd kind of recorded it with this side project called The Family and wasn't released yet as a single. And what she brought to it is what she brought to other covers that she did, which is filtering it through her own sensibilities, her own experiences, like her own
00:34:58
Speaker
And the tear that she sheds in the iconic music video, she actually was really thinking about her now dead mother. Her mother died, I think I'm going to say in 85.
00:35:09
Speaker
Actually, she was on her way to mass and got into a fatal car wreck and died. And, you know, even though she was abusive, again, Sinead's attachment was strong and she thought of her when she sang those words and the tear was real. And that, I think, is what we were responding to. Because even if we didn't know that, like, I think when an artist go back to what is an artist, like,
00:35:31
Speaker
when they do something that is emotionally true, whether it's something you hear in their music or see in a video, like it resonates. Like I think we're kind of conditioned to sort of intuitively maybe pick up on that idea when you hear truth or see truth in an artist's work.
Emotional Authenticity in Music
00:35:49
Speaker
And that's what we saw. So even though that was her big pop hit, it wasn't engineered to be that. And I think that for her, it was of course sort of thrilling to be
00:36:00
Speaker
globally famous, but also sort of terrifying and a little overwhelming. I think that if you grew up without functional parenting, that's very warping to your sense of self. And then if you become famous, that's also very warping to your sense of self. And I think when you put those two things together, it's kind of impossible almost, you know, to kind of get through it and have a sense of self outside of it, outside of who you are in the reflection of other people and how they see you.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'll tell you on this, when you're talking about the tear and the real tear, for me, on music and what is art, when you mentioned that, the still of her tear and how that, where her singing sounds at the point, my whole body got chills. So I saw that as a,
00:36:58
Speaker
17 year old dude, like, what is this? And I'm 51 right now. And the still of that tear and talking to you brought chills to my entire body because of how she's saying that. I mean, that was the stuff that, you know, as I started working on this, like, you know, again, I knew I was I brought the story to NPR for Morning Edition and I knew I was going to do it. But, you know, when you're on the radio, you get five minutes, you know,
00:37:27
Speaker
Some of my stories have been as long as eight minutes. That's considered an eternity. You're, it's almost like you have to make all kinds of choices about how you're going to put it together. And what I try to do is sort of create a mini, a miniature documentary where it's like the people I'm interviewing, some archival tapes, some music, but you can't possibly tell the whole story in that frame. It's almost like I'm creating a trailer for the story, you know? Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
And I knew even at that point that there was a much bigger story and then I wanted to tell it, I was really like deep into it. I'd already been deep into like unearthing all of the archival stuff and da da da da da. Even before I interviewed her, you know, before I talked to her, you know, I had like certain like, okay, these are the things I have to walk away with for this NPR story. But I also knew that there were these other deeper kinds of things that I wanted to get to. And, you know, knew that I, I, I wanted to go
00:38:21
Speaker
know, to a much greater depth than I'd be able to actually reflect in that piece. And that was really one of the main motivations for writing the book. You know, that said, I wanted to write a book about her, not for her, you know, so I didn't want to do it as a conventional biography. Yeah, yeah. I like how you talk about that in the text. And I like how you just like
00:38:48
Speaker
lay it out and here's the approach. But I would think it's also important because you make arguments for the legitimacy, the legitimacy of the approach, rather than just the standard. You talk about it almost like this interested science trying to track what happened and allowed the reader to make conclusions. You're in the text and you should be. And it's helpful to lay that out. I wanted to ask you a question.
00:39:18
Speaker
When you talked to Sinead, what did you hear in her voice?
00:39:24
Speaker
Honestly, I thought she was very candid. I thought she was generous. I mean, the job is I interview a lot of people. That's a huge chunk of the job, really. Again, I think what you hear in a story that I do is just a tiny fraction of the conversation or conversations that I have with an artist. And I'm really trying, when they tell me things, not just to record them, but really to listen deeply and to understand what they're trying to tell me.
00:39:50
Speaker
I mean, and sometimes they open up and sometimes they don't, you know, sometimes you talk to an artist and especially if they're, you know, often when you get an artist, they're like promoting something, right? In this case, it was a book, but it could be like an album or a film or some kind of other project.
00:40:03
Speaker
They may be, it's called like doing press, you know, they may be doing like a million interviews that day. And oftentimes, unfortunately, they get asked all the same questions. And so it's really hard to find novel ways to answer them. And so that becomes a kind of script. And that's why, you know, you'll see like the interview here, here, here, here, here, all these different places. And it's pretty much the same no matter who's conducting it. Yeah. But in this case,
00:40:27
Speaker
I was, okay, will she show up? Who will she be? Because I had spent so much time before I have talked to her in her world emotionally and understanding and going through all this stuff. I wasn't sure who I would meet on the other side of the conversation. As I mentioned in the book, she was on time. She was on point. She wasn't evasive. She didn't give me bad answers. I think that she met me where I was, which was in a real conversation.
00:40:56
Speaker
You know, I was I was really moved by all the bad experiences that she'd had up until that point talking to people who interviewed her, you can see where it'd be totally understandable for her to shut down and just kind of like automate. But she didn't, you know, she came to it like in a really authentic way. And, you know, just I found it to be, you know, one of the I mean, honestly, I mean, one of the most meaningful interview experiences that I've had.
00:41:24
Speaker
I'm glad I'm glad I'm glad you had that too. I'm glad you had had that opportunity I am Yeah, I am Just you know in some as a fan
Personal Grieving and Connection
00:41:38
Speaker
her voice, never heard a voice like that. And I got to tell you what was interesting for me, because if you're impacted by things or impacted by a loss, I think I'd become more introspective. I think earlier in my life, there was loss. I was upset. I left it behind. I think that story is common with a lot of people. But when Sinead passed, I was devastated.
00:42:07
Speaker
And it's not necessarily that that's my reaction is going to be, I'll show my emotion, but I was devastated. And I also realized right off the bat that I didn't know why I was so floored. And I also knew that I was engaged in the process that
00:42:23
Speaker
I never engaged in. This is somebody that I did not know, that I've listened to my entire life, that I'm realizing my profound or deeper attachment connection to her and she's gone and be unexpected. That being unexpected. So there's a before and after in my recent history about it, because when it happened, I was like,
00:42:48
Speaker
And so the process afterwards, I'm going to be like, okay, this is good for me healing, right? I've had a lot of other type of loss nearby people that I did know weren't close to me. But it's really been a journey for me of like understanding why. And what I've come to thus far is that I love Sinéad O'Connor.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, and also I'm 17 when she pops I'm profoundly deeply attracted to her and I can't with my buddies Right. Um, like shaved head like weird chick type of thing. So my love is early on it my teenagers and beyond like a secret like
00:43:35
Speaker
It's a weird relationship that I have. I grew up Catholic.
00:43:45
Speaker
Although she tore up the picture for different reasons, I understood protest. I understood Martin Luther. I understood nailing protest things on a door. I understood all those things. But I just wanted to say at the base of it, it's been really a deep experience for me to deal with the reaction that I never knew would come and just find out why for myself.
00:44:13
Speaker
And I'm still going through it. So I could have, like, I would never, if you asked me in the summer, like about going through this, I would have been like, I don't, I don't get it. I don't understand. So for me, I'm kind of like still kind of like raw within it and fascinated and curious. And that's why I devoured your book in one sitting and immediately contacted you to chat.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've talked to a lot of people since she died, and thanks for sharing that with me. I mean, they've also said similar things about the meat. I mean, I think she was never controversial for controversy's sake, right? There was always something else that was happening that was much deeper than
00:44:58
Speaker
I think what she did in a way was she reflected ourselves back to ourselves, right? I mean, all the good things about us, but also like some of the hypocrisy and the double standards and the gaslighting and all the bad stuff. I mean, whatever it was, she gave it to you like it was. I mean, she was like that, right? So I think for a lot of people, she allowed them to sort of, whether they were conscious of it or not, you know, kind of be in touch with that. And then there's the music itself, like the emotional experience of hearing the music.
00:45:30
Speaker
even if it's not conscious again, it's putting you in touch with those things within yourself and those if not necessarily you've had identical experiences, but you may have had emotionally proximate experiences if that makes sense. But yeah, I mean, I don't I think that when a celebrity dies, I think there is a kind of
00:45:50
Speaker
way in which it kind of provokes people to kind of be like, oh, what's my connection to this person. But I feel like with Sinead, it's kind of on a whole other level for a lot of people than it is for maybe some other artists.
Continuing Sinead's Conversations
00:46:02
Speaker
Yeah, not not all artists. I mean, there's certainly other artists I can think of that had, you know, also had a similar kind of effect. But for her, it was this profound sense of we really did lose something and then maybe the a little bit of the for some people, not you necessarily, but for some people, I think a little of the shame of like, why didn't we
00:46:22
Speaker
do more for her. Why didn't we do more to support her? More of a reckoning if you at least connect your head with the point about the revelations of the Catholic Church. It had started. I mean, she had, again, she had her, you know, she had her memoir come out in June 2021. And then Catherine Ferguson's documentary, Nothing Compares, came out and, you know, my book came out. I think already like the narrative around Sinead was starting already to change.
00:46:50
Speaker
and people were starting to understand what she was about. But her death was still a horrible shock. It was for me, a horrible shock because she had, you know, she had been through so many things and persevered that I think there was a part of me that thought that's always how it would be. Right. You know, I did talk at the end of the book about the death of her son, Shane, and how that impacted her. But, you know, some time had gone by and she was
00:47:19
Speaker
you know, back in social media and working on a new record and she had new music out. It was the theme music from for the Outlander show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I just you know, I think I saw those little things and thought, OK, you know, maybe she's coming back into public life again. And so that's why it was it was shocking and it was really devastating. And in the immediate aftermath, I you know, my book again, my book came out in May.
00:47:48
Speaker
She died at the end of July. I was just coming off, I thought would be the tour. We talked about Philadelphia that was originally going to be the last date of the tour. I'm still touring. But it's changed. When I first went out with the book on the tour, people wanted to know about Sinead. They didn't know a lot about her.
00:48:11
Speaker
You know, then I think there was, you know, for me, after she died, a lot of appearances, talking about her music, her life and her legacy. And I'm by far not the only person who did that. But the conversation became different in talking with people. And it wasn't so much who was she, why she mattered, but also just sort of like,
00:48:28
Speaker
her legacy. And I think the best way that we can honor her legacy is really to think about all those conversations that she tried to spark. We need to have them still. They are going to be difficult. We don't have to agree, but we have to kind of be committed to hearing each other. And I think if we're really serious about that, we'll have honored what she was about. It's not enough, I think, for us to say, oh, she was such a brave warrior. We have to think about how can we be brave warriors. But yeah, people have written to me from all around the world
00:48:59
Speaker
you know, sharing how they felt about her, her music, sometimes about the book, sometimes about my story, which I appreciate that you appreciated that it was in there a little bit. You know, not not everybody did, you know, to be completely candid about it. I mean, some people are like, why is this non famous person? Why do we care? And I'm like,
00:49:19
Speaker
Because it's not about me. It's about us. I made that decision early on. It wasn't natural for me if you listen to my other journalism. I'm not usually in my stories.
00:49:31
Speaker
But I felt that it was important to myself in this story because it was a way of being like leveling with the reader. And also I thought I want the reader to feel seen. And the way I can do that is to reveal some parts of myself. So, you know, I did that, but some people really didn't like that because there are some people who just were like, oh, Sinead died. Who was she? Grab this book. You know, they want the Wikipedia, but I'm not going to do the Wikipedia. So I think a little bit.
00:49:59
Speaker
It was overwhelming to do all these, you know, kind of like appearances. Again, you know, really try and emphasize I'm not her spokesperson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I wrote I wrote a discreet work of art, a way of approaching this. Yeah. Yeah. But also the outpouring of just letters from strangers. I mean, sometimes they were heartbreaking.
00:50:21
Speaker
sometimes they were really uplifting, sometimes they were both. And I tried my best to respond to everybody, but at a certain point, that became untenable. But I guess I just wanted people to know that even if I wasn't able to write them back, that I heard them, I saw them. And I think in a way, it made me feel less alone in my grief. So I really appreciated it.
00:50:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, and I think as you would know, I really appreciate that in the book itself. And the fact that I talk about with the art show and this thing is I have a
00:51:03
Speaker
For me, it's art, philosophy, and liberation. It's, you know, this kind of interplay. It's this interplay of human authenticity, of what folks need to do to be authentic. All right, I got the big philosophical question in who studied philosophy. And, you know, of course it is titillating for me with the CV
00:51:27
Speaker
Nothing compares to you a song that Sinead broke with. But the question, why is there something rather than nothing? And you kicked around these philosophical questions in the dusty halls. I did that. Yeah. Yeah. So Allison McCabe, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:51:53
Speaker
I think because everything in life that's worth it entails risk. I think at the end of the day, it really matters that we try.
00:52:05
Speaker
And I also feel like it's important to take these risks. And now I'm going to actually quote somebody I really admire who I just interviewed a couple of days ago, which is a woman named Sandy Stone, who started out as a recording engineer, later became a pioneer in transgender studies, among other things, one of the most fascinating people I've ever talked to.
00:52:29
Speaker
One of her she's a kind of motto and in the end the end it says multiple parts but it's this idea about taking risks and at the end she says also like don't die wondering. You know don't die wondering what if. I thought that is wisdom and I think it really fits in with what you're saying here because it's like I think for a lot of people it's like what if I did this and then they let it go because it's big and scary. Yeah you know I think big and scary is like the kind of a okay that's sort of a wake up call sometimes you know what I mean. Yeah.
00:53:00
Speaker
And, you know, what's the worst that will happen as you fail? I would rather fail, I would rather be myself and fail than be somebody else and succeed.
00:53:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's a, you know, there's, I mean, obviously, you know, within, within these questions, I, it's just, I bumped so much into the, you know, that question of authenticity that I think that, that she need, you know, like being myself and, and, and expressing, uh, myself authentically, you didn't talk about that when I asked you about, you know, within her voice that, you know, that there was a candor and, and, and an honesty and, um, you know, that, that,
00:53:39
Speaker
what that helps provide, whether it's connection or the connection between folks. And I think that's, you know, for me as a text, why Sinead O'Connor matters was a pivotal thing for me to run into, for all the circumstances to come into when I did. And to also not have it be
00:54:02
Speaker
the idea of the loss be simply harrowing. But to be, in thinking about it, the question I ask fundamentally, why did I cry so much? Why, when I jumped back into the songs, and I always, shit, most people know if you listen to Sinead, you end up crying on regular listens. I don't know who does that all the time. Like, you're gonna cry regular.
00:54:29
Speaker
Yeah, but you know what? It's all right to cry. That's the thing. You mentioned earlier about so much of when something bad happens, it's like we're kind of conditioned to push it down. Her whole thing was that healing depends on remembering. That's really the first thing to remember, and it gives us a chance to do that. I also want to say before we run out of time, though, that
00:54:50
Speaker
Not all the songs are, you know, it's not all like Sad Girl, okay? Yeah, yeah. I mean, because like The Wolf is Getting Married is one of the most hopeful songs I think I've ever heard, you know? It's one of my favorites. But, you know, I think she was profoundly a hopeful person in spite of everything that happened. I mean, also funny as hell, like people don't really talk about that enough. I wish, I wish, I wish, I hope to come in contact with any of that more and see that. But yes, absolutely.
00:55:19
Speaker
Somebody from the press sent me a friend of hers went to a show, maybe I want to say 2012 or 2014, somewhere in that neighborhood. She took a video from the audience. As Sinead was getting on the stage, just putting in her earpiece to start singing, somebody, can I curse on your show or should I put on? Oh, yeah.
00:55:40
Speaker
So somebody said, uh, fuck Pesci. And then she's, she didn't hear it first. So she takes out the letter of peace. What did you say? Fuck Pesci. And she's like, Oh, something like I really would prefer not to no offense, but he's not my type, you know?
00:55:53
Speaker
That's hilarious. That was an element of who she was. And so I think a little bit when you're feeling that sad feeling, we also have to know that she was a person who was profoundly able to express joy as well. And always was open to it, always was looking for it.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I love that you pulled that out too, because I think that's cosmically that's so important. Alison, tell the listeners where to find you, where to find your things. Mention if there's a couple ideas that are going to manifest popping in your head, whatever you can share.
00:56:42
Speaker
Okay, well, you won't find me on social media. So, I think- I discovered that.
00:56:47
Speaker
Yeah, people find me just parking there. But no, I think, especially now, it seems to be not a place to have a conversation. I want to have a conversation. It's not the right opportunity to do that. But A-L-L-Y-S-O-N-M-C-C-A-B-E. AllisonMcCabe.com is where you're going to find my work. I'm working on a couple of exciting things now and a couple of things I'd like to do. I'm very interested in rewriting the history of rock and roll.
00:57:15
Speaker
whoa i don't want to do it counterfactually but i want to do it in a way that you're going to see here's all the stuff that was you know we focused on but here's all the other things that were happening not obscure things but meaningful things that were off to the side that were overlooked again you know or distorted and then i think i'd really like to maybe work on
00:57:36
Speaker
something that kind of comes out of why Sinead O'Connor matters. And that's this idea of, you know, you start off thinking you're doing a story about someone else and realize you're getting deeper to the heart of your own story. So I'm not sure what form that will take. I'm working on that now. But those are two projects that I think are kind of in the queue in terms of big stuff.
00:57:55
Speaker
most exciting part of the difficulty when I ask that questions of guests that I enjoy their work. I'm like, all right, I want it now. But that's just me and my operation. Now, it's so great to hear about your thinking and engagement. That's the thing that's so exciting, engaging on these.
Philadelphia Book Tour Reflections
00:58:17
Speaker
I got to tell you again, a particular thrill
00:58:24
Speaker
haven't had a great conversation with Sadie and seeing just.
00:58:28
Speaker
intelligent important discussion that i'm like deeply interested in and um You know head house books and uh, love out to love out to uh, philadelphia and yeah us connecting in in that type of way but really for me to have a Conversation with you because it is that to me. I've got the dog in the background. I'm sorry. Yeah the dog at the end So it was it's great. Okay, anyone in a row, but uh, apparently the mailman is on his way. So be warned
00:58:58
Speaker
I mean, I love Sadie's work. I mean, I think that she's a great example of somebody who, you know, she is a poet, you know, she is a musician, she's an activist, you know, to me Sadie really represents, you know, like what an artist is.
00:59:13
Speaker
You know, so I was really, I felt very fortunate to connect with her and also with Mighty Joe Castro and, you know, again in Philadelphia, because that was not an easy date to do for me in a lot of ways, you know, going back. And yeah, I had a lot of like, I remember like before I walked into the bookstore, I had dinner, I was out to dinner and I was like, Oh, wow. Like, I
00:59:34
Speaker
Like, should I have come back? Like I had this sort of moment. But when I walked into the bookstore and like everything kind of came together, you know, there were some teachers who I'd had in junior high school, and in a special program or once a week, we got to leave our not very good school and go to this other totally different world.
00:59:52
Speaker
They opened up worlds for me these teachers in junior high I mean learning about art music and poetry and social sciences and you know, I didn't necessarily keep in touch with them throughout my life, but You know the program ended in junior high and then by high school. I'm like kind of going through a sinead period I guess you could say that as a kind of summary So I got back in touch them. I told them that I'd written the book and like, you know
01:00:19
Speaker
I'm 53 years old, so you can imagine the age of these teachers, they all showed up that night.
01:00:23
Speaker
You serious? Yeah, in Philadelphia. They showed up and I didn't do any readings on that tour. I did quick Q&A's, although Sadie asked me to read and the section was where I'm talking about kind of being a little wild in the street, again, blocks away from the bookstore. And it was hard to do that, but it was worth it. It was hard to do that, but it was worth it, again, going back to this question of things that are difficult and why that's the reason to do it.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that was that was a pretty special night. So yeah, as soon as you sent me the invite, as soon as I saw that Sadie did it, you know, I had a little listen. I was like, OK, I'm going to I'm going to definitely say thank you so much for having me on. It's so great. And even on the Philly thing, I did just so you know, I did an episode with Mary Capello was a professor of mine at the University of Rhode Island.
01:01:16
Speaker
profoundly influential, profoundly influential, smashed apart the lazy thought of culture and being a male, critical theory, like just so influential. But I did an interview with her and the reason why I mention it is, it's a professor of mine at the University of Rhode Island,
01:01:41
Speaker
really influential. She's from Philly, does memoir and just wildly adventurous, intellectual and curious studies, Mary Capello. So when you're talking about the Philly, I had that in my nexus too, because in adoration, I'm not very familiar with Philly. I'm from Rhode Island originally, but with the show, I've come into contact with so many great artists there in Philly.
01:02:09
Speaker
Oh, now, I mean, you know, there's like a really strong labor community, like, as you're talking about, you know, a strong art community. I mean, you know, I think that I think that it's, you know, I mean, Sadie asked me, it was one of the questions was like, how much of Philadelphia, how much of Philadelphia informed this book? And I'm like, literally, every, every word, like every word of it. Yeah.
01:02:30
Speaker
Cause I think that it really is like a sort of like, it's, it's complicated, but I think that it's part of who you are as kind of like where you're from and your experiences in the world. And even though like, as you're saying, you know, neither you nor I are, you know, in academia right now, right? Being professors, but you carry with you all of those ideas and they do kind of come into your thinking about how to approach not just your work, but your life. So I think that, you know, I think it's important for us to accept all
01:02:59
Speaker
all of who we are. That was something that I learned in the process of writing this book. Like instead of being like, oof, that's kind of a bad period or that wasn't good or like, I wish that hadn't happened or I have this regret. Like I think being able to kind of bring it all together is the way to move forward.
01:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I wanna, and again, thank you for the book and maybe even a process for me too, because I think that the legacy is Sinead and the perception as such. I even think through the grieving process or when, if you were to think of talk or somebody asked you what's going on and you mentioned the name Sinead, it immediately queers it up and makes it more complicated. Cause then it's like me, a 51 year old male, like would be like,
01:03:44
Speaker
Why is, you know, like, why is that impacting me? And that was the thing that was so like, it came out of nowhere and it's been a journey for me. But what's cool about the journey as I go in through it here, I rediscover and I read your book and I look at some of the videos that you mentioned. I'm like, oh, there it is. That's right. And so I'm going into that phase yet again, the next Sinead phase. So, um,
01:04:12
Speaker
So great to have you, Allison. Great to talk with you. Yeah, really, really a great pleasure to talk to you. You mentioned reading. Would you read a part? When I interviewed her, after we got through all the kind of standard questions, you know, we'd want to have a more organic conversation, and we started talking about Bob Dylan and his influence.
01:04:34
Speaker
And so she started telling you about all these different song titles of Dylan songs that she really loved. And as we're talking, I'm scribbling down on a post-it note because I started to feel as I was talking with her that she wasn't just making a playlist, like, but she was going back into some kind of memory and it might be significant. And then after we were done the call, I took the list that she gave me of these songs and I put them together in a playlist and I just started listening. And
01:05:01
Speaker
There was something about listening to that list that just made me realize that she was trying to tell me the story of her life. I mean, it could really feel like the whole narrative coming together and all of the emotions, and then that was the moment where it really connected for me with my own experience. And so I say, then I was able to picture in the most detailed way what O'Connor spoke about in her memoir, starting with the image of O'Connor's brother coming home with the Dylan records, and then her in the shed, niece held up to her chest.
01:05:30
Speaker
rocking back and forth as the records went round and round on the turntable. Looking at the album covers, at that face she said was so beautiful, it was as if God blew a breath from Lebanon and it became a man. She called Dylan her savior. Her name for him was Lebanon Man.
01:05:46
Speaker
And then I could hear the Lebanon man singing, baby, please stop crying. And I thought of how the backup singers must have sounded just like angels to her and how the sun must have come pouring in through the window. Then I heard, shine your light on me in precious angel. But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency in slow train and so on. I felt the weight of it all, but also the lift, the miracle of it.
01:06:10
Speaker
This is the stuff I'm never supposed to tell you because it reveals that I'm too close, too invested, maybe even projecting my story onto hers. But maybe the opposite is true, that everyone else hasn't let themselves get close enough, that they aren't invested enough, and their empathy has been snuffed out by false neutrality.
01:06:30
Speaker
We journalists are often told that we should be guided by curiosity, but we're not told enough that we should also be guided by care and compassion. And the belief that what we are reporting can and does make a difference. Otherwise, why bother? Yeah. Why bother? Thank you, Allison McCabe, talking about why Sunita O'Connor matters.
01:06:54
Speaker
Great pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for helping me on my journey and art journey and thinking about Sinead and understanding and to connect with you too. There's something about books, isn't there? I hope so. There's something about books.
01:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, everybody. And I found out, too, just a final note, the why and the artist's name matters is a series. And I actually picked up, started listening to Why Bushwick Bill Matters from the Ghetto Boys Fifth Ward. So I was excited. Sometimes when you bump into a music kind of popular culture series and you see a string of them, it's like, it's a nice little vibe. You're like, oh, they got one of these on this artist.
01:07:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I'm really excited about why Willie Mae Thornton matters. That came out earlier this year. Oh, they had that too? Yeah. Yeah. It just came out, you know, on a say like a few months ago. So that's what to look for as well. Yeah. So anybody, if you dig in on this vibe, check out that series. I'm about to do the natural transition from Sinead O'Connor to Bushwick Bill, but that's my brain. Alison, thanks so much and really look forward to the art and everything else you create.
01:08:17
Speaker
and in the coming months and years, really appreciate it. Thanks again for our conversation. All right, take care. Take care. This is Something Rather Than Nothing. And listeners, to stay connected with us and our guests, visit somethingratherthannothing.com.
01:08:47
Speaker
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01:09:16
Speaker
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