Sinéad O'Connor
WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION Sinéad O'Connor Talks about War, Peace, the Church, and Essential Reggae Albums
When Sinéad O'Connor appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1992 to sing a stirring, a cappella version of Bob Marley's "War," she made a permanent break with the pop music world by ripping up a picture of Pope John Paul II. These days the mother of three doesn't like to talk about the incident, but she gushes about the music that accompanied it. Throw Down Your Arms, which includes a new recording of "War," is her tribute to roots reggae artists including Marley, Peter Tosh, and Burning Spear. She recorded the disc in Jamaica with legendary producers Sly & Robbie and a cast of top-shelf session players. Just prior to the album's release, O'Connor spoke with Barnes & Noble.com's Pop Music Editor Lydia Vanderloo about the music and inspiration behind Throw Down Your Arms.
Barnes & Noble.com: When did you first connect with roots reggae music?
Sinéad O'Connor : I guess when I was a little kid. … we heard records like Toots & the Matytals' "54-46," which was a big hit when I was young, and Desmond Dekker's "The Israelites," and Althea & Donna's "Uptown Top Ranking." I moved to London when I was about 17, and my manager was really into reggae, and he hung out with these Rastas and Rasta musicians. …When I grew up in Ireland, it was a sort of Catholic theocracy in a lot of ways. The effect of which was, a lot of us kids [were thinking], Okay, we can see there's a God, but we want to rescue it from religion. It became obvious to some of us as kids that the way to do that was through music, and I learned from things like the civil rights movement [in the U.S.] and the South African freedom movement -- they're always singing as a way of connecting with the spirituality of what they're doing. I always wanted to get into that. So when I went to London first met Rastafarians, I thought, Now there's a bunch of people doing exactly what I'd like to do -- songs to teach things that you'd normally have to go to church to find out. Burning Spear could teach you the entire Book of Revelations or something in three minutes.... Not to go on about it too much, but where I came from was very religiously oppressive, spiritually oppressive. As a woman, you felt it ten times. So I was always fascinated by other ways of thinking or other spiritualities, or other ways of subversively expressing yourself as a woman. You could say things through music as a girl that you wouldn't dare even think of saying.
B&N.com: Are there elements from your religious upbringing that you still carry with you?
SO: Oh yeah! Insofar as the belief that I have in God -- for lack of a better word -- or the love that I have for it, definitely I couldn't have if not for Catholicism. I wouldn't have known there was a God. What happens is, you see God despite the religion. So that's kind of what happened. I liked the Virgin Mary and that whole thing, and I like the teachings around the Holy Spirit -- I relate to that a lot. But I don't relate to this kind of punishing God thing, and all that black and white. I like having religious paraphernalia around the place as well. I sort of collect Virgin Marys as well.
B&N.com: How do you articulate your religious beliefs to your children?
SO: Well, I don't, actually. What I've done is told my children that God is someone who is with them all the time and communicates with them inside of them in their own special way, that communicates with them in a way that it doesn't communicate with anyone else. But they're all very spiritual people.
B&N.com: What was it like to go to Jamaica to record this album?
SO: Outrageous. It was a dream come true to go there, but then to go there and work with that band -- I had to keep locking myself in the toilet to scream and cry, and then I'd go back in after and act normal.
B&N.com: Was it a welcoming atmosphere being a white woman coming into this environment?
SO: Yeah. That's what I really like about this record, actually. Traditionally these are man's songs -- they're very warrior-man songs -- so it is kind of subversive for a woman to come in and end up doing them. In Jamaica, they say if someone's "tough," it's a compliment. So they were all laughing, [saying,] "She tough! She tough!" They thought it was funny that a woman would want to sing man's songs. I don't think they thought that because I was white or anything, but because I was a woman. But they thought it was great.
B&N.com: You have several Burning Spear songs here. What is it about him that you love so much?
SO: I love Bob Marley as well, and Peter Tosh I adore, but take the two, Peter Tosh and Burning Spear: Peter Tosh is the one that I identify most with, that I'm most like, in terms of being aggressive and testosterone-y, but Spear is the one I would aspire to be like. He's all pure love. All of his songs are all about love, and they always offer alternatives to war. I think Spear is a master of peace. And he's the only artist that I've come across in the Rasta culture who [writes songs about women]. His songs honor his own mother or his grandmother. He's always talking about going back to the very simple nature of things, where you run the world by saying, What would your f**kin' Granny say? That was quite something for a man in those days to be doing. You know, "Thrown Down Your Arms" -- most of us, if we tried to write an antiwar song, it would be aggressive in some way, criticizing the war-mongers or whatever. But he doesn't. He just offers them love, and an invitation to be loved. Which is f**kin' incredible.
B&N.com: You do Buju Banton's "Untold Stories." Did you worry about doing a song of his, given the hard rap he's taken for his homophobia?
SO: No. I was disappointed in his attitude toward homosexuality, but I have to have compassion for the fact that that's the way the culture is. That's the way he was brought up. Obviously, I don't subscribe to that. It's a waste of intelligence, if you like. But that's Jamaican culture. But I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. A great song is a great song. It's not like a National Front song or something. It's a beautiful song.
B&N.com: If one of your fans was to pick up this CD and liked a lot of the songs, what else would you recommend to them?
SO: There's a band called the Abyssinians, and they have a record called Satta Massagana. That's the king record. And then equal to that is Israel Vibration's The Same Song. Amazing. I'd definitely get the Trojan Nyahbinghi box set. It's got three records in it, and it's amazing. Lee Perry put out a box set called Arkology, but I only like disc 1. All Burning Spear albums -- just buy all Burning Spear albums.
B&N.com: If you had to pick one...
SO: I like them all. There's one called Man in the Hills that's got this beautiful song about the mother. There's a Buju Banton album called 'Til Shiloh, which is an incredible album. It's not all religious either -- it's quite hardcore dancehall. There's one track called "Murderer," which is quite hardcore reggae, which I love. Oh, Peter Tosh, obviously. Black Dignity and Bush Doctor are both incredible records.
B&N.com: Anything else you're listening to?
SO: Lately I got really into Patti Smith again. We did a show together in London, and she's just so f**kin' inspiring. So I kind of got obsessed with her records, [especially] Horses.
B&N.com: You're planning a tour for this record. Will you do only these songs, or older ones as well?
SO: My thing is that I've come out of the mainstream pop and rock thing, I've left that behind, really. So I'm trying to have a new career in the religious/spiritual music arena, for want of a better word, so I'm leaving that incarnation of myself behind. So I'm taking with me maybe three songs that I would call hymns, for want of a better word -- though I'd like to call them "hers." So a song like "The Healing Room" or "Thank You for Hearing Me," and I think there'll be one other. But apart from those, no, I'm not performing that stuff again at all. I'm kind of doing a Mahalia Jackson, only dealing with "God music," though I hate that word. Because I don't mean Christian rock. The next record of mine will be songs of my own, called Theology. I wanted to write a book about theology, but I can't write. I just want to open up things for discussion to see them in a different ways.
October 2005
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