via Facebook
 
We are all big fans of Sinead O’Connor here at Dangerous Minds. Her voice is gorgeous. Her songs cut through lies. She is hilarious. She’s defied the music industry’s sexist, grab-ass bullshit. She confronted the Catholic Church about child abuse two decades before it was front-page news and paid the price for her courage. She is a real, actual artist.

On Monday, O’Connor announced on Facebook that she’s selling handmade, decorated illustrations. They are available in two flavors: sacred (without swears) and profane (with), though there appears to be some overlap (see “The Books of the Fucking Prophets” below). The sacred works draw on Sinead’s heterodox Catholicism, while the profane celebrate “Reasons To Fucking Thrive.” 

Sinead writes:

I make these as a hobby. But am now going to make a living. If you want to order and buy one for yourself with words of your own choosing or mine, please contact. Backstagebetty@icloud.com
Themes are only two… Scripture (no bad words) or Reasons To Fucking Thrive .
Send yours and get it made pretty..

I’m mystified by one or two of Sinead’s selections in the latter category (for instance, she big ups “Don Fucking Lemon,” not one of my personal heroes), so I would probably choose my own words. How about Sinead Fucking O’Connor?

Here are a few samples from Sinead’s Facebook page:
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
An ode to Sinéad O’Connor’s infamous televised “fuck you” to the Pope in 1992, Mick Minogue‘s “Sinéad” is one of the many featured contributions at Gallery 1988‘s Saturday Night Live-themed group art show.

 
Watch “Sinéad” in action, below:

 
In 1990, when Sinead O’Connor was at the absolute height of her fame, I was supposed to write about her for some magazine I can’t recall. I went to Austin, TX for the interview and I found myself standing at the side of the stage during the concert. She and her band (which included Adam and the Ants guitarist, Marco Pirroni) performed a handful of numbers before some computer they needed went kerblooey. Vamping while the roadies valiantly tried to fix the problem, O’Connor strapped on her acoustic guitar and did a spine-tingling version of “Troy” that brought the house down. In a lifetime of concert-going, I have never in my life seen such an intense live performance.

“Troy” is the gut-wrenching, first-person account of a woman, presumably O’Connor herself, walking in on her lover with another woman. Her execution of the song that night was brilliant, almost deranged with grief. As she sang it, you felt it was happening to you and those emotions washed over you. I was turned into jelly by the intensity of the performance. Everyone in that theater, I’m pretty sure had the same reaction as I did.

At the song’s conclusion, she ran off the stage and vomited up in a trash can right beside me. (Forgive me when I tell you that my reaction at the time was, “Wow, she’s really hot”—but she really was, trust me. Even puking).

Soon afterwards, the lights went on and the sold out house was told that Sinead had the flu and couldn’t continue with the show. Refunds were given out, but I’d have to say that if only for that one song, the crowd would gotten their money’s worth that night. The next morning they were off to another city and the interview never happened.

The official music video for “Troy”—which I am assuming was done by John Maybury, who also directed her video for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” because it looks just like his work—is how most people first caught a glimpse of the fragile, twenty-something bald Irish singer and it was a striking debut. But nothing… er… uh… compares 2 that song live, which is why I’m using this clip here instead. The intensity builds and builds, really a masterful performance.
 

More Sinead O’Connor in The Dangerous Minds Radio Hour

 
Sinead has taken alot of shit over the years for being fearlessly outspoken. Her uncompromising stance on Catholicism, the Pope and the Priesthood pretty much ruined her career as an artist.  I respect and admire her.  Were she not a woman, would she have been treated so brutally by the press? Tell it like it is, sister!
 

I dare you to slip this into the playlist for some people hammered off their faces tonight.

And props to all painfully uncool songs with painfully important messages.

(Related, from today’s Letters of Note: “Send cask arsenic exterminate aborigines”)

(Previously on Dangerous Minds: Canonizing Sinead O’Connor)

(Sinead O’Connor: Universal Mother)

Now here’s a woman.

You know this woman is important because she is a member of Fail Valhalla?