The Bob Dylan album Sinéad O’Connor said “changed my life”
Every music lover has, at some point, stumbled upon an album that suddenly transforms their outlook on life, propelling it from black and white into colour. Suddenly, an artist travelled across the airwaves and made the complicated world make sense for the first time. For the late Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor, it was Bob Dylan who was responsible for her most profound musical awakening.
Dylan first marauded his way into O’Connor’s life when she was only a young child, and it opened up her horizons in an unquantifiable way. Sadly, when she had the chance to perform at a tribute concert for her idol in 1992 at Madison Square Garden, O’Connor was unfairly treated with hostility from the audience due to a recent controversial appearance on Saturday Night Live.
The show was to celebrate 30 years of Dylan’s career, but less than a fortnight before her appearance on the star-studded bill at MSG, O’Connor had been banned by NBC for life for tearing up a picture of the Pope on live television as part of a Saturday Night Live appearance.
While this was an act of rock ‘n’ roll defiance, which should have been celebrated — O’Connor was vilified by the New York crowd. Although she later expressed disappointment in Dylan for not intervening, writing in her memoirs, “I feel like Bob Dylan is the one who should have come out and told his audience to let me sing,” his inaction didn’t take away her love for his music.
During an interview in 2014 with The Express, O’Connor detailed her love of his album Slow Train Coming. The LP was made by Dylan shortly after he converted to Christianity. Although she was only young when introduced to the record, it instantly connected with the Irish singer on multiple levels.
She explained of the album: “One of my idols. Until I was 17, I didn’t want to know about anyone else. This is the first album Dylan made after changing his faith to Christianity and the quality of the songwriting is ridiculous. I heard it when I was about 11 and it changed my life. It was the first time I ever heard cool, funky religious music and his emotional honesty is admirable.”
Meanwhile, in 2012, she spoke of how Dylan has always been a constant source of hope to her, which she believes is the primary role of an artist. Heartbreakingly, she said to USA Today, “The reason I’m alive is that people gave me hope. Bob Dylan, in particular, you know what I mean? Artists keep people alive. We’re meant to give people hope. Where you have war, you have a spiritual problem.”
She powerfully added with a characteristic twist: “So the spiritual leaders of the world are failing. I believe the job of artists is to be the emergency fire force. As well as shaking our [breasts].”
Although Dylan didn’t meet O’Connor’s expectations when he stayed silent as his crowd was cruelly hounding her, she never forgot his seismic impact on her. Most importantly was the lesson his songwriting taught her about speaking truth to power.
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