Chords for Sinéad O'Connor interview (week before Faith and Courage release)

and the Cobra in 1987.
Sinead O'Connor has become as famous for her image,
haunting voice, and confessional songs
as she is for [E] political and religious beliefs.
It's been six [Bb] years [Bm] since she released her [E] last full-length
album, Universal Mother.
Since then, Sinead's been ordained a priest.
[Abm] Her full name now is officially Sinead Mother Bernadette Mary O'Connor.
Her latest album, Faith [Bb] and Courage,
will be in stores one week today.
[Abm] Exactly.
Thanks so much for coming in.
First of all, I'm glad I got to do the name.
Actually, it's [C] Maria.
Someone messed [E] it up anyway.
_ So this new one, I had a chance to listen to it.
[Db] I got it last night.
A little Vance Coffey here.
[B] [Abm] You have a lot of people working with you.
Wai Koshan.
_ Wai Koshana Poojies.
Dave Stewart.
Eurythmics.
A whole bunch of different producers.
[Ab] Yeah, Aiden Sherman.
How did you pull them all in?
Why?
Well, I wanted a sense of variety on [Abm] the record.
I liked the idea of not being able to be [Ebm] boxed in [B] necessarily
and also to just express all the [Gb] different parts of oneself.
[Bb] Also, [Gb] I wanted to bring out [Ab] maybe a more poppy side as well.
_ _ And [Abm] also, Adrian [Db] Sherwood, in particular,
someone who's been a friend of mine for years
and I'm a huge [Bm] roots reggae [Dbm] fan.
[Bm] For a long time, I wanted to work with him
and make an album that had [Abm] sort of droplets of reggae
sounds in [Ab] it.
I was interested when I read that, [Gbm] though,
that you had all these different people working with you.
Yeah.
Because I thought, there's a lot of sounds.
[Abm] And you didn't get too complicated with it.
Well, it was interesting because each producer was kind
of being asked to do things that wouldn't be normal for them to do.
[Gb] For example, Shakespeare was doing
[Ab] the track with probably the most reggae sounding tracks,
where normally he would do R&B.
And Adrian [G] Sherwood was a total atheist,
but he was [Abm] doing the more religious type tracks.
And the track with Whiteflakes was kind of [Gb] interesting
because [Abm] it's got a kind of country and Western feel to it.
So while they were also stretching me
and getting me to do things wouldn't be normal for me,
I was equally tricking them into doing stuff
that wouldn't be normal for them.
So that was kind of interesting.
[B] OK.
Now, you dedicate.
There's a dedication to Rastafari song here.
[Dbm] Yeah.
But why?
[E] I've just always been very inspired
by the Rastafari [Abm] culture, and in particular, the music.
And I like the sense of magic that there
is around the Rastafari religion.
I like [E] religions that don't withhold the [Ab] magic.
And I like the sense of God, of the presence of God
in each [Abm] person, which is around Rastafari.
Like, if I'm talking to you as a Rastafari person,
I don't say, [Ab] you have work to do.
I say, [Ebm] the I have work to do.
[Abm] In other words, I acknowledge that I'm
talking to your soul all the time,
that your soul has work to do, or whatever.
So [E] this [Ab] acknowledgment that God is in every [Dbm] person.
So cool.
So religion's really figured into your life,
I think, [Ab] throughout your whole life.
But when you came out and people said
you could be [G] ordained into the priesthood,
a lot of people talk, obviously, media folks,
that's a huge buzz for [Cm] us.
We start to talk about it.
Was [G] there ever a point where you thought religion
can take over everything?
And I would imagine the priesthood
would be something you might be able to devote yourself completely.
Was there ever a point when you thought
you'd give up on the music and just get in,
focus right on the music?
No, to me, music is a huge part of my priesthood.
A major part of it.
[D] Music and singing.
[G] OK.
So I guess most people often [C] think of giving it up,
but I couldn't give it up because I'm
[G] singing and making music.
OK, now, first [Cm] video.
No man's heaven.
There's a huge [G] spiritual overtone.
You start out in a church.
What's the concept of it?
It's talking about the idea of wanting to,
it's very much a song which honors [D] men.
But what it's saying is about [G] someone saying
[C] that they don't really want to be a wife or a girlfriend,
but they want to be [G] in relationship
with the spirit of men and the teachers who are men.
[C] Again, I've been very inspired by [G] rasta culture,
by men in my life.
And it's about wanting to have a relationship with one's soul
rather than that which is on the outside.
You know, how we're [D] brought up to believe that the great romance
will save us.
[Em] But the greater romance is the marriage
that we can make between ourself and our soul.
That's kind of what's about [C] running away
from what's on the outside into [Cm] what's on the inside.
And this is sort of a symbolic death and rebirth
that [G] takes place.
But it's actually where some people think the song is
man [C] bashing his consignments.
Actually, in the video, it's the spirit
of men [G] which rescues the person in the end
[C] and help her to be herself.
[G] So it's very much an honoring of men.
And in fact, the album really [Em] is because it's very much
made by men who really put a lot of their soul [G] into it.
You know what I mean?
And a lot of the songs are directed toward men
and about men's issues.
Thank you for clearing that up.
I'm going to watch this video.
We're going to watch it and play it for people at home.
And we'll watch it.
We'll come back and [C] chat a bit more.
Here it is, [G] romantic.
_ [N]
How serious is this for you?
_ I didn't get ordained for publicity reasons.
[Dbm] And that's why I feel it's very important actually not
to discuss my pre [Db]-critical in the context of [Ab] publicizing my album.
Yeah, it's something that should be kept [B] very private.
And equally, I [Abm] didn't do it with a disrespect to anyone.
And it would be, I think, disrespectful for me
to make it a public issue as my pre-critical.
[Gb] Why did you [Abm] do it?
Well, again, I can't [Db] talk about it.
And I [Ab] understand why you have to ask.
But I feel it's terribly [Em] important not to talk [Dbm] about it.
OK.
I think it should be obvious to anyone who really [Bm] understands
my music or who [Gb] knows me, you know,
why [E] I would have done it.
OK.
[Ebm] Growing up, the priest that I [Abm] knew had to be celibate.
Do you have to be celibate?
No, I'm not.
I [Gbm] can't talk about it. OK.
[Bm] At all, because it would be very [E] disrespectful for me
to do that.
It would be disrespectful to those
who are [Abm] uncomfortable with the [Ebm] idea of female priests.
If I were to sit here, I don't want
[Ab] to come across as if I'm putting [Gb] two fingers up to anyone else.
[Db] OK.
[Gb] With [Abm] Catholicism, where you're coming from, background,
was it hard for you to branch out into music?
And you've done [Bb] a lot of things where people sort of sit there
and they get their backs up about it. _
[Abm] You're Catholic.
But then you come out with [Db] the album,
you're sort of embracing a bunch of different religions.
It's a very spiritual [Ab] album.
It almost, and I'm going to have you guess,
because I've only listened to it a [Ebm] couple of times,
there's a really overwhelming feel.
I could be listening to it and [Abm] it's spiritual.
There's a religious [Ab] overtone.
Finding that balance.
You said you bring in, you wanted a pop feel as well.
How was that?
Very easy.
I think [B] what was good about it was I was [Abm] working with people
that had the same type of spirituality as I do
[Db] and who you could [B] communicate with without having to speak.
And a lot of people who worked on the record were Rasta [E] people
who worked on the songs.
[Abm] So that you'd look across the room at each other and [Ab] laugh
and throw your head back.
A lot of them were old Rasta [B] priests doing the [Ab] percussion work.
[Dbm] They'd throw their heads back and laugh.
And you could communicate with [Ebm] each other without speaking,
that you're on the same spiritual [Abm] level.
And even Dave Steward and that,
you would think that they would all be [Dbm] very different,
but they're not.
They're all [Ab] in the same place spiritually,
but just approaching it from different avenues.
[Abm] And I like the idea of making marriages
between all the different religions almost to create one
[Ebm] without throwing the baby out with the [Bb] bathwater
[Db] of any [Ab] of them.
Do you know what I mean?
That there's something beautiful about all of them.
If we can make [Dbm] one out of the whole lot of them,
which is in fact what there is,
that we live under this illusion that we're separate.
Okay.
Thank you so much for coming in.
[D] Albums coming [A] out around the world.
Yes.
Encourage.
One week today on June 13th.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
It was lovely.
We will be back after we [Abm] pay a few bills
and we'll tell you [Dbm] more of more music videos
and lots more [Gb] news.
_ _ [N] _ _