Ask a Sinead O’Connor Fan

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

Let’s get down to brass tacks: what is the best Sinead song of all time?

Bill P, Columbus, OH

Dear Bill,

In terms of popularity, “Nothing Compares 2 U” is her highest ranked song on Spotify (almost 218 million listens), which is way higher than #2, “All Apologies” (at 22.7 million). My personal favorite is “Troy” (#3 at 10.6 million), even though (and perhaps partly because) it gets kind of maudlin and overwrought at times. I also like that its lyrics allude to a William Butler Yeats poem.

Of course, it would be silly not to emphasize the brilliance of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Sinead’s biggest hit. Even though she didn’t write it, it’s totally her song.

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

Sinead was in the news recently, around some kind of tragedy. Can you fill me in?

Jack H, Buffalo, NY

Dear Jack,

Well, albertnet is not a news site, and while there is tragic news—her son died—it seems like that should be a private family thing, and really has nothing to do with her fans. I like her music, and her voice, but I really don’t know her as a person whatsoever and her non-music life has nothing to do with me (nor, I suspect, with you). Perhaps we should all just enjoy her gift to us—that is, the music—and leave the rest of her life out of it. I hope that makes sense.

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

“Nothing Compares 2 U” is pretty obviously a breakup type song, as she laments her lover moving out. And yet toward the end, she sings, “All the flowers that you planted mama, in the backyard/ All died when you went away.” What’s with the “mama” bit? Someone said this song was really about her mother moving out … is that right?

Lisa F, Seattle, WA

Dear Lisa,

The “mama” thing is perplexing. It’s tempting to think Sinead added that to the original lyrics, because there is a connection to her mother: when recording the video for the song, she thought about her mother, who had died in a car crash, and this is what caused her to shed tears. But the instance of “mama” is in the original song as written by Prince five years earlier. (As you may know, he wrote the song for this weird offshoot band called The Family, and you can hear their version here, though I don’t recommend it … it’s appallingly bad.)

It does seem as though the song could be written to one’s mother, though. The line “I can see whomever I choose” could be to make a former lover jealous, sure—but it could also be to taunt her mom had she discouraged the singer from this or that poor choice of mate and now isn’t around to complain. Meanwhile, the line “I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant” really makes more sense when sung to one’s (presumably frugal) mother; after all, why would a former lover care?

On the other hand, the word “baby” appears twice; calling one’s mom “baby” wouldn’t make a lot of sense. And what seems particularly incompatible with the mother concept are the lines, “I could put my arms around every boy I see/ But they’d only remind me of you.” What boy would remind Sinead of her mother? Probably not the kind she’d want to put her arms around. Suffice to say, the lyrics are ambiguous. Of the song, Sinead said (as reported here), “I think I’m probably similar to millions of people who loved the song, and we’re all people who associated the song with a loss of some kind.” Pretty general, eh?

But wait, there’s more. Prince’s recording engineer is quoted here as saying the song might have been about Prince’s housekeeper, Sandy Scipioni, who “made sure he had his favorite beverage, which was Five Alive, and she made sure the house was clean and that there were fresh flowers on the piano and that the socks and underwear were washed. That might have been the inspiration.” I’m glad there weren’t any lines about the crummy new housekeeper stocking Bubble Up instead of Five Alive and rolling up his socks instead of folding them.

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

I’ve been reading your column for years, and you’ve never mentioned a single concert, obscure B-side, little known biographical detail, or forgotten track, and as far as I can tell you’ve never even met Sinead O’Connor. What makes you think you deserve to write this column at all?

Scott B, Jersey City, NJ

Dear Scott,

Sorry to disappoint you. I never said I was some kind of maven or aficionado … just a run-of-the-mill fan. To be honest, I don’t know why I have a column either. I just kind of fell into it. Maybe I should hand you the reins.

Oh, but wait … I did see Sinead in concert once, at the WOMAD (World of Music and Dance) concert in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco in 1993, performing with Peter Gabriel (you can see a terrible bootleg video of it here). So there’s that.

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

Remember that whole flap about O’Connor ripping up a photo of the pope on “Saturday Night Live”? What do you make of that? Obviously you’re still a fan…

Sandra M, Tempe, AZ

Dear Sandra,

That caused quite the scandal, eh? Even in my (non-Catholic) community everyone was acting like she was some horrible, insensitive person. It’s interesting to point out that, per this article here, there was absolutely no flap over Frank Sinatra’s response, when he commented during a concert not long after, “This must be one stupid broad. I’d kick her ass if she were a guy.” And Joe Pesci said, on “SNL,” that if she’d done that on his show, “I would have gave her such a smack.” Somehow these statements didn’t appear to offend anybody.

As for my reaction at the time, I figured she was just trying to get attention. But this wasn’t a very nuanced position; after all, she was already getting plenty of attention. She was on “SNL,” after all, and had a number-one hit song and album. I didn’t grasp that she was simply using her moment in the limelight to advance a legit social cause, that of exposing sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church. Not that I was alone in being ignorant of this; as reported here, the “SNL” episode was nine years before Pope Jean Paul II acknowledged the abuse. Looking back, O’Connor seemed prescient. Who would excoriate her now?

Madonna, probably. (And you thought that was a rhetorical question!) Like Sinatra, Madonna got all hot and bothered about the “SNL” affair and was very public about it. As described by the New York Times, she complained in the press, “I think there is a better way to present her ideas rather than ripping up an image that means a lot to other people.” The New York Times concluded, “Madonna’s reaction may have been professional jealousy. After Madonna had herself gowned, harnessed, strapped down and fully stripped to promote her album ‘Erotica’ and her book ‘Sex,’ O’Connor stole the spotlight with one photograph of a fully-clothed man.”

(An interesting aside: twenty years later, in 2012, as reported here, Madonna lambasted another rising pop star, calling out M.I.A. for flipping the bird during a Super Bowl halftime show: “It’s such a teenager ... irrelevant thing to do … there was such a feeling of love and unity there what was the point? It was just out of place.” The columnist declared, “It’s no secret that Madonna hasn’t exactly been a great role model over the years. In fact, what M.I.A. did is precisely something Madonna would have done back when she was relevant.” I point all this out simply to highlight the contrast with how well Sinead O’Connor has held up over the years. Does anybody listen to old Madonna songs now? I hope not … they were lame all along.)

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

I bought my mother-in-law a glass storage container with a plastic lid. My sister-in-law set the lid down on a hot stove and it melted. I think my sister-in-law should replace the lid because she ruined it, but she says I should replace it because I’d bought it originally. What do you think?

Bette M, Boise, ID

Dear Bette,

I’m sorry, but this isn’t actually a general advice column. I’m really only here to weigh in on the musical artist Sinead O’Connor, so you should check in with Abby or something. 

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

 “Nothing Compares 2 U” is hands-down the best song I’ve ever heard about one’s lover moving out. That’s a very intense kind of abandonment, I think. So my question is, can you think of any other great songs on that topic I should be aware of? Bonus points if you can find one from the perspective of a man.

Kathleen Templeton, NYC, NY

Dear Kathleen,

I suppose I should mention “You Were Meant for Me” by Jewel, simply because it’s so popular, with 84.3 million listens on Spotify. And, okay, I confess, from time to time this song is a guilty pleasure for me as well. I especially like the bit about how she gets to make her breakfast exactly as she likes it: “I got my eggs, I got my pancakes too/ I got my maple syrup, everything but you.” (What pop singer uses the word “pancakes,” ever?) And when she gets to the part about “I break the yolks and make a smiley face,” I always think of a McDonald’s commercial for some reason. Suffice to say this song is not nearly as good “Nothing Compares 2 U.” The video, in fact, is totally lame … Jewel is wearing so much face lotion she’s practically dripping, and speaking of drips, the supposedly gone boyfriend keeps popping up, incongruously, like they’re still together, and he is extremely douche-y besides.

If you want a really satisfying my-baby-moved-out song from the male perspective, I highly recommend “2002” by Bob Schneider, from his first studio album, “Lonelyland.” Perhaps he even pays tribute to “Nothing Compares 2 U” because this song starts out in a very similar way: “The year’s 2002/ I do exactly what I wanna do.” He goes on to lament how badly he crashed and burned after his girl moved out. He’s not as specific about the duration (only saying, “It’s been a long, long time since you walked out my door”) but it must be years. All kinds of things have happened: he’s moved cross-country, he’s gotten hooked on heroin, he’s moved to Germany, he’s found a new girlfriend and gotten her pregnant, he’s been arrested … but he keeps coming back to how much he misses this original girlfriend, like he never got over her (which in a way is sadder than being heartbroken after only seven hours and fifteen days). “2002” is not as moving as “Nothing Compares 2 U,” but when Bob Schneider sang it live at the Independent in San Francisco in 2010, I was pretty blown away. (I’d never even heard the song, nor indeed this singer, before.)

Dear Sinead O’Connor fan,

It’s pretty obvious this isn’t a real column. Did you just contrive this to bring traffic to your blog, based on Sinead O’Connor being in the news?

Dana A, Albany, CA

Dear Dana,

In all honesty, I came up with this blog topic about a week before that news hit. I almost considered not writing it at all, since googling “Sinead O’Connor” and getting that sad news is not in my readers’ best interest, in my opinion. I have actually been thinking about “Nothing Compares 2 U” simply because, some months ago, I was casting about for a relatively mellow song to have in my head at bedtime (or more to the point, to replace the raucous one that was already there, because there always is one). For some reason, “Nothing Compares 2 U” really works for this … the rhyme scheme has a nice, calming logic to it, as does the structure, and the song can be slowed waaaaaaay down in your mind. Next time you can’t sleep, give it a try.

A Sinead O’Connor fan is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Sinead O’Connor fan,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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Family Internet Use Policy

Abstract

Generally, parents don’t go snooping around in their kids’ laptops or phones.  We want to respect our kids’ privacy.  And yet, these devices are like mega-megaphones, capable of blasting our kids’ unbridled ideas and photos all over the Internet.  Privacy in this realm is an illusion:  even with peer-to-peer online communication, kids cannot prevent their supposedly private content from being posted publicly or forwarded.  I describe here a way for parents to put much-needed limits on our kids’ online autonomy.

Introduction

My community has been through a serious scandal.  Some high school kids formed a secret Instagram group and, over a period of weeks, posted a lot of racist and misogynistic content (e.g., doctored photos and hateful sentiments).  Only a couple of kids were actually contributing content, but 14 or 15 others followed along, on an ongoing basis, instead of leaving the group.  What’s more, a number of these followers posted supporting comments and/or “likes.”  (It is widely hoped, but impossible to establish, that peer pressure was a stronger force here than bigotry.)  Finally one kid blew the whistle, and the whole thing unraveled, to the great shame of the students and families involved.

This episode has engendered a lot of soul searching among us parents.  We like to think we are instilling proper values in our kids—that we really know these people—but how can we be sure?  It’s easy to appraise the benefits of private music lessons, great schools, and organized sports teams, but how do we measure character and virtue?  At a minimum, how can we feel confident that our own kids won’t be embroiled in the next Internet scandal?

In this post I describe a solution.  It isn’t complicated, but it’s difficult.  I propose that every family establish and enforce a family Internet use policy.  The idea is to put limits on the secret online life that modern kids have, that gives them total freedom of expression with no parental supervision.  If we fail to instill the values and character we’re looking for, at least we can safeguard our kids against shaming themselves, their families, and their community.

A sample family Internet use policy

My family Internet acceptable use policy is based on the one my employer uses.  To wit, “[Company] monitors employees’ use of [Company’s] communications devices, computer systems and networks.”  I have told my kids up front, “I know your computer password and network logins, and reserve the right to read any of your online correspondence.  Consider nothing on your computer to be private.”  (If my kids had phones, those would be fair game, too.)

The premise here is that kids are less likely to post or consume offensive content if they know their parents can see it.  If this seems Orwellian to you, remember than in 1984 it was the government snooping, not parents.  I have a right to know what my kid is doing on the Internet, just as my employer has a right to know what I’m doing with the tools they give me.

Your policy doesn’t have to be this restrictive, of course—but you should have a policy, and something with more teeth than “Do whatever you want and we’ll hope for the best,” or “If you do something bad we might take away your phone.”

Do my kids tolerate this?  Yes, though of course they’re not thrilled.  Fortunately, I got an early start with this policy.  I introduced it before my kids were even online, so they were fine with it initially.  In fact, as they hadn’t yet developed the recklessness of teenagers, they were rightly concerned about accidentally stumbling on gross stuff online.  As they’ve reached their teens, their feelings have changed, but my wife and I won’t budge and they know it.  At least they’re used to the constraint.

So is this a perfect fix?  Probably not, but I’m sure it helps.  Without parental oversight, a kid is bound to be more bold and less inhibited with his or her expression.  I guarantee that the kids in my community who posted offensive photos to that Instagram account would not have printed hard copies and left them around the house.

Isn’t social media visible to parents anyway?

Kids might have you believe you can keep an eye on their virtual life via the public nature of social media.  But this isn’t true anymore.  Snapchat is all about messages and photos that are designed to be temporary. (Of course they’re actually not; your kid’s blunder can be captured for eternity by another kid’s screen grab.  It’s true, though, that once that transmission leaves your kid’s device, it’s too late for you to see it.)

Do parents grasp this?  Not always, as I learned from a workshop given by My Digital TAT2, a nonprofit organization seeking to promote responsibility in the digital era.  The lecturer quoted a teen correspondent as saying, “My favorite thing about Snapchat is that my parents don’t understand it.”  Most teens using Snapchat and Instagram have two accounts each:  one that their parents know about, and one that they don’t.  Many have a third account with which to assume a fictitious identity, which they use for retaliation and/or catfishing.  With all this subterfuge about, doesn’t it make sense to have access to the source of our teens’ online content—that is, their devices? 

Again, the point isn’t that you’re always snooping—it’s that your kids know you could, and behave accordingly.  As I candidly told my older daughter, I have peeped at her online correspondence exactly twice so far.  I explain to my kids that I generally don’t bother checking up, because I trust them—but I have to reserve the right to do so, or my policy goes up in smoke.

A kid’s right to privacy

Is my stance fair and reasonable?  Or am I violating my kids’ right to privacy?  That begs another question:  do kids even have a right to privacy?

Of course they do!  When one of my daughters was ten, she kept a diary.  Although I was sorely tempted to read it (because it was surely very cute), I honored my promise not to.  Likewise, I wouldn’t eavesdrop on my kids’ face-to-face conversations or phone calls, and I wouldn’t read a letter they got in the mail.  But the Internet is a game-changer.  It gives these kids the capability of broadcasting their ostensibly private communications to 3 billion people.  Mistakes are made, due to these kids’ own poor judgment, that of their friends (or “friends”), and by sheer accident.  I consider it irresponsible to give kids total autonomy online.

Setting limits isn’t just a parent’s right—it’s our job.  Are adults allowed to keep loaded guns around the house?  Unfortunately, they are.  Is it a good idea to give kids access to those loaded guns?  Of course not!  But think about Internet platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter:  they’re dangerous too, in their own way.  You almost couldn’t devise a more efficient way of giving teens new ways to screw up; of catching them in the act of screwing up; of widely publicizing the screw-up; and of documenting, time-stamping, and definitively establishing the fact of the screw-up, and the identity of the perpetrator, for all time.

Consider this scenario:  the year is 1980.  Teen 1, who is stupid and ignorant, tells Teen 2 a racist or misogynist joke.  Teen 2 laughs (maybe not because he even thinks the joke is funny; maybe because he’s uncomfortable).  Teen 3 overhears this exchange, and tells Teens 4 through 20 how racist/misogynistic these two are.  The damage is limited, because it’s all hearsay.  Teen 1 denies telling the joke, Teen 2 denies hearing it, Teen 3 is largely ignored, and Teens 4 through 20 shrug and move on.  Years later, Teen 1, who has become less ignorant, is privately ashamed of having told that joke, and Teen 2 is privately ashamed of having laughed.  They were just stupid kids, and thank goodness they can put that joke in the past and move on.  That’s pre-Internet.

Today, a couple dozen parents in my town—good, respected people, contributors to our community—are suffering deep shame because there is irrefutable evidence that their children consumed and in some cases “liked” racist and/or misogynist online content.  There is no way to repudiate the evidence; about all these beleaguered parents can do is assert that their kids aren’t actually hateful, that they were just swept away by a hateful meme.  That doesn’t go very far … not with the victims, and not with the community. 

Of course this isn’t an isolated case; these scandals are popping up everywhere.  And yet we parents have been standing back and allowing our teens unfettered access to these volatile Internet technologies.

The crux of the matter

Whether or not you agree about the non-sanctity of a teenager’s connected device, we need to help our kids understand something fundamental:  there’s no such thing as Internet privacy.  Once a photo or sentiment leaves your kid’s device, it’s a short step away from the great unwashed Internet.  If copy-and-paste isn’t available on the app that was used, screen grabs always are.  Any content that touches the Internet can be posted publicly and/or forwarded, whether by a recklessly playful or vindictive pal, or by mistake.  And we’ve seen that the law does not uphold the anonymity of Internet haters; consider this landmark case.  If a kid (or adult) thinks he or she can safely communicate his or her darkest thoughts via the Internet, even under some kind of shadow identity, he or she is mistaken.

Why isn’t it considered bad parenting to give these kids unfettered access to fun, easy, powerful online tools capable of permanently disgracing themselves and their families?  Probably because the beloved tech companies behind this Internet revolution are having their way with us.

The Internet and FOMO

I can’t think of a parent who hasn’t complained about his or her kid being glued to a screen all day, but nobody seems to know what to do about it.  In many cases parents are afraid of what would happen if they took away a kid’s phone or laptop.  (Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt,” published in 1950, was eerily prescient in this regard.)  The Internet and its addictive social media trappings weren’t dumped on us; they evolved so gradually we never saw the danger coming.

Meanwhile, to push back against technology is to seem backward, unsophisticated, and out of touch.  Society expects all of us, including students, to use the Internet daily.  As we adults suffer our own insecurity around keeping up with the rapidly evolving online culture, we are tempted to celebrate and emulate our kids’ prowess.  We blithely accept this totally separate virtual world, which becomes a constantly growing blind spot, like a locked door between ourselves and our kids.  In the process we lose touch with our kids’ morals, standards, and character.  Kids are typing things online that we’d shudder to hear them say out loud, and sharing photos that might shock us.

So if parents aren’t policing this, who is?  The Internet platforms themselves?  Yeah, right.  Remember, Mark Zuckerberg’s first online venture was a site where you rated your fellow students in terms of who was hotter than who.  He and his ilk most certainly do not have your kids’ backs. 

Consider this excerpt from a New Yorker article, which describes the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s misgivings about the Enlightenment, and how it threatened the idea of a universal moral code: 

It becomes impossible to settle moral questions or to enforce moral rules; the best we can do is agree to disagree. Such a world falls into the hands of managers and technocrats, who excel at the perfection of means but lack the tools with which to think deeply about ends.

I don’t have strong opinions about the Enlightenment, and MacIntyre was writing in the ‘80s, but that last sentence fits social media companies to a T.  The means of capturing and directing people’s attention are being perfected, but the impact on society is being largely ignored.  Venture capitalists are backing the companies best poised to monetize this stuff; they’re not throwing money at watchdog outfits like Digital TAT2.  Popularity—measured by the number of eyeballs on your app, the number of “likes,” and the number of links to your content—comprise the currency of our era.  (We parents are somewhat complicit here.  I’m sure many a parent dreams of his kid becoming the next Zuckerberg.  I doubt many are hoping their kid becomes the next great moralizer.)

Platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have our kids’ attention.  To an increasing degree we parents do not.  The scale is tipping increasingly toward a peer orientation where our parental influence is marginalized.  Only by reigning in the access to this virtual world can we hope to maintain our crucial role in guiding our children.  Failing that, the least we can do is limit the damage they can do online.

More albertnet posts on this topic

Dopamine, Parenting, & Social Media

Teens, Texts, & the Marshmallow Test

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