I think this is the second video Fiona Apple sent to Sinead O’Connor.
The first one just offered her support after seeing her soul crushing video where Sinead O’Connor broke down about her life.
It was one person epically talented person who had been violated trying to help another who went through the same thing, who had inspired her, and then she posted this. I could never sing at all much less like those two, much less what they chose to sing about.
I watched that performance in 1989, and I’d already seen the original video for it. I was 21 and there wasn’t a thing that wasn’t revolutionary about it. Just shaving her head was seen as completely off the rails at the time, much less being from Ireland and putting New York’s Public Enemy’s logo on the side of your head.
Everything about it was defiant as fuck at a time when people had done nothing but bend over and ask for more abuse for my entire adolescence, I was 21 as was she when she released it, and she would do some much more there in there minutes than I would do in my entire life.
I also tried to figure out the words.
I knew dancing with seven veils was a reference to something, but I’m still not exactly sure what.
I tried to figure out exactly what knowing and doing Mandinka without any shame meant and implied.
A lot of things crossed my mind, all of them wonderful.
Finally, I heard her sing.
They’re throwing it all this way
Dragging it back to the start
And they say, “See how the glass is raised?”
I have refused to take part
I told them “drink something new”
Please let me pull something through
And I realized that she was asking me to listen to her unbelievable voice and what she was saying.
She sang me “soon I can give you my heart’ and I wanted her to and I gave her mine.
Now over thirty years later and I know the implications of doing Mandinka, and it crushes me instead of inspiring me, but like Fiona Apple that video does still inspire me.
I also remember Fiona Apple going on MTV and accepting an award and not being very thankful a decade later.
“See, Maya Angelou said that we, as human beings, at our best, can only create opportunities. And I’m gonna use this opportunity the way that I want to use it.
So, what I want to say is – um, everybody out there that’s watching, everybody that’s watching this world? This world is bullshit. And you shouldn’t model your life — wait a second — you shouldn’t model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself.”
She wasn’t yet 21 and they called her insane even though she was completely right. In a lot of ways, I didn’t take her advice and I did model the things I appreciated with what she appreciated because she was right.
I’m not sure how sane doing that was, but it didn’t earn her any money.
Also, she clearly knows from the video that pets are often better companions than people.
They keep saying the same things over and over again and no one listens.
I thought the point was to end up smarter at the end.
