-You're touring, I assume, not for money.
-I'm touring to make a living, yeah.
-Okay.
-Yeah, 'cause I didn't work for almost five years.
-This is where you --
-Guys, can you clear the stairs please?
Got women coming up.
-Alright, alright.
-I got out of hospital last year in May.
I'd been there for 7 months.
I had 8,000 quid in the bank. -Really?
-I had to go to work, you know? -Huh.
-What am I doing?
I'm doing something wrong. -Maybe that should be --
this one should be the other way around, I think.
-Let's try "Take Me to Church," and we'll see.
-Were you, um, nervous about going back on tour?
-Yeah, I was terrified.
♪ What have I been writing love songs for? ♪
♪ I don't want to write them anymore ♪
-And why --
Is that normal stage fright, or is that different?
-At first I thought nobody would want to go to the shows.
And second, I thought I was gonna forget the words,
was my biggest fear
because I hadn't sung them for five years.
But I was convinced no one would come.
I was crying to my father.
-Why did you think that, though?
Because time had elapsed?
-Because I know I had made such a public,
you know, car crash of myself. -Mm.
-Am I done now? -You can go.
Thanks a lot.
-It's been five years since audiences last saw
Sinéad O'Connor on a stage, and three years
since her heartbreaking cry for help,
a Facebook video from a New Jersey Travelodge.
-I hope that this video is somehow helpful.
-It's unpleasant to watch, but it's there.
She was struggling, alone,
and would soon return to Ireland to be hospitalized.
O'Connor then virtually went silent,
which is not what we think of
when we think of Sinéad O'Connor.
♪ I don't know no shame I feel no pain ♪
♪ I can't ♪
-She stood out from the start.
She looked different.
Her voice was stunning.
So were her songs.
She was not afraid to speak out for what she believed was right,
even if it got her into trouble sometimes.
-She says she doesn't like "The Star-Spangled Banner"
or any national anthem played before any of her concerts.
-Maybe I'm wrong about this one, but didn't you also pretend
you were someone else and protest yourself?
-The American national anthem thing.
The next gig we did was like Saratoga or whatever,
and there were supposed to be massive protests.
And so I put on a wig,
and me and my friends went to the protests,
pretending that we were anti-Sinéad O'Connor.
-That national anthem controversy was nothing compared
to what happened in 1992.
-Fight the real enemy! -That's when O'Connor tore up
a picture of Pope John Paul II on "Saturday Night Live."
This was years before the general public
recognized the abuse in the Catholic Church.
-Ladies and gentlemen, Sinéad O'Connor.
-Okay, turn this up.
Until the philosophy!
-When she appeared at a Bob Dylan tribute soon after,
the crowd shouted so much,
she had to abandon her planned performance.
-I definitely got blanked because of the Pope thing.
I mean, and I don't mind that I did that.
I had to do it. I was growing up and I had
[no audio] I had to get off my chest or whatever.
-You have two minutes. -In May 2019,
after getting out of the hospital,
O'Connor felt ready to return to the stage.
She also converted to Islam, which is why she wears a hijab.
And now she's back on the road for a 12-day,
8-show run down the west coast.
-Alright, guys, you're on.
Go over it. -A test return.
[cheers and applause]
-So was this show okay? You thought it was alright?
-Oh, my gosh! -Okay, good.
-It was amazing. -Good.
-Do you -- Do you have any way of knowing how it goes?
-If anyone was crying, I know it went well.
The other way I know if it's
going well is if there's anyone singing along.
-I met O'Connor as she was
heading down the coast of California.
All the shows were sold out.
She asked to ride with us during the 8-plus hours
it took to get from San Francisco
to San Juan Capistrano in Orange County.
What do you want to do, be out on the --
so after this tour,you do want to do one a little bit bigger.
Do you have an idea in your brain
of how much you'd want to be out on the road?
-Well, I guess I'll definitely do a year.
And then I'll see where I'm -- how I'm feeling
and how much money I need to earn.
Yeah. It's the only way I earn money.
There's no other way to earn money.
-I noticed on the tour, and it's probably
because you just started, but you don't have t-shirts.
-No, we haven't got round to any of that yet.
We didn't even get round to booking the hotel
we're staying in till tonight.
Yesterday, in San Francisco,
we didn't know where we were staying until we landed.
We had no idea, so haven't got round to merch.
-It doesn't seem like you have any trouble making peace
with the fact that we're driving around,
and you don't know where you're staying tonight.
-No, I don't get, actually.
I know we're playing. That's all that matters.
[music plays indistinctly]
He is singing like a guitar, isn't he?
-Yeah. -In 2015, O'Connor underwent
a radical hysterectomy
to relieve her chronic endometriosis.
But the procedure pushed her into premature menopause,
which went undiagnosed and unmedicated.
-I was a complete maniac after the hysterectomy.
I was a completely different person.
-And you got a therapist regularly?
-Yeah.
I'm not very good at going regularly.
No, but I've done four years, and I'm --
I've done nothing but four -- five years now in the nuthouse.
That's where I've been the last four or five years.
-When you say four years, you mean in and out?
You weren't actually -- -Oh, yeah, in and out.
But it's over now for six and seven months at a time.
I think everybody is supposed to break down
at least once in life.
You know?
Wake up. -Yeah.
I would be lying if I said I am not someone
who is carrying a lot of pain.
You know? As well as a lot of joy.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't want to make out like, "You know, being well
and managing your condition doesn't mean that you're not
going to feel like [no audio] sometimes.
It just means that when you feel like [no audio]
you can still get up and get on with your life.
-That's an important realization.
It's a derby term.
Radical acceptance, and it keeps her moving forward.
It means even if she's struggling
in one area of her life,
it doesn't mean everything needs to fall apart.
-Should we move on? Or are we --?
♪ Hey! Baby, one more time ♪
-Have you been writing at all? -I'm just beginning to write,
but I'm buying myself some time
because the last thing I want to write about
is what's been going on for the last four years.
So I wanted to live some life so I had something to write about.
And that's how different -- I love my life.
It's not always perfect and sometimes
I have a bad day or whatever.
Sometimes I'm sad or whatever, you know, or get anxious,
but life can be a pain in the [no audio]
hole, you know, for everybody.
We're all worried about money every day and blah blah.
But at the same time, I've come down to,
I love my life and I love my family and, you know.
Is this it? -This is it right there.
-Okay. -We made it.
Right?
-Ohh. Wonder how we get in?
-Uh. -Oh, we're in anyway.
[music plays] -Before I go on, I pray,
and I always pray before I go onstage,
and I always end up saying the same thing.
I want forgiveness.
I want to not cough my guts up in front of everyone.
I want to not make a fool of myself.
And I want to be a priest.
♪ It's been seven hours and fifteen days ♪
So when I say I want to be a priest, well,
a priest is hopefully by nature would have to be flawed.
You know?
But a priest is somebody by whom you know there is a god.
♪ I go out every night and sleep all day ♪
By them, you know, even though they're flawed, blah blah blah,
hopefully, if they're doing their job right,
you feel even for five minutes that yes, there's a [no audio]
god, there's some comfort in death
and some comfort therefore in life.
You know what I'm saying?
♪ I can do whatever I want ♪
And I don't know what the thought is,
but, yeah, there's something out there
that responds to the human voice.
I just want people to feel like they've been to church or better
when they've been to a show.
♪ I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant ♪
♪ But nothing, I said nothing can take away the blues ♪
♪ Because nothing compares ♪
♪ Nothing compares to you ♪