Amichai’s Top 50/23 Sinead O’Connor’s “Famine”
“And if there ever is gonna be healing
There has to be remembering
And then grieving
So that there then can be forgiving
There has to be knowledge and understanding”
Shuhada’ Davitt, the artist formerly known as Sinéad O’Connor released the album “Universal Mother” in 1994 and it instantly blew my mind. Somewhere between pagan and political truths, raw emotions and haunting lyrics – everything about the album became an echo of who I was becoming in my 20’s – taking on the narratives of the familiar, patriarchal, establishment, tap into the heart, the grief, the mother, the goddess, the body, the sensual.
“Famine” featured samples from Fiddler on the Roof, The Beatles, 90’s Irish political pleas for peace and universal screaming for healing on a personal and global scale. I saw her perform this LIVE in Jerusalem in 1996 and got to thank her backstage.
Inshallah, as Ms. Davitt, now a Muslim, honors Ramadan today, and all over the US people celebrate Mother’s Day — the famine for grand maternal love that defies conditions is fed, deeply.
Thank you Sinead/Shuada – for hearing me, healing me, bravely going there for us all in so many beautiful and heart breaking ways.
Happy Universal Mother’s Day!
– Amichai
Amichai’s Top 50: Soundtrack of my life. 4/20-6-8 2019/Passover-Shavuot 5779
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