Whenever I respond to people's inquiries as to the date of my birthday, the next comment is almost inevitably, "Oh, yeah, that's the day John Lennon died."
Yeah, I know, it was all over the news on the evening of my fourth birthday. It's the sad fact that will most likely ruin any chance I have of interviewing Yoko Ono in the future. Stop making me feel like the kid whose elderly relative died on his/her birthday and whose other elderly relatives bring it up every year.
But, there is more to December 8 than that. It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, which really hasn't meant anything to me since I graduated from a Catholic high school and stopped getting the day off from class. And, while we are on the subjects of Catholics, today is also the natal celebration for a certain pop star-turned-priest-turned-reggae artist.
Yes, dear readers, today Sinead O'Connor turns thirty-nine, making her precisely ten years older than yours truly. Honestly, I feel damn proud to share the date with Ms. O'Connor, as she has been one of my favorite singers since I heard "Mandinka" on KROQ back in elementary school.
Since this is Ms. O'Connor's birthday, I suggest you locate your copy of The Lion and the Cobra (and if you don't have it, for shame) and listen to "Troy" until the song forces you to curl up in the fetal position on your bed while balling.
Sometimes, if we were lucky, the DJs at Helter Skelter would play "Troy" and the dance floor would turn into a black velvet sea of heartbreak slowly morphing into tidals waves of "I'm just a cold dark candle in the cruel white world" style anger. You can hear it in the song, the forlorn recollections of "Dublin in a rainstorm, sitting in the long grass in summer, keeping warm" building to the realization that "there is no other Troy, for me to burn" and culminating in the cries of "You're still a liar!" As we drove from club to club, My friend Angel and I would blast the song from his SUV, screaming along to this song. He could hit the notes. I could not.
I would go through fazes of just listening to "Troy" over and over again, listening to the buildup and wondering how could someone who was, at the time of the recording, no more than 21 write something so gut-wrenching, something that might actually be classified as genius? Sinead O'Connor has a rare, underappreciated gift. We should declare today Sinead Day.