The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Those of you who are Roman Catholic know that the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated every year on the 8th of December, a date which improbably ties together two musical figures: John Lennon and Sinead O'Connor. It's the date that Lennon was murdered in New York City in 1980 and, in 1966, O'Connor chose the same date to enter the world via Dublin, Ireland.

It seems more logical to me to start with the birth.

Sinead Marie-Bernadette O'Connor is famous for a few things: her cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U", her shaved head, and ripping up that picture of Pope John Paul II during her second appearance on Saturday Night Live.

I'm actually surprised that the song is available on YouTube since its author, Prince, is notoriously against any of his work showing up on any websites other than his own. But you can click the link and watch the video. I remember Sinead's Behind the Music special on VH1 from around the year 2000 (some of those episodes used to run so much, I ended up memorizing parts of quite a few of them). I can recall her saying that when shooting the video, her tears started on the line,"All the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the backyard..." because her own mother, whom O'Connor said abused her and her siblings, died in a car accident a few years before.

That abuse that she spoke of indirectly led to the Papal photo incident, as she was trying to make a statement about the Vatican's reluctance to punish any Roman Catholic priests when they were accused of sexual assault on the underage portion of their congregations. (In recent years it has become public knowledge that the Catholic Church would just shuffle an accused priest to a different diocese in order to quiet those types of allegations.) NBC and Lorne Michael will not allow the footage of that particular SNL moment to be shown again; when the episode is replayed, the tape of O'Connor's dress rehearsal is shown instead. I actually watched it live (Tim Robbins was the host). I remember the deathly silence in the audience after O'Connor tore up that picture and then walked offstage. I also remember thinking,"Ooooooh boy. That's gonna be in the paper tomorrow!" And then at the end of the show when everyone stood on stage to say goodnight, there was a definite bubble of space around Sinead, as if standing near her would demonstrate support for what she did. And, on a more personal note, I remember my devoutly Roman Catholic mother stabbing her finger at Sinead's picture in that Monday's paper and asking me,"Did you watch this?!?!" and me replying with a simple,"Yep," and Mom shaking her head in disbelief that such a thing could happen on television. (Full disclosure: I became Catholic at age five which, in my case, was not early enough for the religion to take hold so I was not personally offended by O'Connor's gesture but I understood that a lot of folks were gonna be pissed.)

And finally, regarding the hair, I don't think she really needs it. I mean look at that face; I think she's a beautiful lady.

Here's Sinead with a little help from MC Lyte



I saw a performance of this song on television (it might have been the other song Sinead sang on that imfamous SNL episode but I'm fuzzy on that) and thought it was gorgeous. It's from her collection of torch songs that she listened to growing up called Am I Not Your Girl?



Sinead during one of her "hairy" phases singing out against child abuse



Now for the death.

Paul McCartney wrote a tribute to his old friend called "Here Today," the video of which is below. The tall, lanky gentleman with the greying hair is George Martin (now entitled Sir), the man who produced all of the Beatles' albums.



Elton John collaborated with Lennon for "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" for Lennon's Walls and Bridges. Elton John bet Lennon that the song would reach number one. Since "Whatever" hit the top spot on the Billboard chart on 16 November 1974, Elton collected on the bet twelve nights later at his Thanksgiving performance at New York City's Madison Square Garden when he brought Lennon out to play and sing. Lennon would never make another major concert performance. (I've heard there is no live footage of this appearance, hence the picture with the audio attached.)



Elton John is reportedly the godfather of Lennon's second son, Sean. After the 1980 murder, Elton and his long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote a song for the fallen friend called "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)," a reference to Madison Square Garden.






As I was about to post this, I found out that 8 December is Gregg Allman's birthday as well. So let's throw a little love Gregg's way and spread some of that Allman joy! (The Allman Joys was the name of the first band that Gregory Lenoir and his older brother Howard Duane formed. Catchy huh?) Below is the Allman Brothers performing my favorite of theirs, "Whipping Post," in two parts on 23 September 1970. Gregg, all of 22, is singing and playing the organ. You can spot long-time, and now former, Allman Bros. guitarist Dickey Betts looking like Errol Flynn in Robin Hood with his chin length hair and mustache. The shaggy blonde axeman in the tie-dye T-shirt is Duane. He would die in a motorcycle accident thirteen months later.

John Lennon

Something else I missed in October: John Lennon's birthday on 9 October. And of course the birthday of his "beautiful boy" Sean. To commemorate the occasion, I'm posting one of my favorite Beatles videos that I first saw on the Beatles Anthology. They are lip-synching a performance of "We Can Work It Out" and Paul is warily eyeing John because he knows John is trying to make him laugh. Which is exactly what happens by the end.



Here's the Happy Birthday message Janis Joplin recorded for Lennon's 30th birthday in 1970. It would turn out to be one of her last recordings. Lennon received it after Janis' death on 4 October. He mentions that on the Dick Cavett Show during a conversation about drugs in the second clip.

He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss

So I watched Rihanna's interview this past Friday. Wow. She certainly went into detail and didn't seem to hold back. It was definitely a compelling interview. I admit that I started laughing when she watched for the first time Chris Brown's apology video that he had posted to YouTube and when Diane Sawyer asked for her assessment, Rihanna said it looked like he was reading from a teleprompter.

In other words, the apology did not seem to come from his heart, he was just reading some words (and he may not even be the one wrote those words). I'm glad I wasn't the only who thought so but, of course, it's a criticism that means much, much more coming from her since she'd been with him for so long.

Anyway, this situation reminds me of one of the most crazy-ass songs I've ever heard.

The first time I heard it was on Hole’s edition of MTV Unplugged. Courtney Love mentioned that the tune was written by Carole King and then began to wail,” He hit me and it felt like a kiss…” I remember thinking, ”Huh? Carole King wrote this? ‘I Feel the Earth Move’ Carole King? What the hell?!”

King and her co-writer, her then-husband Gerry Goffin, were inspired by their babysitter, Little Eva of “The Locomotion” fame. Relating how her boyfriend had been smacking her around, Eva claimed,” That must mean he really loves me.”

Guess who else was involved with this little sonic gem?

Phil Spector! (Yeah, I know. The perfect person, right?) He produced the song for the girl group The Crystals in 1962 on his Manhattan-based independent label Philles Records. Instead of infusing “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)” with any kind of irony or sarcasm, Spector chose to arrange the background chorus to sound like a choir of angels, as though showering the abusive relationship with heavenly hosannas as opposed to condemning it. According to Mark Ribowsky’s book He’s A Rebel, Spector’s label partner, producer and publisher Lester Sills, declared it a “terrible f***ing song” while years after writing it, Goffin admitted that “He Hit Me” was “a little radical for those times.”

So was “He Hit Me” a hit?

No.

Due to complaints and protest letters in some of the major markets, Spector and Sills pulled the single (the B-side was another Goffin/King tune called “No One Ever Tells You”) before the song could crack the Billboard Top 100 and could bring more negative publicity to Philles Records.

This is the original tune here. It's been covered by not only Hole, but also The Motels and the alt-rock group Grizzly Bear.



I don't have a clip of the song but I did find the lyrics for "No One Ever Tells You" as well as the words to another song that Goffin and King wrote around the same time as "He Hit Me" called, disturbingly enough, "Please Hurt Me."

You can visit the National Domestic Violence website by clicking here. For more immediate assistance you can call the 24-hour hotline: 1 800 799 SAFE(7233) TTY 1 800 787 3224.


PS It turns out that National Domestic Violence Awareness Month was in October. But the lives of famous women such as Rihanna and Tina Turner (whose birthday is coming on 26 November) and of course not-so-famous women show that this is a year-long problem. Years ago, when he was with the Beatles, even John Lennon made a comment on it. In the song "Getting Better" he wrote,"I used to be cruel to my woman, I'd beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved." He reportedly admitted years later in an interview that he was referring to an early part of his relationship with Yoko Ono before he straightened himself out.