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‘She straddled love and illusion, a hell of a sacrifice’: Kristin Hersh on meeting Sinéad O’Connor

In this extract from her foreword to O’Connor’s collected interviews, the Throwing Muses musician recalls their backstage interaction about God, rage and acceptability

The cover of Sinéad O’Connor: The Last Interview Photograph: Melville House PublishingIt was an uncomfortable night, not our show – the Meltdown festival in London, not an event with which we were familiar – so we were jittery, hoping to be allowed to leave soon. ‘I’m not a musician,’ she announced flatly Dozens of people talked, laughed, dressed, undressed, fussed and drank around us, while we sat on a small, discarded riser, watching. “Can’t play music without life.” Speakers on the wall crackled, then beeped, and a voice announced that it was 10 minutes until doors – meaning that the audience would soon murmur their way in, find seats and demand that we all turn sound check into a show together.

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