Questions about Sinead O'Connor's "Silent Night" video

July 26, 2023 7:27 PM

I know this is out of season, but there were a few things I've always wondered about Sinead O'Connor's (RIP) video for her superlative version of Silent Night, if characters were more than they appear to be, etc. Or if I'm just overthinking it.

Sinead O'Connor's video for "Silent Night" takes place in Victorian England (?), starting with a man's attention being drawn to a singing Sinead in his doorway. The man follows Sinead (who fades away at one point) and pursues her. When he finally catches up to her, he hands a book to a smiling Sinead before collapsing. The last few seconds show pages from the book flying around, one of which is caught by another man who proceeds to read it. Sinead has of course disappeared again.

I've always wondered if, in the video, Sinead was supposed to be some sort of apparition (or even Death herself, hence the man collapsing at the end of the video. Unless he just collapsed from exhaustion). I also wonder what the book that the man gave to Sinead was supposed to be, and if it had any significance. Of course, I also wonder if I'm reading too much into the video, and it was just supposed to be an (albeit superior) case of "never mind the story, enjoy the imagery". Any thoughts (even if they include that I'm overthinking this)?

posted by gtrwolf to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

First off, I don't know anything special about this except it sounded interesting from your description so I went and watched it.

But, from having been involved in things like this over the years, I can tell you that they are pretty certainly intending to suggest some things and get your mind working in certain directions, and maybe even trying to fit a story or plot of your liking to it, but without exactly pinning it down. They're hoping you will think about it and try out different ideas and wonder about it and talk it over with other people.

For one thing, writiers/musicians/moviemakers are quite capable of making things very plain, clear, and obvious when they like. So the fact that they have chosen not to do so in this situation makes me thing they are aiming for suggesting different things rather than railroading the viewer into only one specific "correct" interpretation.

So I don't think there is (by design) just one certain correct interpretation but does make you think in certain directions and your thoughts are all pretty much right on target from my perspective.

A few of my thoughts:

- Lyrics "all is bright - round yon Virgin, Mother and Child" just exactly when Sinead appears, with exactly a halo of light around/behind her, does make you think right away that this character is identified with the virgin/mother or maybe also the Christ child, or at least in general some kind of heavenly being or generally spiritual thing. Or yeah, maybe ghost.

- All the sequences make me think that this ghostly being is trying to communicate to the people, and also the people (men) are trying to communicate back to the being - for example, via the book. But then, communication in both directions is not going so well and not much gets through.

- With some of O'Connor's background in mind, what this reminds me of is there is this spiritual truth and insight out there, and there are people who are very interested in tuning in to it, but then for various reasons not much communication really happens. Very little actually gets through despite people seemingly wanting it to. Despite a lot of apparent interest both sides just kind of slip past each other and very little if anything is communicated between them.

- And again thinking about O'Connor/Ireland/Catholic Church it is hard to not see this in relation to the Catholic Church, whose history in Ireland is nothing short of shocking. I confess when the "Fight the real enemy" incident happened I was sympathetic in a way but also, had in my mind that church people are usually trying to do their best just like the rest of us blah-blah-blah. It was only after listening to the two-part Behind the Bastards episode about Catholic Church atrocities in Ireland that it really sunk in to me that, yeah, the emotion O'Connor was directing towards the church leadership is very, very well earned. Honestly if you just totally left out the fact that this is a church, led by priests, nuns, and other religious leaders, and just told the story of what actually happened in Ireland over the Centuries, you would come to the conclusion that these were some of the worst, most reprehensible, most evil and depraved people in history.

Back the video, the positive/hopeful message here is that there really is something spiritual out there that is trying hard to get through, but even though people are trying hard to get the message still the connection is missed almost all the time.

But it seems like she's saying, bad things happen not because the universe is ultimately an empty and cold place - which it is easy to think might be the belief of someone who goes around saying basically, "Fuck the Pope." But she's not saying that, but rather presenting the message that there is some positive energy out there, it is is really trying to get through to people, and people are really trying to get through to it. And the bad things that happen are because both sides have a really difficult time making the connection, despite wanting to and despite trying.

(With that in mind it is worth remember that the "Fight the real enemy" incident happened in October 1992, whereas this was filmed in 1991 or maybe a bit sooner. Point is, these things would definitely have been on her mind in this period. There is positively, absolutely no way she was just singing Silent Night straight and simple like a six year old in Sunday School. There are some really complex thoughts and emotions behind this - whatever they might be exactly. But that's why O'Connor's version of this is never going to come out as some slight overproduced thoughtless pop version. Kinda the opposite of that really, even if you're just listening without taking the visuals into account. Even just the vocals are like muffled message that is just struggling to break out and get through but not quite able to do it.)

- Last bit is again a hopeful message, where the guy is trying to communicate a whole book's worth of information to the woman, and she can't receive any of it but, thanks to the (failed) attempt to communicate and completely DIFFERENT person actually is able to receive and tiny sliver of the whole thing, and it looks like he is pretty interested in it. Sometimes when you try to communicate it completely fails but then the attempt comes through, perhaps only in part, in a completely different way than you expected.

- I can almost, almost make out the title of the book. The fact that it is displayed with the front cover direct towards the camera a couple of times, makes me think that the title/author/theme of the book might indeed be relevant. You don't just wave the front cover straight in front of the camera accidentally. Nevertheless, with Youtube compression etc I definitely can't make it out.

I wouldn't stake my soul on any of those specific but that is what it makes me think of. It reminds me a lot of say Signet Classics or Penguin Classics book covers from around the 1980s. (In fact it looks a fair bit like this cover of the 1983 edition of Jane Eyre.)

One possible connection here, is maybe this is the type of thing one might buy on Oxford Street (aren't there a bunch of bookstores nearby or something?) and also, the period of the book shown relates to the period/costumes of the video. It's interesting that the book is a softcover and appears modern - definitely not period like most everything else in the video. So maybe it's just a concrete connection with "Oxford Street today".

- Finally, she mouths, or perhaps even softly speaks, some word just after "and mild". TWICE. I can't quite make out what it is, but surely significant, or at least interesting. (It might be, "We sing."? Or something that sounds similar?) Might be overprojecting, but it kinda reminds me of the "Fight the Real Enemy" incident, where she is singing one thing, but then pops in this related but different thing, that maybe most people won't quite get, right at the end.

As you can see from the voluminous text I've spewed out above, a lot of us think this type of thing is fun to bandy about. I wouldn't stand for certain on any single thing I wrote above, but I do think a lot of the point here is to get you thinking in a lot of different directions and generate discussion and different opinions. Maybe one person's thoughts spark another's, and so on.

To be potentially a little more concretely helpful, someone in the Youtube comments mentioned that this entire sequence comes from the 1991 tv special/movie The Ghosts of Oxford Street.

If you're in the UK you might be able to watch this online, but otherwise Malcomb McLaren Music has conveniently posted it in 4 parts to Youtube: Trailer, 1, 2, 3, 4.

McLaren was creator of the film, which premiered on Christmas Day 1991. So that might explain the reason Silent Night popped up here. And certainly the Sinead O'Connor episode has some relation to the rest of the film. So if you watch the whole thing it might give you some more things to think about. Though it sounds like Ghosts of Oxford Street is fairly loosely constructed, so it might give you more things to think about than concrete answers.
posted by flug at 11:05 PM on July 26, 2023

Regarding the book, the best view I could find was at 3:31 of the video. It does look a lot like both the cover of Jane Eyre and of Pride and Prejudice. It isn't either of them, though - for one thing, the book in the video has a tan-ish border. But something of that type, perhaps.

I screen-capped that bit of the video and applied a few very elementary enhancements here. Maybe someone else will recognize it, or can make out some of the words (which are almost legible) or can run some sort of CSI enhance and enlarge magic on it somehow.
posted by flug at 11:55 PM on July 26, 2023

I'm pretty convinced that the book is a 1980/90s Penguin Classics like this edition of Middlemarch. It looks like it's a longer title as it seems to be on two lines, but I can't get any closer than that yet.
posted by scorbet at 6:59 AM on July 27, 2023

I was also convinced it was a Penguin Classics edition so I went poking around based on that assumption. I think it could be this edition of Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey.

And searching for "Thomas de Quincey Oxford Street" got me to Ann of Oxford Street. Maybe this vignette is an allusion to them?
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:50 PM on July 27, 2023

Maybe this vignette is an allusion to them?

And looking at the IMDb entry for The Ghosts of Oxford Street we have Sinéad O’Connor playing "Ann of Oxford Street" and John Altman as Thomas de Quincey, so checks out…
posted by scorbet at 2:22 PM on July 27, 2023

My comment here is more about the audio than the video. I've had this song in my Christmas playlist for years, and many times repeat it to listen carefully. But of course it stopped me in my tracks this year when it appeared following some casual Christmas tune. I wasn't quite prepared to hear Sinead and had to stop what I was doing.

I definitely hear whispered vocals and possibly some added lyrics. I agree that she she seems to whisper either "We see," "We sees," or "We say" after "All is calm." It is a little different in each case. Her vowels change a lot in general in other recordings, so I'm not sure which it is. I believe this was recorded during the time she was studying "bel canto" and changing her approach to singing and letting her accent come through, but since I don't know exactly when this was recorded, I'm not sure. I also hear her adding, "son of god, and then, love's pure light." She fills in those two beats that are often either silent or sustained with the preceding syllable.

At first I thought there might be coded whispers in the song as mentioned before, but I think that some of the whispers are an echo of her singing (the lyrics with sibilance - s sounds) while in some cases, I think the sounds actually precede the lyric. So I can't tell if it's spoken word or some syllables moved around in the track. It's very mysterious and adds interest for sure.

Finally, I hear different words than "all is calm." I believe in the final verse (long version) she says, "All is love, we see all in right." This is lovely and I wonder if it's influenced by her interest and study of Rastafari. I suppose you could apply these words to almost any religion. There are a few other points where the lyrics seem to diverge from the traditional.

The extra measure added when she sings "heavenly peace" is divine. Finally, I wanted to say that I joined metafilter because of these comments. I appreciate all the thought put in this discussion. I really needed to talk about this song when it surprised me.
posted by suzmac at 1:18 PM on November 26, 2023