POP MUSIC : Out of the Darkness : Sinead O’Connor returns to the pop spotlight after working through problems of child abuse: ‘I was in a bad way as a result of what was going on within my family.’

Sinead O’Connor has made some of the most acclaimed music of recent years, but the sound that many Americans associate most closely with her is booing.

That’s what greeted the outspoken singer-songwriter nearly three years ago at a Bob Dylan tribute concert in New York, spurred no doubt by her tearing up a photograph of Pope John Paul II two weeks earlier on “Saturday Night Live.”

O’Connor, whose comments against materialism in the record industry had already made her a controversial pop figure, later explained that she tore the photograph in reaction to tensions in her own family that followed her public statements about being abused physically and emotionally by her mother (who died in a 1985 car accident).

“It was myself I was tearing apart,” the Irishwoman, who was raised a Roman Catholic, told England’s Q magazine last year. “In fact, just before that I was ostracized by my father and my brother [for commenting publicly about the abuse]. So the Pope is the symbol of the father. . . . I was trying to say to everyone, ‘Look, help!’ I needed help with my family. I wanted everyone to look at my family and tell me how to fix it.”

O’Connor largely disappeared from the pop scene after the Dylan concert to resolve those personal tensions.

So it was a dramatic moment indeed when she walked onstage earlier this month during the Lollapalooza ’95 concert here for her first formal U.S. appearance since the booing incident.

Would the 18,500 fans at the Gorge Amphitheatre, about 160 miles east of Seattle, also be hostile?

Or would they even care about her at all after three years? After all, O’Connor’s “Universal Mother” album virtually sank without a trace last year.

The audience’s reaction at Lollapalooza ’95 was immediate and strong.

As O’Connor, 28, stepped to the microphone, there were only cheers as the crowd gave her a heroine’s welcome, and she responded with a wonderfully graceful and moving performance. Instead of the old hits, such as “Nothing Compares 2 U,” she concentrated boldly on the deeply personal songs from “Universal Mother” that deal with her struggle as a victim of child abuse.

Backstage later, O’Connor, whose short, pixie-style haircut has replaced her trademark shaved head, appeared comforted by the warm response as she spoke about the Dylan tribute, the years away from the pop spotlight and her continuing crusade against child abuse:

*

Question: Let’s go back to the night of the Dylan concert. Were you crushed by the booing?

Answer: No, and I’m glad we are getting a chance to clear this up because what the media forgot to write about at the time was that 50% of the audience that night were cheering. I actually felt a lot of support. Even though the media would give you the impression that I’m hated, I’ve been very fortunate to have always felt affection from audiences.

*

Q: So that booing didn’t drive you into hiding all these years?

A: Not at all. I was definitely in a very bad way, but it wasn’t necessarily as a result of that night or even my experiences in the pop world. I was in a bad way as a result of what was going on within my family, so I had to take a few years to recover from that basically.

*

Q: Were there times in the last five years that you felt like giving up, when things seemed hopeless?

A: There were lots of times when I felt I’d like to give everything up, including living, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I would or could give it up. The thing that saved me was therapy. I went specifically to people who specialize in the treatment of survivors of child abuse. I’m still in the process of doing that.

*

Q: When did you start feeling strong enough again to resume your career?

A: When I put the album out in September. I was even ready to go out on tour, except I am also a mother and I didn’t want to leave Jake [her 8-year-old son]. I wanted to wait until he was on summer holidays, so I could bring him.

*

Q: Why did you record Kurt Cobain’s “All Apologies” on your last album? Did you feel a connection with Cobain, who also spoke about a very troubled childhood?

A: I’m glad you are asking this because I’ve been enraged about the Kurt Cobain thing for a long time because I object on behalf of all abused children to this publicizing the idea that he [committed suicide] because he became famous and didn’t know how to deal with it.

That’s a cover for what actually did take place with him when he was a child. If he had been [equipped] with a sense of self-esteem, he would have been able to cope with the things in his life. People who do heroin, people who want to die, are all abused children.

*

Q: Lots of people, especially adults, don’t understand why people like Cobain and Eddie Vedder say they are having a hard time adjusting to pop stardom. Haven’t rock stars, from Elvis on, always wanted to be stars?

A: And look at them. So many of them died or killed themselves in one way or another. One of the things I’d love to do is write a book about rock stars’ childhoods . . . and all the abuse you’ll find there. I am not going to name names, but I know quite a lot of them, and they were all victims of child abuse. I know one very, very famous rock star who spent most of his childhood locked up in a basement. Michael Jackson has talked about his childhood. In the book, I’d ask them to write about their own experiences, even if they didn’t want to be named.

*

Q: Lots of adults also think of the anger and negativity in so much contemporary rock as simply whining or calculated. Why do you think there is such anger?

A: Listen again to what St. Augustine said: “Anger is the first step toward courage.” If we weren’t angry, we would never get out of the bed in the morning. A lot of us have a right to be angry, but then you move through the anger and you get to forgiveness.

The rock stars of the country are not rock stars by coincidence. The young people have chosen Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder and Courtney Love to represent them because they see some of themselves in these people.

*

Q: What do you say to people who don’t want to read about child abuse?

A: If some people don’t want to read it, that’s fine. I respect that, but there are those of us who do, and those who don’t want to read it don’t have the right to shut us up.

*

Q: Do you think it could threaten your career by turning people off?

A: I don’t mind if it threatens my career. There are no pockets in the shroud, if you know what I mean. When you die, nothing is going with you. You don’t take your money or your career or anything else with you. My career is not that important to me.

Besides, if anyone has really been paying attention to my music, they’ll understand that I’ve always been dealing with issues of child abuse in one way or another. I think you’ll find a certain percentage of my fans are also victims of child abuse.

*

Q: Do you think society is becoming more aware of child abuse as an issue?

A: I notice now that people in America are talking about it more, and I see it on the news more than ever.

*

Q: What was the most helpful part of the therapy?

A: It teaches you how to trust, which is something that is destroyed through child abuse.

*

Q: You seemed very much in command onstage. Would you go so far as to apply the word happy to your mood these days?

A: I guess I am OK. I am getting where I want to be. For the first time, I have actually experienced what it is like to be happy--all because I took myself into treatment. And that’s the message I’d like to pass on to people who like me because they recognize themselves in me: There is hope.

A lot of people think the only avenue available to them is drugs--that life is meant to be miserable, therefore there can’t possibly be joy or happiness, when in fact that is not true. They need to know that they can get better. That’s why it is important to keep talking about this, even in the face of deafness.