Paul Bergen/Redferns
Sinéad had just flown in from London and was exhausted. I had just flown in from covering the war in El Salvador and was shattered. What we both needed was a good night’s sleep, instead we were having lunch at some trendy, yuppie restaurant called “America” on 18th Street with my agent, Susan Lee Cohen, who was delighted to meet Sinéad.
Susan was the only happy one at our table, as both Sinéad and I were ready to collapse. We both ordered fluffernutters and barely had the strength to get them up to our mouths, but Susan was beaming as the yuppies from the surrounding tables stared at Sinéad’s bald head, as she wasn’t yet that well known in America. Her first album, “The Lion and The Cobra,” had only been released the year before and Sinéad was just gathering the attention she deserved.
I met Sinéad while during an interview with her for a Spin magazine cover story, and before I met her, I was marveling at all the beautiful receptionists inside Sinéad’s record company office—and then she trudged in wearing combat boots and an Elmer Fudd cap with the flaps down over her ears, and she took off the cap and I saw the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.