Kris Kristofferson Stood by Sinead O’Connor as the Boos Rained Down

On Oct. 16, 1992, Columbia Records threw its longtime artist Bob Dylan a concert at Madison Square Garden to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his singing with the label. The event, available on pay-per-view, featured performances by Dylan along with some of the biggest stars of his era, among them Stevie Wonder, George Harrison, Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton.

But it was the performance by the comparative newcomer Sinead O’Connor and the assist lent her by the country veteran Kris Kristofferson, who died Saturday at 88, that proved most memorable.

O’Connor, then just 25, was at the center of a firestorm. Just two weeks earlier, the Irish singer was the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” when, at the conclusion of her second and final performance of the evening, she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II and exhorted, “Fight the real enemy,” a defiant act of protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (and also, she later revealed, a deeply personal statement — the photograph had belonged to her mother, who had physically abused her). The incident drew widespread outrage and turned O’Connor into a cultural pariah.

Now, in the wake of that polarizing moment, it was Kristofferson who was tasked with bringing O’Connor to the stage.

“I’m real proud to introduce this next artist, whose name’s become synonymous with courage and integrity,” Kristofferson said, in obvious reference to the “S.N.L.” incident. (As he would later sing of O’Connor, “She told them her truth just as hard as she could/Her message profoundly was misunderstood.”)

O’Connor took the stage to a cascade of applause and boos, which did not let up as O’Connor stood silently at the microphone with her hands behind her back. A minute passed, and Kristofferson re-emerged from stage left, put his arm around O’Connor and whispered something in her ear.

As the pianist played the opening of O’Connor’s scheduled song, the Dylan track “I Believe in You,” O’Connor motioned the band to stop and proceeded to perform an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War” — the same song from that fateful “S.N.L.” performance, a confrontational track with lyrics primarily drawn from a speech the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I had delivered at the United Nations.

O’Connor ended the song and defiantly regarded the audience as the jeering persisted, and began to exit the stage — but not before Kristofferson again approached her, embraced her and walked off with her.

The moment connected the two musicians — the grizzled country songwriter and actor from Texas and the sweet-voiced singer from Dublin — for the rest of their lives. (O’Connor died last year at 56.) In 2010, the two performed a duet of Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” on an Irish talk show. It was a year after Kristofferson had released a song about the 1992 incident, “Sister Sinead.”

On that talk show appearance, Kristofferson recalled the 1992 evening at Madison Square Garden in more detail. As the hostile crowd threatened to drown out O’Connor’s performance that night, the concert’s organizers had asked Kristofferson to escort her off the stage. He refused, and instead went out and told her, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” To which, he said, she responded: “I’m not down.”

“It just seemed to me wrong, booing that little girl out there,” Kristofferson added all those years later. “She’s always had courage.”

Or, as he sang in “Sister Sinead”:

And maybe she’s crazy and maybe she ain’t

But so was Picasso and so were the saints

And she’s never been partial to shackles or chains

She’s too old for breaking and too young to tame