The Singing Nun

Folder: Rock'n'Roll Suicide
Play: At the end of the party
Jeannine Deckers
Belgian singer/songwriter/guitarist Soeur Sourire, known in the English-speaking world as the Singing Nun, She joined the Dominican order in 1954 under whose service she would eventually trade her name, Jeannine Deckers, for Sister Luc-Gabriell. While in the convent she wrote a couple of songs and she booked some time at the Phillips recording studio with the intent of giving away her songs as part of her missionary work. Phillips offered her a contract and dubbed her Soeur Sourire (' Sister Smile' ). Her first single, an homage to St. Dominic titled "Dominique", dominated the charts in 1963. After it was released in the States "Dominique" rose the U.S. charts and hit number one, marking Soeur Sourire (known in the U.S. as the Singing Nun) as the only Belgian to hit number one in the U.S. It topped the chart for ten weeks. Her sudden fame was more than she could handle and in 1965 she left the convent. After that she shocked her followers with her political song in favor of birth control, "Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill". She further alienated supporters by embracing radical stances and by her openly gay lifestyle.
later she opened a school for autistic children which she ran together with her friend Annie Pesscher through the '70s, but in the early ' 80s, the Belgium government informed Deckers that she owed over $60,000 in taxes on the profits of "Dominique". Since Deckers had donated all of the earnings from "Dominique" to her convent, she had no money to pay the fee. She became addicted to alcohol and pills, and played shows to try and pay off her debt, but when the government threatened to close the school, Deckers and Prescher wrote letters to their family and friends, then committed suicide together on March 29, 1985 via a mixture of barbiturates and alcohol.

Soeur Sourire - Dominique or here
Soeur Sourire - Dominique (Disco Version)