Songful Style: “Zombie”

Well, I’m finally going to say it which means it will frost! I think Spring has come to Indiana. Everything is coming up roses, literally! My rose bushes both have buds that look to bloom in a week or so. There are a couple of perennials on the hump that don’t appear to be coming back. But, my creeping phlox is almost done for the year. I surely do wish it bloomed all summer long. The days are warm, and the nights are cool. Honestly, it could stay this way for about six months! Anyway, welcome to the last Monday in April and another edition of Songful Style! Suzy and Shelbee decided to riff (see what I did there) on Style Imitating Art only with music! Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, Suzy of Suzy Turner, and I make up the bloggers in this group. You can find all of us on our blogs and Instagram.  Our ensembles (pun intended) may be inspired by the lyrics of a song, the artwork of the album cover, maybe the MTV video, or even a memory the song evokes. Shelbee chose this month’s song. Last time, I selected “I Love Rock n Roll” by Joan Jett. Oh, and there’s a link party, too!

The band…

In the mid 1980s, four young men formed a band in Limerick, Ireland, and called it The Cranberry Saw Us.  Noel Hogan, guitarist, and his brother, Mike, bassist, were descendants of the nineteenth century Irish poet, Michael Hogan.  Other members were Fergal Lawler, drummer, and Niall Quinn, vocalist.  Quinn also played with his own group, Hitchers.  Eventually, Quinn decided to remain with the Hogan brothers and Lawler.  They released a demo EP, Anything, in January 1990.  After the release, Quinn left the group, and the remaining three formed an instrumental group.  After a few months, they placed an ad for a female singer.  Interestingly enough, Quinn introduced the group to a friend of his girlfriend’s sister who came from Ballybricken, a small town outside Limerick.  This young woman just happened to be a singer-songwriter and was looking for a group who would compose original music.  That young woman was Dolores O’Riordan. 

And then…

On a Sunday afternoon, the eighteen year old O’Riordan cycled to audition for the trio at Xeric Studios.  “When Dolores came to audition for them, a rural girl suddenly among city boys, she was “quiet as a mouse”, as Noel recalls – until she sang, that is. “We were immediately, blown away,” says Mike. “Her voice was something special.” Dolores, in turn, was enamoured by the boys. “I really liked what I heard; I thought they were nice and tight,” she later recalled. “It was a lovely potential band but they needed a singer – and direction.” There was no question that they had found their new fourth member.”  Neil gave her a cassette demo with some chord sequences of indie-jangly guitar sounds.  O’Riordan took them home and began writing lyrics as well as overlaying melodies.  Within the week, she returned with the beginnings of the song, “Linger.”  “Mike Hogan later described it as ‘we were immediately blown away, her voice was something special.’ Noel Hogan elaborated, ‘she was so small and quiet… then she opened her mouth and this amazing voice, this huge voice came out for the size of her’ and then acknowledged: ‘how come she’s not already in a band? […] that day changed our lives.’”

Dolores O’Riordan…

Sometime after O’Riordan joined the group, the band’s name was shortened to The Cranberries.  Luckily for the Hogans and Lawler, they not only got a front person, but a brilliant musician.  O’Riordan learnt classical piano and played piano and harmonium in her local church as well as singing in the choir.  At age 17, she taught herself guitar.  Noel Hogan said she had an “amazing ear” which forced the others to up their game.  The songwriters, Noel and Dolores clicked quickly and discovered their own rhythm for working.  They never wrote in the same room.  Noel would record the guitar parts on cassette, then give it to Dolores to write verses and chorus in her own “space and time.”  They wrote several songs during the first two years of the band.  Noel remembered, “It was that thing where you’ve found somebody that you clicked with, and you wanted to get as much as you could out of that.”  By the summer of 1991, the band had signed to Island Records because Denny Cordell, the legendary record producer, was Island’s A& R (artists and repertoire) man.  Cordell recognized there was something special about the group and gave them time to develop.  He suggested doing some touring in those early days. 

“Linger”…

By 1992, they had begun recording “Everybody Else is Doing It So Why Can’t We? with Stephen Street who had worked with the Smiths as well as co-writing Morrissey’s first solo album.  With his involvement, the album was sure to be a hit. It was released in March 1993.  Dolores named ever album.  This title “expressed perfectly their determination to succeed…Why shouldn’t a band from a small city in the Southwest of Ireland get signed, conquer the world, and make a great record?”  Their first hit was “Linger” which was a hit in the United States on college radios.  The band then toured across the pond.  It would be number one in both Ireland and the UK as well as selling more than six million copies worldwide. 

The beginning of success…

Before the album’s release, the band had taken Street’s advice and toured Ireland and the UK to promote the release of “Everybody Else is Doing It So Why Can’t We?.”  Between 1991 and 1993, they also recorded studio and live sessions for Irish and British radio and television shows.  Unfortunately, neither the album nor the singles, “Linger” and “Dream” would garner much attention in the Uk at first.  So, the group went to Paris as one does!  They recorded a live radio program, Black Session and sang 12 songs!  Following this, MTV discovered their videos and played them over and over again.  The band had been touring with Suede. Halfway through the tour, the order was reversed with the Cranberries now being the headliner with Suede as the opening act.  Now, here is where I have some differing information.  One source says “Linger” reached number one in Ireland while another says it reached number three.  Anyway, it was in the top ten!  It stayed on the charts for 24 weeks.  “Dreams,” released in May 1994 reached number 27 on the UK charts and the Top 15 on US Alternative Airplay list.  By mid-1994, the Cranberries’ North America tour was drawing attendance from 10,000 to 13,500 people per show.  On October 3, 1994, No Need to Argue was released. It contained “Zombie” which would spend six weeks at number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs.

“Zombie”…

From the band’s bio page: “After that, no one would have expected Zombie: the leadoff single from 1994’s second album, No Need to Argue, and an era-defining howl of rage. Inspired by the IRA Warrington bombings, which left two boys dead, it saw Dolores fiercely decrying the violence of the Irish conflict over distorted, hard-rock guitars. “This song is our cry against man’s inhumanity to man, inhumanity to child. And war, babies dying, and Belfast, and Bosnia, and Rwanda,” she explained at the time. “It was a turning point for us,” recalls Noel. “I always remember the day she came in with it. We were in a tiny little shed in Limerick, where we were rehearsing. She came in and started playing it on acoustic guitar and we played along but she was like ‘no this needs to be heavy, it’s an angry song, and it needs to reflect that.’ As well as having an immense cultural impact, it was transformative for the band musically. “We learned from that song that you can actually do a lot with that aggression – and particularly live, it made a massive difference to us, because we became this loud, anthemic band all of a sudden,” says Noel. They carried both its harder sound and wider lyrical focus onto their third album, 1996’s To the Faithful Departed.”

A little more…

The Cranberries received a nomination for Best Contemporary Song for “Zombie” at the Ivor Novello Awards.  In 1995, the band was “Ireland’s biggest musical export since U2.”  During that same year, the band performed “Ode to My Family” at the World Music Awards and won the Award for Best Irish Recording Artists.  They also received the same award at the 10^th annual Irish Music Awards held in Dublin.  On November 23, 1995, the Cranberries won “Best Song for Zombie” at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards, beating out Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone.”  No Need to Argue sold over 17 million copies worldwide.  It has been certified five times platinum in Europe and Canada and seven times platinum in the US.  The Cranberries released five more albums with more or less success after No Need to Argue.  In September 2003, the band decided to take some time so that each could pursue individual endeavors, concentrate on family and cancelled sessions for a sixth studio album. The hiatus was to be about two years.  As O’Riordan put it, “we’ve been together for 13 years; it’s a much needed break. It was getting predictable and lacking in a challenge; time to experiment.”  O’Riordan even sang with Luciano Pavrotti (check it out on YouTube).  Each member of the group did something a little different.  In 2009, the group reunited and recorded Roses which was released in 2011.  Something Else was recorded and released in 2017.  The band planned a tour but ad to cancel due to O’Riordan’s health problems.

O’Riordan’s health…

Dolores O’Riordan suffered from depression as well as from the pressure of success. In 2015, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  In addition to all this, she had been a victim of SA when she was a child.  In October 2013, O’Riordan told her close friend and journalist, Barry Egan she had attempted suicide by overdosing on medication.  I’m not sure how far she got in that attempt as she also said she “wanted to live for her kids.”  O’Riordan also spoke of the SA she experienced from ages 8 to 12.  She “developed depression, deep self-loathing and suicidal thoughts over the years which were worsened by her accelerating career and led to anorexia.”  Unfortunately, her abuser introduced himself to her at her father’s funeral and apologized for the SA.  She said, “I had nightmares for a year before my father’s death about meeting him. … I didn’t see him for years and years and then I saw him at my father’s funeral. I had blocked him out of my life.”  On January 18, 2018, Dolores O’Riordan died in London where she had come for a studio mixing session for her D.A.R.K album.  The results of the inquest into her death were delayed and on September 6, the ruling was she had accidentally drowned in her hotel room’s bathtub due to sedation by alcohol poisoning.  After her death, Dolores O’Riordan was named “The Top Female Artist of All Time” on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart. 

In the End…

During the 2017 tour with the Cranberries, Hogan and O’Riordan had written and demoed eleven tracks.  “Her recorded vocal demos for the album were stored in her personal hard disk drive from her home in New York City.”  Hogan stated: “We will do this album and that will be it. No one wants to do this without Dolores…So there’s a song called ‘In the End,’ it’s the last song on the album, and it just kind of summed up the whole album and the band.  Because it’s definitely the end of it for us.  So we’ve called it that.’”  One year after her death, on January 15, 2019, the band released “All Over Now,” the first single from In the End.  The very last song recorded by O’Riordan before her death, “In the End,” was released on April 16, 2019.  The album, itself, was released on April 26, 2019.  It peaked at No. 3 in Ireland.  In the End was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 62^nd Annual Grammy Awards.

Music video…

On April 18, 2020, the official music video for “Zombie” became the first song by an Irish band to reach over one billion views on YouTube.  This made it the third video from the 1990s and the sixth from the 20^th century to reach the milestone on YouTube.  I encourage you to read the band’s bio which I’ve linked below.  It doesn’t appear to have been updated in the years following Dolores’ death.  I think it’s quite a tribute to O’Riordan that the group did, indeed, disband following her death as she and her unforgettable voice were the Cranberries.

The song…

What it means…

This is not a complicated song, and yet it is. I remember “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Just a brief bit of history before going onto the meaning because it’s relevant. The Troubles began in the late 60s and lasted until April 10, 1998. In case you weren’t aware, like me, these two Irelands are completely different countries. They even have different money. In the 60s, the Republic of Ireland which was mainly Catholic wanted to remain as part of the United Kingdom. The people of Northern Ireland wanted to united both countries into one Ireland. Northern Ireland is also primarily Catholic. So, The Troubles was not a religious war although nearly every local expert on our trip indicated it was. It was a war of deciding independence from the UK, I believe. It’s very convoluted to me. I know it makes perfect sense to the people of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. I think this song and this history hits me hard because I remember The Troubles as well as just visiting the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in 2024. Many of the painted murals you see in the official video were similar (if not the exact) to the ones I saw on my trip. During The Troubles, over 3,500 people died, 52% of them civilian. Thousands were injured and 10,000 bomb attacks occurred. You’ve probably heard of the IRA (not the investment) which is the Provisional Irish Republican Army. They were one of the paramilitary groups involved in the war. Others were the Ulster Volunteer Force, and the Ulster Defense Association as well as the British forces. O’Riordan wrote the song as she passed near the location where two young boys were killed while on tour. ‘Specifically, she wrote the song about the deaths of three-year-old Johnathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Perry. Both had died in bombings. The two young boys had gone into town to buy Mother’s Day cards on a busy street when the bomb went off.”

“There were a lot of bombs going off in London and I remember this one time a child was killed when a bomb was put in a rubbish bin – that’s why there’s that line in the song, A child is slowly taken,’” said O’Riordan in 2017, a year before she died at age 46 on January 15, 2018. “We were on a tour bus and I was near the location where it happened, so it really struck me hard – I was quite young, but I remember being devastated about the innocent children being pulled into that kind of thing. So I suppose that’s why I was saying, ‘It’s not me’ – that even though I’m Irish it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it. Because being Irish, it was quite hard, especially in the UK when there was so much tension.”

In 1994, O’Riordan said of the song that she was upset that bombings and warfare were being undertaken in the name of Ireland. “The [Irish Republican Army] is not me. I’m not the IRA. The Cranberries are not the IRA. My family is not. When it says in the song, It’s not me, it’s not my family, that’s what I’m saying. It’s not Ireland, it’s some idiots living in the past.”

“The title of the song and its chorus is likely a reference to mindless troops, just following what the authorities say, killing or harming with no personal thought on the matter. Others believe that the zombies might be the many dead in Ireland who continue to haunt the region with their memories.”

The video…

Interesting covers…

Now, this is pretty fabulous as far as aesthetics go, and if you didn’t know better, you’d almost think it was O’Riordan. I have to admit I pretty much love this one!

A guy’s take on the song…I don’t know. It feels like he’s trying too hard.

I like this one, but it’s just ok.

I knew Leo would have to do a cover of “Zombie!” You can stop listening at about five minutes because the rest is advertisement for his studio, I think…it’s kinda weird!

OK, it’s Miley Cyrus, and she tries to imbue some passion into the song. But, it’s like Miley trying to be Dolores O’Riordan, and it doesn’t really do it for me.

Sources…

About the song

Dolores O’Riordan

Cranberries website

The Troubles

The Cranberries

My interpretation…

There are times, when I do these style challenges, that I can pick up on something in the video or from the mood or even my memories. Nigel loves this song and plays it frequently, but I’d never watched the video. I don’t own any golden gowns, and I wasn’t up for painting my body gold. So, I went with the mood. Given that this is a protest song about the deaths of two young boys, I decided on black. I’m wearing an old sundress from Old Navy with a black lace Halftee under it. I thought it looked like something O’Riordan might wear at a concert. I also thought it was funereal enough for the sentiments of the song. I’m also wearing my hair topper! Isn’t it wonderful?

The Lewk!

O’Riordan liked to perform barefoot on stage. I figured her for a Chuck Taylor kinda singer, too. But, I don’t own any Chucks! So, I went with these Adidas sneakers. After looking at the photos, I think I might should have worn my black L’Artiste Siren boots because they would have played into the slightly tragic gothic look I was going for. I don’t own any crucifixes or crosses because I’m betting Dolores did. Instead I chose this Kendra Scott necklace that is heavy like I think of crucifixes. I added the matching cuff bracelet (over the lace sleeve) and earrings.

Wrap it up, Marsha!

We have done songs by artists who are deceased before, but this one really makes me sad. I cannot imagine the pain O’Riordan was in throughout her life. I’ve suffered from bouts of depression (not clinical) so I know how it can affect your mindset. It’s always such a huge loss to the world when an artist of this caliber dies. So, can we talk? Were you aware of the Cranberries’ popularity around the world? What do you think of the decision to disband the group once O’Riordan died? Which cover video was your favorite? Please leave me a comment or two, and we can talk. I promise to respond as quickly as I can.

Thank you!

Thank you so very much for reading today’s post. I hope you enjoyed it. I also very much appreciate those of you who comment, email and/or subscribe. It’s what keeps me going! If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, you can find me here.

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Where you can find me:

Linking up with Nancy’s Fashion Style,  Fine-Whatever, Is This Mutton, Shelbee on the Edge, Chez Mireile, Suzy Turner, and Away from the Blue as well as Deb’s World. I also link up with I do deClaire, Mummabstylish, Style Splash and Elegantly Dressed and Stylish as well as the Senior Salon Pit Stop (Esme’s Salon) and Slices of Life. Please check out these wonderful ladies and their blogs! I also am a co-host for Ageless Style on the third Thursday of the month and Songful Style on the last Monday of the month as well as the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday. I co-host Traffic Jam Weekend every Thursday with Melynda, Lisa, Cat, and Rena. I also host Final Fridays on the last Friday of the month as well as 10 on the 10th on the 10th of the month! I do hope you’ll check out all of these blogs and link parties!

And, now, it’s your turn!

Please link up your favorite posts, DIY, baking, gardening, fashion…you name it…as long as it’s family friendly! Link up with me, visit a couple of others, and leave a comment or two! No worries if you don’t have a blog, just look around! You may find a new blog just waiting for you!

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