From my poetry blog
However Slight
however slight
the unconvincing smile;
frozen lilt of a tongue
and an Irish grave
turn away
tomorrow’s spoilers
for today’s surprises
I wake; you sleep,
there is a bite
to the breeze
stirring broken glass,
however slight
©AndrewJamesMurray
I can’t believe it’s a year since I posted about the sudden death of Dolores O’Riordan, lead singer of the Cranberries. This first anniversary was marked today by the release of the song All Over Now, which comes from the album In The End, an album for which Dolores had recorded final demo-stage vocals for. The three surviving band members honoured Dolores with the finishing of the album, confirming it will be the group’s final one.
Another honouring was this video that I found online. Dolores was from Limerick, in Ireland, and Limerick artists of every genre came together to record a version of the Cranberries song When You’re Gone. It’s a diverse and moving tribute from her fellow hometown musicians.
The sofa features in the video as a reference to one that appeared on several Cranberries’ album covers.
I decided to also include the original Cranberries video at the bottom of the post, the initial inspiration. It was played at the end of the singer’s funeral last year.
R.I.P Dolores.
I was saddened tonight to hear of the sudden death of Dolores O’Riordan. I used to like The Cranberries back in the 90’s, and the fact that she was the same age as I really hit home.
From Limerick, I loved that Irish accent of hers, haunting and evocative among the rolling guitar and drums.
From Wikipedia:
Their music has been likened to singers such as Sinéad O’Connor and Siouxsie and the Banshees. O’Riordan stated her singing style incorporating yodeling was inspired by her father who used to sing “The Lonesome Cattle Call”: “I just kept with my father all the time, just copying him and eventually I learned how to do it. Then over the years there were artists like Sinéad O’Connor and Siouxsie from Siouxsie and the Banshees and even Peter Harvey was doing it. It was something that you could work into The Cranberries’ format because a lot of that was used in religious Irish music.”
The first song that brought them to my attention was the gorgeous ballad Linger with its dreamy vocal and strings, written about the singer’s first serious kiss. Almost twenty five years on this is still a favourite of mine.
The video to accompany Linger was shot in grayscale and is a tribute to Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 noir film Alphaville.
Another favourite Cranberries track is the protest song Zombie, written in the wake of the Warrington bombing that claimed the lives of two children. O’Riordan is strikingly painted gold in the video, standing at the foot of a cross. Patrolling soldiers and children playing in Northern Ireland also feature.
Beginning
Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken
the first time I encountered it I heard the ‘1916’ reference and thought it was about a traumatised ex-soldier, but I guess that works too, for victims of warfare and violence belong to a timeline that knows no end. As Dolores sings:
It’s the same old theme/Since nineteen-sixteen
I can recall many nights in my local pub in the nineties when this heavier Cranberries song was coming out from the jukebox. Some of them at the cost of my loose change.
R.I.P Dolores. Thanks for the music. Hope you’ve found peace.
City Jackdaw 