If you, if you could return
Don’t let it burn
Don’t let it fade
I’m sure I’m not being rude
But it’s just your attitude
It’s tearing me apart
It’s ruining every day
For me
It’s difficult to express what songs like Linger, Zombie and Dreams mean to you as a Northern Irish teenager of the nineties. It is hard to put into words just why the death of an artist like Dolores O’Riordan affects you the way it does. It taps into your youth, it taps into the zeitgeist of times gone by, it taps into what it was to be a teenager. There is something about her untimely and tragic death that connects us with our own mortality and the finality that those days that seemed to happen only moments ago, are now rooted in nostalgia. They are now a part of history.
I feel so young sat here writing this. I feel the same in many ways as I did when I was that teenager in Clubland, that almost woman, that child in my room listening to those lyrics and wishing I had written them as I was almost sure they were for me. I am not old but I am not young and she, like many others who I admired, who I loved and who were important players in my youth, is now dead. How can that be when I think I am so far from death myself?
I swore I would be true
And fellow, so did you
So why were you holding her hand?
Is that the way we stand?
Were you lying all the time?
Was it just a game to you?
But I’m in so deep
The angst of those years, the boys that we chased that were not for us, the hangovers that parents tried to ignore, the stress of exams, there was of course the troubles but they were just part of our life, we had been born into them and we knew nothing else. My teenage years were so much fun but there was heartache, there was confusion and there was drama, all of which kept the boredom away and were great distractions from our studies and of course the bombs. Those were both happy and tragic days and Dolores was a big part of the soundtrack to them.
The lyrics and music of songs like Linger are ethereal, they are just beyond our grasp, they are only with us as long as the song plays and even like me, when you play them repeatedly, they will still leave our minds at some point. During the height of the Cranberries popularity I thought I was invincible, I believed that time was never going to touch me, I believed that time was on my side. I was so wrong but I’m glad I felt like that, that feeling is amazing even if it is misguided. The lesson is painful but that ignorance was bliss while it lasted. I hope my children feel like this, they’ll learn soon enough that time is ruthless and relentless and I don’t want to be the one to burst that fragile bubble for them.
You know I’m such a fool for you
You’ve got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do have to let it linger?
Oh, I thought the world of you
I thought nothing could go wrong
But I was wrong, I was wrong
She sang with her Irish lilt and dulcet tones on full display and she embraced her culture which was great for us as young Irish people to see. The Cranberries were as Irish as you get and they were so cool, they were much cooler than the squeaky clean Corrs (who I loved also) and not on the same mega-star level as U2. They were the trendy, moody kids of the Irish music scene and we loved them for it.
Her voice was just stunning, it sounded strong, it sounded vulnerable, it sounded like she meant every word and so did we when we were singing along with her. She was one of the women of the nineties that stood for power, her and Alanis were the ones I most identified with. Anger, resentment, love, melancholy, grit and a beauty that is only found when you bare your soul and you stand in your unapologetic, brilliant, mind-blowing truth. That is what I admired about women and performers like Dolores and that was a remarkable thing to achieve at that time. Even in the nineties, a woman being truly authentic was quite a radical thing to be.
If you, if you could get by
Trying not to lie
Things wouldn’t be so confused
And I wouldn’t feel so used
But you always really knew
I just want to be with you
And I’m in so deep
So I played the song again whilst writing this to hear what it was that was special and within the first few bars my entire body was awash with goosebumps. Immediately I was transported not to a place in time but a space in time. A space in time where things were different, not better, just different. As the song played and the tears fell I have no idea what it was that I felt, I just knew I felt something. It reminded me of a conversation I had recently with someone who said that when you cannot describe something but it makes you feel something deeply then it can be considered a spiritual experience.
No matter who you think of when you hear the song, where you heard it, what you did at that time, the tragedy is that we know that the only difference between then and now is the defiant, inevitable and ruthless march of time. We are different yet we are not. We are so young but yet we are not. We have lost another one and none of us are ever truly ready to go, not like that, not now, not yet.
You know I’m such a fool for you
You’ve got me wrapped around your finger
Do have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do have to let it linger?
And I’m in so deep
You know I’m such a fool for you
You’ve got me wrapped around your finger
We take so much for granted in this beautiful, precious life of ours. We think we have all the time in the world but really we don’t. We only have one chance at these days and whilst songs like Linger and singers like Dolores remove us from the mundanity and detach us from the reality of our lives and take us somewhere special, somewhere meaningful, they are also reminding us to truly live. And to live a good and meaningful life is to feel it all.
Artists like Dolores help us find the words we didn’t know we could say, they help us express the feelings we didn’t know we had. They take us to the places within ourselves that we rarely acknowledge or are not encouraged to look at. Thank you Dolores. Thank you for the music. Thank you for the memories. Rest in peace and know that you have left a remarkable legacy for a generation who will always feel like teenagers even when we are old and grey. You helped guide us through those brilliant but difficult years and I for one will always love and appreciate you for it.
Do have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do have to let it linger?
You know I’m such a fool for you
You’ve got me wrapped around your finger
Do have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do have to let it linger?
Love
Lou