Dolores O’Riordan (September 6, 1971 – January 15, 2018)

The Cranberries – there are some artists and songs that are wonderful and meaningful when they are in their moment in time. You love them, you love when you hear them on the radio, maybe you even buy the album and adore it.  But then the world of music moves on and so do you and those artists/songs are just a blip in time, like people you meet on the street to ask for directions – important, necessary and awesome in that blip, but never to be thought of again.

Then there are the artists and songs that become a part of your soundtrack; some remain in the forefront of that soundtrack from the instant you first hear them to forever, a reprise throughout your life. Some are only significant for a chapter – they figure prominently in that time and then you move on, but they remain significant to your life – like a lover, a close friend, a roommate that you’ve drifted apart from. and when you catch them on the radio (or at that reunion) you are flooded with memories of that time.

The Cranberries are that band for me.  A chapter in my life.  I loved them in the 90s. I still love them, but I’ve lost track of them.  I can so vividly picture that time in my life when their music was prominent for me. My first college degree.  I can picture some of us in the dorm rooms listening to Everybody Else Is Doing It and No Need To Argue.

I can remember being astounded by this little pixie powerhouse.  Her voice like nothing else I’d ever heard before. A woman rocking in what was then, and is still, a predominantly male genre. The only female contemporaries on the radio at that time (that I really remember) were Janet Jackson, Toni Braxton, and Mariah Carey.  All amazing, but way more R&B/pop than rock or alternative. Oh, and Ace of Base, still more pop…

But this woman, this voice. And those lyrics.  These lyrics:

It’s the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen
In your head,
In your head they’re still fightin’
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head they are dyin’

In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie.

Staedtler Mars Graphic 3000 Markers, 2018