A Love Letter to Dolores O’Riordan

 

 

Dolores O’Riordan died on Monday. She was 46, she was the lead singer of the Cranberries, and she was one of my heroes. The way she belted out her lyrics in that wailing, soulful, Irish Brogue was a thing to behold.

 

I’m 43, so I’m a contemporary of her’s, and we’re both from Generation X. When the Cranberries first breakthrough hit, Linger, was released in 1993, I was in my sophomore year at Oberlin College in Ohio.  

 

And what a revelation it was. Here was this beautiful petite Irish woman, with a voice of gold, emoting with us, and telling tales of love and loss. Her voice was powerful, seductive, entrancing, and passionate, and she made you feel something.

 

To set the stage, in 1993 the top five artists on Billboard’s Hot 100 were, in order, Whitney Houston, Tag Team, UB40, Janet Jackson, and Silk. Now I like all those artists and their songs, but the one common theme is that they are all African-American. And then there’s UB40, a multiracial band, that performed mainly reggae. And then here comes this lily-white, Irish, mod, folky, rock band fronted by a female dynamo from Limerick, Ireland. So they made a big impression on everyone.

 

After Linger, one of their next big hits was Zombie, from their second album. To say the song is powerful is like saying Michael Jordan was a pretty good basketball player. I mean this track absolutely rocks. It’s an anti-war song about the Northern Ireland conflict, and it’s one of the most viscerally jarring songs I’ve ever heard:

 

It’s the same old theme

Since nineteen-sixteen

In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting

With their tanks, and their bombs

And their bombs, and their guns

In your head, in your head, they are dying

In your head, in your head

 

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie

 

What’s in your head, in your head

 

Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie

 

Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan, the 5’2” dynamo from Limerick, is letting us all know just exactly what the fuck she thinks of stupid-ass wars. And it’s powerful. She alternates between singing and screaming, and her voice grabs you and doesn’t let go.

 

I was living in Kyoto, Japan, on a college junior year study abroad program when this song was released. And I bought the CD at an HMV store in central Kyoto. This was back in the days before cell phones, smartphones, tablets, and just about any portable computers. What we had was a discman, and I played the Cranberries CD in heavy rotation on mine.

 

I had about an hour bus ride, split between two buses, from my host family’s house in Yamashina, which was in the mountains in an absolutely beautiful and idyllic Japanese setting, to Doshisha University, in central Kyoto, where I was studying Japanese.

 

And during that one hour commute, I blasted the fuck out of the Cranberries, and especially Zombie, on the discman. The view from the bus as we descended down from the Yamashina mountains to the central plain of Kyoto was simply incredible. We passed rich verdant green mountainsides pockmarked by beautiful yet humble Japanese houses.

 

And the hawks. The hawks were incredible. I would usually see them on the bus from Doshisha back to Yamashina, typically in the late afternoon. They soared above the mountaintops as I stared out the bus window, transfixed at these majestic animals. And sometimes groups of them flew in formation, which was awesome to behold.

 

And the whole time I was watching the hawks, I was blasting out Zombie and daydreaming about war, life, love, loss, and nature. I know the image of an American college student listening to an Irish folk rock band on a bus in an idyllic setting in Japan’s ancient capital seems a little strange, but that’s how much they meant to me. Their music comforted me in a time when I was just finding my way in a new foreign country. They really made my adjustment to Japan easier, and better. So I owe them a debt of gratitude.

 

Their next album, “To The Faithful Departed,” wasn’t as successful as the previous two had been, but it still had some great songs. I especially liked Hollywood, Salvation, I Just Shot John Lennon, and Bosnia. That last one, Bosnia, was once again the Cranberries at their best, decrying the brutality of the Yugoslav civil war. O’Riordan’s voice screams out plaintively into the night:

 

I would like to state my vision

 

Life was so unfair

 

We live in our secure surroundings

 

And people die out there

 

Bosnia was so unkind

 

Sarajevo changed my mind

 

And we all call out in despair

 

All the love we need isn’t there

 

And we all sing songs our rooms

 

Sarajevo erects an undertone

 

Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Sarajevo

 

Wow. In one verse she’s morally indicting Western Europeans, or maybe just her fellow Irish citizens, for sitting in their comfortable living rooms while Muslims and Croats die in Sarajevo. It’s a powerful message, delivered in an impassioned voice full of love and life.  That’s what I remember most about their 1996 third album.

 

After that, I kind of lost touch with the Cranberries and stopped following them. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that they never again came close to equaling the success of their first two albums, and the world moved on.

 

In later years I read occasionally about O’Riordan’s erratic behavior, such as threatening airline flight attendants on a flight from New York to Ireland. She also made an apparent suicide attempt in 2013. And it was revealed several years ago that she had been diagnosed with bipolar illness.

 

All of this is predictable, almost cliche.  The superstar who burns out and descends into episodes of entitled mischief and depression. We also learn that she was apparently molested as a child. And it all starts to make sense.

 

But Dolores O’Riordan was not a cliche. She was a living, breathing, vital, soul-shaking singer who moved millions of fans.  And for that she will be sorely missed.

 

Unfortunately the latest news reports indicate that she took her own life. Which is absolutely tragic. Because she leaves behind a son and two daughters who loved and needed her.  She also leaves behind millions of fans who will never experience the joy of hearing her voice again.

 

So goodbye, Dolores, you are gone much too soon, but not forgotten.