Most fans are content just to share a few minutes with their favorite artists — for a handshake, photo, autograph, or some combination of the three. But could you imagine spending 48 hours with Dolores and the rest of The Cranberries? That’s what one reporter for the Irish-based Unison news network did late last year in Milan (likely at the same time as the author of the lengthy Sunday Independent article). The author, who is not credited by name, has published a short article about the experience in conjunction with the ongoing Killarney Summerfest, where The Cranberries performed tonight.
The author writes, “Dolores’s vehement denunciations of the world in press interviews circa 1996 that revealed a core of self-loathing have long gone. I hung out with her and Don and the rest of the Cranberries for 48 hours in Milan six months ago and we had an absolute six-bottles-of-red-wine howl. But more important than the vino, the Cranberries on stage earlier that night were mesmeric.”
And as if the two-day-long hang-out session weren’t enough to make you fume with jealousy, the reporter bumped into Dolores again only a little over a week ago at a Bruce Springsteen concert. The writer recounts, “Dolores has no self-censorship and will tell you the first thing that comes into her mind. This is very endearing: most superstars talk in soundbites without saying very much. Once you get Dolores going, she can’t be shut up. I met her at the Bruce Springsteen concert the other week and she talked all the way through the Boss’s three-hour set on everything from supporting the Rolling Stones to Limerick, from her daughter to God, and back again. It was a memorable experience. (And Bruce wasn’t bad either – from the bits I heard.)”
Although the article only contains one short interview bit, there are lots of interesting details to be read — including some more bits about the soldier- kissing that inspired “Linger.” For those without access to Unison.ie, the full article is below:
Cranberries take the rough rock ‘n’ roll with the smooth pop
Sunday June 22nd 2003
POP is about an ephemeral impulse – usually teenage longing. The songs are conceived to be quickly consumed, not analysed like a philosophical tract by Socrates or Goethe.
Occasionally, however, a truly perfect pop song emerges that transcends time and place and imprints itself indelibly on our consciousness. Though hardly representative of the band’s music at all, Linger by the Cranberries is one such song for me. Written by Dolores O’Riordan and Mike Hogan, it is one of the greatest – and most melancholic – Irish pop songs ever set to vinyl.
From the Limerick group’s debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? in 1993, Linger features floating strings over a gorgeous orchestration married to Dolores’s funeral-soul dynamics:
“If you, if you could return,” sings Dolores, “don’t let it burn, don’t let it fade. I’m sure I’m not being rude, but’s just your attitude. It’s tearing me apart – it’s ruining everything.” The song was allegedly inspired by Dolores’s first boyfriend, a 17-year-old Irish soldier who wrote her tender love letters from Lebanon after they broke up.
Sadly, there was a lot more pain involved when Dolores wrote Zombie, in response to the IRA bomb in Warrington. She can vividly remember seeing one of the devastated mothers of the boys who were killed on television.
Dolores felt sad for her that she’d carried him for nine months and then some “prick, some airhead who thought he was making a point, did that”. Like Sinead before her, you have to admire Dolores’s outspoken character.
Still, the Dolores I know is also a gentle, sweet, intuitive, neo-spiritual person with a sense of otherness about her (and a particularly filthy sense of humour).
In 2000, Dolores was walking through the trees near where she lives in Kilmallock, pushing her newborn daughter Molly in her pram. She can recall having an epiphany that literally rushed out of her. She felt like she was the one in the pram and her own mother was standing over her. She raced back to the house with the song that had just entered her head. Within an hour, she had created Perfect Day on the piano.
Dolores has no self-censorship and will tell you the first thing that comes into her mind. This is very endearing: most superstars talk in soundbites without saying very much. Once you get Dolores going, she can’t be shut up. I met her at the Bruce Springsteen concert the other week and she talked all the way through the Boss’s three-hour set on everything from supporting the Rolling Stones to Limerick, from her daughter to God, and back again. It was a memorable experience. (And Bruce wasn’t bad either – from the bits I heard.)
Dolores is a happy camper – the polar opposite of the outdated media image of her as Ms Sulky Knickers. Marriage (to Don Burton) and motherhood (Molly and Taylor) clearly suits her. The erstwhile Mouth of the Shannon is a changed woman now, embracing life and its infinite possibilities.
Dolores’s vehement denunciations of the world in press interviews circa 1996 that revealed a core of self-loathing have long gone. I hung out with her and Don and the rest of the Cranberries for 48 hours in Milan six months ago and we had an absolute six-bottles-of-red-wine howl. But more important than the vino, the Cranberries on stage earlier that night were mesmeric.
I had never seen them before live and I had my suspicions about their music. All of that fell away after about the second song in. Dolores has such power on stage. Her voice is a potent and evocative instrument: imagine a Caucasian Nina Simone on LSD. Add to this the fantastic musicianship of the rest of the band who played out of their skins for that night. Onstage in front of 20,000 screaming Italians, the Cranberries were truly an exercise in how to play almost Metallica-heavy rock one minute and the most tender pop the next.
The Cranberries play Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney, Co Kerry on Friday 27 June as part of the Killarney Summer Fest 2003
Source: Unison.ie
