Linger

Artist: The Cranberries
Released on: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (Track #7)
Duration: 4:35


LYRICS

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 everything

I swore, swore I would be true
And honey 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
You know I’m such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger

Oh I thought the world of you
I thought nothing could go wrong
But I was wrong, but I was wrong
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 wanna be with you

But I’m in so deep
You know I’m such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger

And I’m in so deep
You know I’m such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger

You know I’m such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger


CREDIT INFORMATION

  • Music by Noel Hogan & Dolores O’Riordan
  • Lyrics Dolores O’Riordan
  • Produced and Engineered by Stephen Street
  • Additional Engineering by Aiden McGovern at Windmill Studios
  • Mixed at Maison Rouge, Fulham, London
  • Published by Island Music Ltd 1993

MEANING

  • An article of Details in February 1994 explained that “Linger is written about Dolores first boyfriend, a seventeen-year-old soldier who wrote her love-sick letters from Lebanon after they broke up
  • It was also the first song Dolores ever wrote, “It was such a stupid girl fantasy, a good-lookin’ guy with a gun, you know. I brought home this photo of him in his uniform and I was like, ‘Look, Dad, how handsome he is!’ My father looked at it and said, ‘Never marry a soldier’, and walked away. That was it. But he was right!”
  • In Hot Press in January 1994 Dolores added, “That case of falling in love really was just a matter of two kisses […] The song ‘Linger’ was written about that and it’s lovely because it captures that time of innocence for me.”
  • In the documentary “99 Love, Life & Rock’n Roll” released on “Stars” Dolores said, “I wrote Linger about my first kiss

NOTES

  • “Linger” is the 2nd single from “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?” and was released in February 1993.
  • A different studio version produced by Dale Griffin was recorded in 1992 for the “John Peel Show”. This was not a live and one-take recording like other media performances.
  • In 1995 during the concert Pavarotti & Friends, Together for the Children of Bosnia, Dolores sang “Linger” in duet with Simon Le Bon.
  • Fergal, “That was the very first song we ever wrote. That string line just hooks you in straight away. We had a tape of it for a few months before Dolores arrived. She came in the first day to the studio and played some stuff that she had on her keyboard and we gave her the instrumental ‘Linger’. That was a Sunday, she came back the following Tuesday with the string line and basically the whole song was finished, she had most of the lyrics and the melody was there, it was incredible. I suppose that wouldn’ve been the one that got us signed. As soon as people heard that they kind of said, ‘This is one of those classic songs’, it just has that sound, it could’ve been from any era, from the ’50s or ’60s, and even if you hear it now it still sounds good on the radio.” (Hot Press “Cranberries Special” · November 2002)
  • In 1996 Dolores talked about the first time she sang the song, “The first thing Noel brought me was Linger, which the singer had a different vocal for – I’d love to have heard him. He played those chords, I joined in and the band played along. I went home and wrote the lyrics. It was mad for the lads because they were used to the boys thing and singing songs about bleeding on the carpet or drowning in a fountain in Lourdes. When I started singing I was really embarrassed, thinking it might be too emotional, too girly for them, but I thought, Who gives a shit? I started singing and you couldn’t hear the lyrics because I had this really horrible amp and Noel’s guitar was going through it. He had the good channel, I had the shitty channel. The bass player had his amp blaring and the drummer beat the shit out of his kit. I was in the corner going, I can sing, I swear, but nobody could hear me.
  • Linger is the first song we ever wrote” said Dolores in an interview to B-Side in December 1993. “It’s our baby. There are only four chords, but it’s a grand song
  • I think Linger is like an anthem […]. The first time I heard Dolores do that soprano voice she does when we recorded it. It was really late one night in the studio, and she put that down, and it was unbelievable. We didn’t even know she could do that.” (Noel, Rolling Stone, 2 September 1993)
  • In 1996 Dolores said, “Our music has a global feel. Linger, for example, does not sound like it’s by an Irish or an English band, it just sounds like a song – it could be 30 years old, it doesn’t have a rock tempo.
  • Dolores O’ Riordan appears in the movie “Click” in 2006 performing the song.
  • “Linger” is also played in the movie “Camp Nowhere” (1994).
  • The song is available as a playable song for the “Rock Band” series of music video games as downloadable content.
  • The song is featured on the X Box 360 game “Lips” as a downloadable content.
  • Dolores O’Riordan performed an orchestral version of “Linger” at the “Concerto Di Natale in Vaticano” in 2002 and in 2005.
  • …and counting!

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