Artist: The Cranberries
Released on: No Need To Argue (Track #11)
Duration: 3:00

LYRICS

naaaaaaaa
na na naaa
na na naaa
na na naaa naa naaa

Silenced by death in the grave la la la la
William Butler Yeats couldn’t save la la la la
Why did you stand here
Were you sickened in ti-ime
But I know by now
Why did you sit here a-aaaaah

I-In the grave
I-In the gra-a-ave
I-In the grave
I-In the gra-a-a-ave

a-aaah
a-aaah

Why should I blame her
That she filled my days
With misery or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways
Or hurled the little streets upon the great
Had they but courage equal to desire

Sad that Maud Gonne couldn’t stay la la a-ah
She had Mac Bride anyway la-a
And you sit here with me
On the isle Innisfree
And you’re writing down anything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here a-aaaaah (a-aaaaah)

I-In the grave
I-In the gra-a-ave
I-In the grave
I-In the gra-a-a-ave

laladada
laladada
laladada-dalada

laladada
laladada
laladada-dalada

(la la la)
(la la la)

William Butler
William Butler
William Butler
William Butler

Why should I blame her
Had they but courage equal to desire
(William Butler)
Had they but courage equal to desire
(William Butler)
(William Butler)

CREDIT INFORMATION

• Music and Lyrics by Dolores O’Riordan
• Produced and Engineered by Stephen Street assisted by Julie Gardiner
• Recorded in the Magic Shop, New York (assistant – Edward Douglas)
• All string written & directed by Dolores O’Riordan
• Published by Island Music Ltd 1994

MEANING

• Dolores, “I was really into Yeats’ poetry, so much so that I wrote a song called Yeats’ Grave the first time I went to Sligo and saw where he is buried. I loved his passion, the dreamer he was. And the fact that he looked beyond the material world to matters spiritual, which is really representative of the Irish people as a race. As with the native Americans and Jamaicans, I’ve found.” (Hot Press · January 1994)
• Dolores, “I just always loved Yeats, him as a human. He was so passionate and just wrote what he felt. I always found it difficult in school because I loved Yeats’ poetry but I wasn’t into analysing it. I just had my own understanding of it, me as a poet myself – a young girl who writes. I write my own lyrics and as far as I’m concerned I’m writing my own poems and verse and it might not be over-intellectual and it mightn’t be fifty pages and have big words and y’know, clauses and all that stuff in it but I’m just writing what I feel and as far as I’m concerned Yeats just wrote what he felt. But then you sit down at your exam and it’s like where does he use similes in this poem and where is he being ironic. I’m sure when Yeats wrote his poetry he didn’t want kids to look for the irony in it, I’m sure he wanted young people to sit down and go wow that’s cool, I really understand that.” (Hot Press · October 1994)

NOTES

• The song is inspired by 2 poems by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939): ”The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “No Second Troy”. Those two poems are written in the booklet of the “NNTA · The Complete Sessions”
• The album version of this track was featured on the 1997 tribute compilation “Now And Then In Time – A Musical Celebration Of The Works Of W.B.Yeats”
• Lyrics on this page were transcribed by our team and aim to be the exact ones (even including all the la la la’s as much as possible).
• Above photo of the official lyrics off the “NNTA” commercial CD, catalog number CID 8029 524 050-2