If you turn on your radio and listen to your local rock station odds are that you won't have to listen very long before you will hear up and coming band Bad Wolves and there hit single "Zombie". To those who are unaware if by lack of interest in rock music all the way to not being born in the mid 1990's "Zombie" is a cover song by the band the Cranberries.
In 1994 the Cranberries had achieved international fame on the back of there debut album "Everybody Else Is Doing It So Why Can’t We?" with such hits as "linger" and "dreams" and with heavily accented vocalist Dolores O’Riordan’s many thought they knew what to expect from this ballad singing four some from Ireland. Boy were they wrong.
To many the death of Kurt Cobain was also the death of Grunge music as well. Bands such as the Cranberries with the heppieish vocals of O’Riordan’s were sort of hug for a generation of forgottens born without a choice, born without a voice.
By September of 94 with there second album "No Need To Argue" they would turn the Rock world on its head and forever change the publics perception of the band with the single "Zombie" a grungy anti-war song written by O'Riordan based on violet events that were becoming far to common in Northern Ireland.
On March 20, 1993, one of two bombs was planted in a litter bin in Warrington city centre by Irish republicans. When it exploded 12-year-old Tim Parry and three-year-old Jonathan Ball were killed and dozens of other people injured.
I remember at the time there were a lot of bombs going off in London and the Troubles were pretty bad,” O'Riordan said. “I remember being on tour and being in the UK at the time when the child died, and just being really sad about it all. These bombs are going off in random places. It could have been anyone, you know?
“It’s a tough thing to sing about, but when you’re young you don’t think twice about things, you just grab it and do it. As you get older you develop more fear and you get more apprehensive, but when you’re young you’ve no fear.”
Rather than being a collaborative effort it was written by O’Riordan alone in the calm of her own flat and it began life as a much gentler proposition than it ended up as.
It was extremely busy and we were working all the time around the clock,” she says. “That song came to me when I was in Limerick, and I wrote it initially on an acoustic guitar, late at night. I remember being in my flat, coming up with the chorus, which was catchy and anthemic. So I took it into rehearsals, and I picked up the electric guitar. Then I kicked in distortion on the chorus, and I said to Ferg [Fergal Lawler, drums]: ‘Maybe you could beat the drums pretty hard.’ Even though it was written on an acoustic, it became a bit of a rocker."
"Zombie" went to No.1 in several countries and was certified platinum in Australia and Germany. At the MTV Awards, the band beat Michael Jackson and TLC to win Best Song. In 94 that was quite the feat considering Jackson was an international superstar.
The band also preformed the song at the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize when Ulster Unionist leader John Hume and SDLP leader David Trimble were honoured “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland”
Tragically on January 15, 2018 Dolores O’Riordan passed away at the age of 46. Ironically she was in London England where she was set to record vocals for the Bad Wolves cover.
"It was the greatest honor to know she liked our version and wanted to sing on it,” says Bad Wolves singer Tommy Vext. “We’re deeply saddened by the sudden loss of Dolores and by the fact that she’s leaving behind three children so we are donating the proceeds from the song to her kids.”
It’s such a powerful song and the themes are still so relevant, we wanted to release it in her memory,” he continues. “The original lyrics include the line ‘It’s the same old theme / Since nineteen-sixteen. In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting.’ It’s a reference to the IRA bombings during the Irish Rebellion. We changed that lyric to say ‘2018’ and she was really excited about that because the nations may have changed but we’re still fighting the same battles today. Humanity is still fighting to assert itself despite all the conflicts.”
