Zombie

On 20 March 1993 two IRA bombs hidden in litter bins exploded on a shopping street in Warrington, England. Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene; twelve-year-old Tim Parry died in hospital five days later. Dolores O'Riordan was on tour in England with the Cranberries, close to where it happened, and it hit her hard. She later said she was devastated that innocent children had been dragged into it, and that as an Irish person in Britain at a tense time she wanted to say it was not her, she had not done this. The chords came to her midway through that tour. Back home in Limerick, after a night out, she built the song around them, chorus first, and called it "In Your Head". When she brought it to the band's small rehearsal shed in Mungret, the others started playing it in their usual sweet indie-pop way. O'Riordan stopped them, picked up an electric guitar and told them it had to be heavy because it was angry. She asked for more distortion and harder drumming than usual. Island Records was nervous about a political single, but "Zombie" went to number one in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Iceland, and in 2020 became the first song by an Irish group to pass a billion YouTube views. After O'Riordan's death in 2018 it turned into a stadium anthem, first for Limerick teams and then, from the 2023 Rugby World Cup, for the Ireland rugby team. A song of grief became a song of belonging.