Dolores O'Riordan

Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of The Cranberries, died three days ago at the age of 46.  You could immediately identify a Cranberries song because of her lovely and very distinctive voice.  The band had several hits in the 1990s of which the most popular was Linger, but their most powerful song was Zombies, written by O'Riordan, a mother of three, in the wake of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombing on March 20, 1993 in Warrington, England in which two children died.  Despite the horror of the incident, the Irish band (O'Riordan was from Limerick) came under criticism from some IRA supporters.  Below are both electric and acoustic versions:

Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence, caused such silence
Who are we mistaken?

But you see, it's not me
It's not my family
In your head, in your head, they are fighting
With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
In your head, in your head they are crying

In your head, in your head
Zombie

Another mother's breaking
Heart is taking over
When the violence causes silence
We must be mistaken

It's the same old theme
Since nineteen-sixteen [a reference to the IRA's Easter Uprising in Dublin]
In your head, in your head, they're still fighting
With their tanks, and their bombs
And their bombs, and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are dying

Zombie 

Some other good Cranberries tunes; Dreams, Ode To My Family, The Icicle Melts.

Best History Songs

What's the best song based on historical events?  I look for the best mixture of accurate and evocative lyrics with music reflective of its theme.  One candidate is The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band (and see yesterday's post on the passing of Levon Helm).  Please ignore the Joan Baez version which become an AM radio hit but mangled the lyrics, obliterating some of the precise historical references from the original.  Pride by U2 also fits the bill even though it's more indirect in its approach to the murder of Martin Luther King and contains a glaring inaccuracy in its lyric (see if you can find it), but is so emotionally resonant it gets away with it.  Then there are songs like Zombie, by The Cranberries, about the troubles in Ireland. What are your favorites?