I am not a Cranberries fan.
That's a weird thing to say, right?
But it's true. I'm not a Cranberries fan.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy their music and LOVE one song in particular. But it'd be disingenuous to say I'm a fan. I know the songs that were played on the radio. Period.
What I AM is a #LingerGuy.
I F*#$%@G LOVE THAT SONG!
And that's enough, honestly.
I've always loved that song...even back when it first game out. Whenever it came on the radio, I'd turn it up and try and sing along to the songbird like qualities of the vocals. It's a great friggin song. And it relaxes me. Takes the edge off. Honestly, though, I'd kinda forgotten the song until the movie "In A World" came out. The plot of the movie isn't relevant to this conversation but there was one scene towards the end where Lake Bell was talking to someone else. Here's the script.
"So, I grew up with three sisters. So I've always been into women's rights. And I listen to the Cranberries openly.
Oh, what about Zombie or Linger?
Linger. I like Linger better.
Really? I would have pegged you as a Zombie."
I chuckled my ass off at that line. There are Zombie people and Linger people according to this character?!?!? Fantastic! I had to think about my answer to that for about 5 milliseconds.
I'm a Linger.
It was then that I noticed that we (DC101) ALWAYS played Zombie and rarely played Linger. At some point, I decided to bring my love of Linger to the airwaves. And thus, the #LingerGuy bit was born. Playing it once in awhile wouldn't have done anything. You'd have heard it and moved on. It was when I went all in on the #LingerGuy thing did you take notice of this wonderfully pleasing song. That meant back to back (sometimes "to back") playings of Linger. It meant making you FEEL what Linger can do to a stressful day. It meant obnoxiously humming and singing along to Linger. It meant belittling anyone who requested Zombie over Linger.
And it worked. You got it! The requests for Linger started pouring in. A #LingerGuy was born.
But I had never actually seen The Cranberries live. Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of the band so I never had an interest in seeing them in their heyday. Now that they are older, they don't come through town very much so I didn't try and see them lately. Once the #LingerGuy caught on, I knew I'd have to experience it live. I cant' tell you how excited I was when they announced a show at the 9:30 Club back in September. I had it all set up with my boss for an interview with the band and some on air thing (win tix, meet the band etc) for all the Linger people of the DMV. It was gonna be great. Finally, I'd see Linger...live!
And then they cancelled the show. I was pretty bummed because it would have been a lot of fun to go through on the air. I wasn't TOO broken up about it though...they were still a touring band and they weren't at the stage of their career where they'd never be back. I'll just check'em out next time they were in town and do all the prizes and hype and stuff then.
Except, there won't be a next time.
Today, we lost Dolores O'Riordan at the criminally young age of 46. My socials have blown up with condolences on her loss...which is very awkward. See, I'm not really a fan. Somewhere, there are people who are in tears over her death. I'm just a dopey guy on the radio who thought it'd be funny to promote a 20 year old song with a goofy hashtag.
But here's the thing. My favorite part about music is the power it has to connect. A song that you and I probably never gave a second thought about brought us together. Closer than we could have ever imagined 18 months ago. To the point, where we are grieving more than we probably would have.
That's amazing to me.
Hers was a beautiful, soaring voice that is now silenced forever.
But, we will always have Linger.
If there was ever a day that needed the edge taken off of it, it's today. Thanks to Dolores O'Riordan, we have the perfect song to take that edge of.
Thank you, Dolores. Rest easy.