It is gray day outside which, to someone born and raised in Seattle, shouldn’t be too crazy of a thing or too wild of an occurrence. And it isn’t. However, being that the past few weeks have presented themselves as summer in full bloom, today exists as a change of pace. Several degrees cooler, a couple less birds chirping jovially, more cars deciding to remain in their parking places.
While I was sitting down I was reminiscing on some sounds of my childhood—one in particular, the songs of the Cranberries, a popular Irish band in the 90s that used to echo from the radio waves and my sister’s catalogue. For many years I, for the life of me, had a certain part of one of their songs stuck in my head and like many other times in which I’ve tried to sound out melodies for people in the hope of having them remember, I would usher sounds that wouldn’t sound remotely musical at all. I used to think what I was remembering was the Indigo Girls or someone else from that era, but to no avail.
Then a couple years back, in a bout of boredom, I tried to recapture those sounds and melodies that I adored from my sister’s adolescence, everything from the one hit wonders to the solo artists and bands that would remain staples for years to come. I stumbled across the aforementioned group, the Cranberries and listened to some of their more popular songs, like “Zombie” and “Linger” and then, finally, I listened to “Dreams” and the missing piece of the puzzle was discovered during a bridge about 90 seconds in where the lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan just lets loose and her voice floats in and out of butterfly drops and feather flutters.
The Cranberries have a Tiny Desk concert that I found a while back and from the date it looks to be one of the earlier concerts that Tiny Desk hosted. It’s a beautiful 20 minutes. It’s very lo-fi and simple, but the sounds are gorgeous. The pleasures of live music are many, but to watch people immersed in their art and transported through their words, living the personal for the public, making the private seen, especially in this case where it is so clear that she (Dolores) is living her lyrics in front of us, is beautiful. The way she gestures, brightens, darkens, gets distracted, brings herself back…
She passed away a couple of years back. It made me very sad. It makes this concert a relic in that way and makes the documentation that much more special.
This gray day continues to be gray but she and the Cranberries have made it better. If you have the time, hopefully it can make your day better, as well.
Rest in peace, Dolores.