THE CRANBERRIES: END TO A DREAM
“We will do this album and then that will be it,” says guitarist Noel Hogan “There is no need to continue.” In a devastating interview for The Guardian, The Cranberries have remembered Dolores O’Riordan with love, and how they are leading her loss. In addition, they have revealed the name of what will be their new and last album, This is the end.
Noel Hogan last saw Dolores O’Riordan in November last year, in the same hotel in Limerick where they are doing this interview. There, they had agreed to meet a journalist from China to talk about a tour there, where they are highly acclaimed by the public. It was something that the band was very excited about.
During last Christmas, the recording of the new album of The Cranberries continued its course. On January 14th, a day before her passing, Dolores had sent Noel some new songs. The recording of this new album was not too different from all the previous recordings, as the band used to record during the day, and Dolores would go to the studio at night to record the vocals with producer Stephen Street. They would encounter one another at the corridor. “This time around, there were nights when we were waiting, looking for her to come in the door” recalls Mike Hogan. They were emotionally exhausting months for Dolores’ band mates.
Noel remembers when he met Dolores. She was extremely shy, but after hearing her sing, he asked himself how she was not in a band already. They feel blessed to have found her. Their first album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, Why Why not We We?, And “Linger” got a great diffusion on the part of MTV. This was how the album reached number 1 in the UK sales charts, and by 1995, it had already sold 5 million copies in the United States.
Dolores learned her Celtic Yodelling from her father, fond of traditional country music. “Zombie” was a response to the bombing in Warrington in 1994, in which two children died, Jonathan Ball and Tim Parry. Dolores used to write about what worried her at every moment, sometimes about past relationships and very personal feelings, and the group never wanted to interfere. This new album, Noel says it is lyrically very powerful. Dolores would find it difficult to write when she was happy. “Give me a bit of misery and it will be easier,” she would say. Noel Hogan declares that it is going to be the last album of The Cranberries, since “there is no need to continue”.
The reissue of Everybody Else Is Doing, So Why Not We We, will be released on October 19th this year. The new album, In The End, is expected for 2019.
Somebody once said, “Don’t dream your life, make your dream a reality.” And this is how The Cranberries have taught us that we can do anything like anyone else; that it is better to bury the hatchet when there’s no need to argue anymore; that we must always be ourselves along the way, living through the spirit of our dreams. As if she knew she was not going to be here for too long, Dolores O’Riordan made sure she left us a powerful legacy where she shared her experience and wisdom, to help us and guide us in this test of obstacles and challenges that life itself is. Tragedy has been whimsical. It has marked a before and an after, we have been robbed a very beloved one to us, without whom we can’t live, and we are forced to face the pain, loneliness and confusion without that powerful light that guided us and helped us out, every time she would write to guide and overcome her fears herself. Our dream has been tragically ended, but there is something we should never forget: they were the ones who taught as to dream.
