“Zombie” by The Cranberries

"Zombie" is the Cranberries' protest song, released as the lead single from No Need to Argue, their second album, on 19 September 1994. Dolores O'Riordan wrote it about a bombing in Warrington, England, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the young victims it left behind, and she sings it with real fury.

That's the shock of it: the band plug in, with grunge-heavy distorted guitars and O'Riordan's voice cracking into a shout, a sound unlike the rest of their work. She plays electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards, Noel Hogan plays guitar and sings backing vocals, Mike Hogan plays bass and Fergal Lawler drums. Stephen Street produced and engineered it, with Julie Gardner assisting.

Island Records were nervous about putting out something so political as a single, but it went to number one in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Iceland, topped the US Alternative Airplay chart and won Best Song at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards. Samuel Bayer's video painted O'Riordan gold and cut her performance with footage of war-torn Belfast. After her death in 2018, it became a stadium anthem, first for teams from the band's hometown of Limerick and then for Ireland's rugby team at the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.