User:Brinchj/sandbox/zombie

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"Zombie" is a protest song by Irish rock band The Cranberries, written about the 1993 IRA bombing in Warrington, and in memory of two young victims, Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry. It was released in September 1994 as the lead single from their second studio album, No Need to Argue (1994). It preceded the release of No Need to Argue by two weeks. The song was written by the band's lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, and reached No. 1 on the charts in Australia, Belgium, France, Denmark and Germany.

It won the "Best Song" award at the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards.

In 2017, the song was released as an acoustic, stripped down version on the band's Something Else album.

Composition
The lyrics and chords of "Zombie" were written by Dolores O'Riordan during the Cranberries' English Tour in 1993. The song was written in response to the death of Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry, who had been killed in the IRA bombing in Warrington earlier that year.

The lyrics also reference the Irish Easter Rising with the lines: It’s the same old theme / Since nineteen-sixteen / In your head, in your head, they're still fightin' / With their tanks, and their bombs / And their bombs, and their guns / In your head, in your head, they are dying.

Reception
The Rough Guide to Rock identified the album No Need to Argue as "more of the same" as the Cranberries' debut album, except for the song "Zombie", which had an "angry grunge" sound and "aggressive" lyrics. The Cranberries played the song on their appearance on the U.S. show Saturday Night Live in 1995 in a performance that British author Dave Thompson calls "one of the most powerful performances that the show has ever seen".

AllMusic said the song "trivialized" the events of the Troubles, and that the "heavy rock trudge" of the song did not play to the band's strengths.

Music video
"Zombie" was released with a music video in October 1994. The video was directed by Samuel Bayer, and produced by Doug Friedman and H.S.I. Productions.

In the video, Dolores O'Riordan is covered in gold makeup and appears in front of a cross with a group of boys also covered in gold makeup. The video also includes clips of children playing war games, and of British soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (as evident from their thin red line tactical recognition flashes) on patrol in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It also shows shots of various murals.

The video was filmed in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

As of November 2018, the video has over 800 million views on YouTube.

Track listings
UK and European CD1 single

UK and European CD2 single

UK and European 7" single

US two-track promo CD (PRCD 6857-2)

UK VHS single (PRCD 6857-2)

Bad Wolves version
Bad Wolves released a cover version on January 19, 2018 as the third single from their debut album Disobey. O'Riordan had been scheduled to record vocals with the heavy metal group at the time of her death. The cover was released without her vocals as a tribute. Bad Wolves slightly altered the lyrics, inserting a reference to drones and replacing "since 1916" with "in 2018". Bad Wolves also added two extra stanzas to the end of the song which were not present in the original song. The band's cover topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in May 2018 for three weeks. It peaked at number 54 on the Hot 100. In June 2018, at a concert in New York City, Bad Wolves donated $250,000 to O'Riordan's children.

In an interview, Kyle Konkiel shared his thoughts on the new cover's sound: "[Our version] is kind of a darker more melodic feel than the original, which had a lot of heavy guitars and that legendary base line and more focus on the actual instruments than the lyrics themselves"

- Kyle Konkiel

Music video
The song's music video was directed by Wayne Isham and was released on January 18, 2018, the day before the band released the song as a single.

The video begins with text discussing the cover's background and the passing of O'Riordan. The video then cuts to shots of the band performing the song in a black room, wearing black clothing and playing black instruments interspersed with close-up scenes of a woman being covered in gold paint. The video then cuts in between shots of the band performing and the woman interacting with vocalist Tommy Vext which mainly involve her smearing gold paint on a glass pane between the two of them. After the guitar solo, she etches "1-15-18", the date of O'Riordan's death, into the paint. The woman's appearance (gold body paint, gold dress, and gold beaded headdress) is nearly identical to that of O'Riordan in The Cranberries' original Zombie music video. The video ends with a quote by Vext.

Other cover versions

 * In late 1994, a cover version by Spanish mákina group Ororo was released in conjunction with the original version. This version reached No. 1 in Spain and No. 16 in Austria.
 * In 1995, a Eurodance cover version by Italian quartet A.D.A.M. featuring Amy reached No. 16 in the UK Singles Chart, No. 65 in Australia, No. 20 in France, No. 9 in Italy, and No. 35 in Belgium.
 * In 2011, Christina Parie covered the song on The X Factor Australia. After her performance, the song re-entered the ARIA Charts Top 100 at No. 69.