Alexandra Disney

English Composition 1201 Sec 505

Professor Johnson

18 June 2021

Zombie

To listen to “Zombie” is to mourn for someone. The melancholy beat from both songs

makes anyone feel an ache in their heart. Whether lead singer Dolores O’Riordan’s grief-

stricken song or Bad Wolves stirring cover, fans know they are in for both a classic and sorrow.

In the song, “Zombie” the Cranberries and Bad Wolves both use Pathos to sing about suffering

to separate audiences: Bad Wolves cover mourns the death of Cranberries lead singer Dolores

O’Riordan and the Cranberries’ original mourns for the Irish people.

In the original song, several silver children sat alongside the golden figure O’Riordan.

Holding bows and arrows, they were adoringly adorned in flower crowns. The children would

aim at the camera and loose an arrow at it as well, while audiences looked on. Nearing the end

of the song, the children opened their mouths, silently screaming in pain to the world. I

remember being so struck by this display; it gripped me like I can’t say what. The soft reds and

pinks of the children’s mouths and throats contrasted incredibly with their silver body paint.

You could hear them wailing for Ireland even without sound. Holding hands together, they

reached right into your heart to pluck it out of your chest. In the sequel song, there are no

children, just the lonely woman representing O’Riordan.

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In Bad Wolves cover, lead singer Tommy Vext sings a different version of the

Cranberries hit song:

With their tanks and their bombs

And their bombs and their drones

Whereas the Cranberries Dolores O’Riordan originally sang:

With their tanks and their bombs

And their bombs and their guns

This “updated version” of “Zombie” gives us a look at what war is like in today’s day and age.

However, this is not the only lyrical contrast we see with the song. Lead singer Tommy Vext

sings:

It’s the same old theme

In 2018

Whereas O’Riordan sings:

It’s the same old team

Since 1916

Dolores O’Riordan sings about Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Tommy Vext

sings about O’Riordan’s death in 2018. Both are about suffering.

In the original song, the Cranberries cameras switched between color and black & white.

Bad Wolves used color, but everyone was dressed in black and gray. The only person dressed in

color was the woman representing O’Riordan. Resplendent in vivid gold, the woman is swirling
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golden paint on the glass and floor before the band. That is another difference between the two

versions: O’Riordan did not use paint in her song. For Bad Wolves’ cover, paint was an

important art in their storytelling. The woman representing O’Riordan kept pushing more and

more paint in front of the singer Vext until you could not see through to the other side. It was a

strong metaphor that no matter how much Vext and his band sang, Dolores O’Riordan was still

on the other side, in Heaven. At the end of the Bad Wolves cover, she turns and walks away,

looking the camera straight in the eye.

Printed words were used in both songs. In the Cranberries music video, names of those

who had fallen in the Irish Civil War were painted on bricks. In Bad Wolves version, there is a

message both at the beginning and the end of the song. The messages say that the band will

donate the proceeds of the song to O’Riordan’s children and a few other things. These include

what type of artist O’Riordan was, what her lyrics meant, and of course, how she tragically

passed from this world on January 15th, 2018. In addition to the memorial for the Irish people in

the original, the woman in gold writes 1-15-18 in the gold paint on the glass to remember

O’Riordan by.

The audiences were vastly different. In the original Cranberries song, the YouTube video

has 1.1 billion views. The Bad Wolves cover currently has almost 400 million views. However,

it is not just the numbers that separate these two videos. The Cranberries hit song “Zombie” was

aimed at the Irish people. Bad Wolves version was for friends, fans, and families of the

Cranberries and especially Dolores O’Riordan. The first song was about the suffering involved

with the Irish Civil War but the second was about suffering through Dolores O’Riordan’s

untimely death.
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Both of these songs are sad, powerful tunes about those we love and those we have lost.

Though “Zombie” originated with the Cranberries and went on to Bad Wolves, it will live on

forever, just like Dolores O’Riordan.

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Works Cited

The Cranberries. “Zombie”. YouTube, 16 June 2009, The Cranberries - Zombie (Official Music

Video) - YouTube. Accessed 18 June 2021.

Bad Wolves. “Zombie”. YouTube, 22 February 2018, Bad Wolves - Zombie (Official Video) -

YouTube. Accessed 18 June 2021.