‘Linger’: Why The Cranberries’ Classic Single Retains Its Lasting Appeal
It was the band’s first-ever song, but it’s endured down the decades.
Has a pop song ever been more aptly titled than “Linger”? First released as the second single from The Cranberries’ 1993 debut Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, this blissfully dreamy indie-pop anthem became the band’s first transatlantic hit – but its appeal has lasted, and it’s now accepted as one of their finest songs. A pretty good result, considering it emerged out of the young Irish group’s first-ever rehearsal.
“‘Linger’ was the first song we wrote,” vocalist Dolores O’Riordan later recalled in an interview with The Irish Times. “Initially, it was just a chord shape, with no real melody or lyrics. I took a tape of it home and came up with a verse and chorus. I wrote about being rejected. I never imagined that it would become a big song.”
Listen to “Linger” from Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? on Apple Music and Spotify.
The lyric she penned for “Linger” was entirely personal for the teenage O’Riordan. An all-too-relatable expression of youthful innocence, it was inspired by a night out at a club in her hometown, Limerick, during which she met a boy she really liked.
“This guy asked me to dance, and I thought he was lovely,” she told the Irish Times. “Then he gave me my first proper kiss. I did indeed ‘have to let it linger.’”
She added, “I couldn’t wait to see him again, but at the next disco, he walked straight past me and asked my friend to dance. I was devastated. Everyone saw me being dumped, publicly, at the disco. Everything’s so dramatic when you’re 17, so I poured it into the song.”
An early recording of “Linger” appeared on The Cranberries’ first-ever demo tape in 1990, but the song didn’t achieve its full potential until producer Stephen Street helped the band perfect the arrangement – and then added subtle strings to accentuate its beguiling melody during the sessions for Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?
Convinced they were onto something good, the band chose “Linger” to follow the album’s first single, “Dreams.” That initial single cracked the U.K. Top 30, but “Linger” went one better. With help from a striking, MTV-friendly video loosely based upon Jean Luc Godard’s 1965 science fiction noir film Alphaville, “Linger” rose to No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and positioned The Cranberries on the very cusp of international success. That came to pass with the multi-platinum sales of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? and 1994’s No Need To Argue, but The Cranberries have since acknowledged that it might not have happened without “Linger.”
“It’s only really since Dolores passed away that I’ve grown a proper appreciation for songs like “Linger” and “Dreams,” guitarist Noel Hogan told NME in 2019. “They were just songs in the set list for us, but everybody else was losing their mind about them. When I listen to them now, I realise how great they are for someone so young, which I never, ever appreciated then. We must have played ‘Linger’ a gazillion times in our lives, and it just becomes a part of the set, but it’s different now. We’re so lucky to have left that behind, to have that legacy.”
Listen to “Linger” from Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? on Apple Music and Spotify.
