How we wrote ‘Linger’ by The Cranberries

The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan: “Linger came around that ‘fatal love’ kind of stage in my life, when it was all drama.”

Teenage heartbreak, a rough demo and four chords sparked a breakthrough hit that would define a generation of alternative rock

Featured on their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, and released as their second single in 1993, Linger was the song that helped launch The Cranberries from the tiny rehearsal rooms in Limerick to the biggest stages across the world. Built around a simple four-chord idea from guitarist Noel Hogan, the song took shape when singer Dolores O’Riordan added lyrics inspired by the teenage heartbreak she was experiencing at the time. The result became the band’s breakthrough hit, reaching the Top 10 in the US and earning heavy rotation on MTV.

In these interviews, O’Riordan and Hogan looked back on the band’s earliest days, from their first meeting and homemade demos to the moment Linger began to take off around the world. We were fortunate to speak with Dolores before her tragic passing in 2018, and her reflections here capture the emotion and youthful innocence that shaped one of the most beloved songs of the 1990s…

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Released: 15 February 1993
Artist: The Cranberries
Label: Island
Songwriters: Noel Hogan, Dolores O’Riordan
Producer: Stephen Street
UK chart position: 14
US chart position: 8

Dolores O’Riordan: “We had a piano at home in my parents’ house, so I had been writing songs since I was 12 years old. But I wanted a band with bass, guitar and drums. There was a girl in my flat who was going out with a guy who used to sing with The Cranberries, and at the time they were called The Cranberry Sauce. She told me they were looking for a singer and that maybe I should go and meet them.

“On Sundays, they used to rehearse at the local studio, so I went there and met Mike, Ferg and Noel. I remember there were a lot of guys there, probably about 10 of them in the room, just hanging out, and they were about 16, 17 or 18 years old. I was 18 and went in with my Yamaha keyboard under my arm, sang a few songs for them and then they played a few songs for me.”

“I remember thinking they had potential, and one of the things they played was Linger – I really liked that one and took home a cassette recording of Noel playing the four chords… Then that week, I was busy working on it in my bedroom, trying to work out my parts and what I was going to sing. You know, when you’re a teenager, you’re dating, and you get a broken heart, and it’s just so fatal? Well, Linger came around that ‘fatal love’ kind of stage in my life, when it was all drama.

“We used to rehearse in this small little room and we didn’t have any PA or anything – Noel had an amp, and Mike had an amp which I plugged my microphone into. It was very hard to hear what I was singing because his guitar was going through the same amp.

“A few months later, we made our first demo with Linger and a song I believe was called Sunday, and Dreams, and I think there was a song called Nothing Left At All… Noel sent the demo to a bunch of UK record companies and a little buzz began to occur in the music industry over there. There was a company called Imago with a guy called Terry Ellis, who was interested. Also Island Records and, I believe, Rough Trade were interested, because Geoff Travis ended up managing us for a long period of time. To make a long story short, we ended up going with Island.

“We were doing a gig in Limerick and we had very little live performance experience. We’d only done five or six gigs before, at the time, so I didn’t have a clue how to perform – I was just a bag of nerves. I recall a band called 808 State were playing there that night too. For that show, there was a bunch of these record company people flying into Shannon and I remember coming off-stage and meeting Denny Cordell [from Island Records] who eventually went on to sign us. I had no idea what that even meant!

“Maybe six months to a year later, when we were doing our first European tour. Because up until then, we’d only done small, local gigs in Ireland. So we went out to mainland Europe and got the opening slot for the Hothouse Flowers. Their capacities would’ve been around 3000 to 6000 seaters, so that was good experience because we were actually on a tour bus. But I recall we were asked to go to America and we didn’t finish that tour because we were told Linger had gone Top 10 over there. So we flew into Los Angeles and made a video there, and I remember we were on heavy rotation on MTV – I think they played Linger about 12 times a day or something like that. It blew up then.”

Noel Hogan: “[Dolores] came in, and she was really quiet, you know, this tiny little girl, very polite, with a small keyboard under her arm. We were chatting and trying to make her comfortable, and she sang a song that she’d written herself on the keyboard and then she sang Troy by Sinead O’Connor, which was out around that time. That was our first meeting, and I can always remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, her voice is crystal clear and she can really, really hit the note. But not only that, I was thinking, how is she not already in the band? At that time, at that age, if you’re in that kind of scene, everybody’s kind of in the band already. But she told me years later that she’d joined a band, not knowing it was a cover band, and on day one they asked her if she knew Born In The USA by Springsteen…

“We got talking, she sang, and we talked about what she was into and what we were into. And I had a cassette that I’d done at home – that’s how I would remember ideas: I would just press record on the old school tape recorder – then play the ideas that I could come back to later on. And so I gave her the cassette that had Linger on, just a very basic version of it on there, and that was it.

“For any musician to click with someone like that – if you’re lucky, it happens once in your life, you can meet that person. I could’ve had the music to Linger and given it to somebody else, and it may never have seen the light of day again.”

Find out more at the band’s official website: cranberries.com

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