The Cranberries In Their Zombie Songs
The Cranberries provides the right qualities for the 60 minutes segment on investigation of the power of public protest. The combination of a strong message, powerful lyrics and visually dramatic video clip creates a public protest masterpiece. The AIR ceasefire of 1994 can be attributed to the success of public protest mounted by The Cranberries in their song Zombie’. Over thousands of years, music has been a part of human culture and been used to convey different messages.
Music has the power to Inspire, unify and galvanism people into action. It can be used as a form of public protest to raise awareness of the issue to the general public and create a worldwide movement for a solution. This is demonstrated in the song Zombies’ by the band The Cranberries, creating a public protest song about the reciprocal acts of violence between the AIR and the British Army. ‘Zombie’ is centrally about Irish society normalizing war and young children losing their Innocence due to the Intense violence.
In Ireland, violence was accepted as normal and a part of everyday life, this caused young children to become asininities about violence and its usage in ‘normal’ life. Irish children lived a generational perpetuated war, for decades. The Irish Republican Army or AIR committed reciprocally motivated acts of terrorism directed against the British control of Northern Ireland. Zombie’ makes the point that the boundaries between war and normal life are confused and ambiguous. This blurring created the atmosphere for accepting and excusing the war.
The song ‘Zombies’ uses very strong and powerful lyrics to describe the situation of violence in Ireland. With their tanks ND their bombs, and their bombs and their guns’ refers to the environment which the Irish people lived in and the lead singer strongly stresses key words like tanks’, ‘bombs’ and ‘guns’. The message of ‘nothing has changed’ is common throughout the song’s lyrics, ‘It’s the same old theme since 1916’ which is a direct historical reference to the 1916 Easter Rising of the RIB (later known as the AIR) and explains the length of time the violence has been effecting Irish society.
The lyrics show how the Irish people distance themselves from the violence by saying ‘but you see, it’s not me, it’s tot my family, they are implicitly denying the conflict and violence. The Juxtaposition and cross cutting between black and white shots of children playing and soldiers creates ambiguity between play and war. The strength of the message to the audience is enhanced by the pace at which the shots are screened in synchronization with the tempo of the music and lyrics. The gold symbolism Is visually dramatic which creates a paradox by contrast to the other bleak Images.
Dramatic images are created with Dolores Ordinary against the cross, which is a preference to the 1 916 Easter Rising of the RIB. The singer is completely encrusted in gold and surrounded by golden nymph like figures which invites multiple references to Greek Mythology. The gold represents Justice, power, strength, purity and value. These visual messages add complexity and remove the viewer from the immediate clip and instant recognition by the public, therefore it would be an excellent choice for the 60 minutes special on the power of public protest. The Cranberries hit song ‘Zombies’ has become an anthem for the worldwide peace movement.
