The Cranberries - Zombie (Analysis)

Zombie by The Cranberries is a 1994 Alt-Rock protest song about the 1993 IRA Warrington bombing. It was the lead single to The Cranberries second studio album: No Need to Argue, and received commercial and critical success, reaching No.1 in various countries, and being named the best song of 1994 by MTV and Triple J. The Alt-Rock genre – which in this instance features a more grunge-like, aggressive sound strongly links to the protest song genre, and as an Irish band, a song about the Troubles seems unlikely to be merely virtue signalling, although some critics such as AllMusic have argued that the song trivialises the Troubles.

The music video, directed by Sam Bayer, was filmed in Belfast, and features alternating shots of British soldiers, an abstract scene of lead singer Dolores O’Riordan in full body gold makeup, standing in front of a crucifix with children covered in silver makeup surrounding her, children playing a game where they pretend to fight with sticks, shots of murals, and shots of The Cranberries performing the song. The music video was partly inspired by Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box from the year before, in its use of religious imagery, grotesque sets and colour palette.

The opening shot of the music video is a close up of a child’s mud-covered face, followed by shots of other children, and of children playing, jumping on the roofs of derelict buildings in a wide angle shot. These scenes make use of black and white. The impact of this gives the impression of sympathy towards the youth as well as the attitudes of the working class who experience the effects of politics on ordinary people. As the lead guitar kicks in 13 seconds into the video, the conflicting medium-close up of a soldier is used. This shot is stylistically identical to the previous examples, in the same black and white filter with hand held shots – as if to give the audience a sense of cognitive dissonance, in that we should not associate children playing with a soldier holding a gun, but linking to the Troubles in Ireland it provides an emotive comparison. The scene describes what daily life was like in areas under British control. The guards in the video were actually told that they were filming a documentary about daily patrol operations. Shots of the band playing are also in black and white, and the band members are among rubble – putting them on the scene with the children and soldiers.

40 seconds in to the music video, things get much more abstract, with a wide shot of Dolores O’Riordan covered in gold in an Egyptian Queen style taking up the middle of the frame, behind her a crucifix, below her children covered in silver make up holding bows and arrows and in the background red trees with no leaves. The background is completely black. The colour pallet of only gold, red, silver and black set this scene apart from the harsh reality the black and white scenes were representing and instead put this scene in a metaphorical and symbolic world. The scene shows a symbolic visual reference to Saint Sebastian- a Roman Officer who was very close to Christianity and as punishment was pierced by hundreds of arrows. The contrast between shots that indicate brutal reality with the metaphorical scenes indicate a deeper meaning to the scenes indicating suffering, and also represent the change in mood and atmosphere throughout the song.

The music video features a lot of rock genre conventions as well as genre conventions of protest songs, for example the convention of rebelling against society, and going against the powers that be is shown in the shots of the soldiers conveying government control contrasting the scenes of the rebellious children playing war games. Other conventions on display is the use of iconography. The framing and mise en scene used to make the lead singer seem an important almost god-like figure in the more symbolism-heavy scenes, which when paired to the contrast of the black and white scenes as made apparent by the frequent cuts and fast paced editing style is a key aspect of the video. The fast-paced editing and frequent shifts in colour pallet are also used to coincide with the constantly evolving music which goes from sad and sombre to aggressive frequently.

At the end of the music video, we see one of the silver children in a close up shot, and it immediately cuts to the same shot of a child who had been knocked out previously in the video. This may represent that they are the same person and may represent the child as one of the two children killed in the Warrington bombing. It may also be contrasting how the cult-like setting of the more surreal scenes and the black and white reality, are not as different as the aesthetics suggest.

The video also frequently shows murals depicting the IRA and their UVF antagonists. These images cover the sides of buildings and include flags as well as machine guns, which portrays a sense of nationalism as well as violence.

Overall this music video fits the genre of a protest song very well, it portrays violence and anti-establishment against a police-state like Ireland, as well as against the violence however. The genre of alternative rock also fits into the traditional genre conventions of a protest song, however, when the song becomes more stripped back and sad at parts, it plays against these conventions so that when it comes back heavier it has more of an impact. The Cranberries are likely not just virtue signalling as they are an Irish band from the early 90’s and would therefore have been effected in some way shape or form to the Troubles in Ireland.