What's In Our Heads?
Drumming into the edge of the void ft. The Cranberries.
Before Dolores O’Riordan — lead singer of The Cranberries — passed in 2018, she described the divinely-inspired writing process of Zombie: the Verses, the Chorus, the Lyrics, the Hook(s) all came to her without inhibition or obstacle.
The resistance came instead from the Record Label, given the explicitly political nature of the lyrics. The song — 1994 lead single from their 2nd Album “No Need To Argue” — was inspired by the death of two children from one of the thousands of civilian bombings carried out over 4 decades, across Northern Ireland and the UK, during The Troubles.
Not that she minded much; imagine the following in a rich Irish accent:
"If I think something, I have to say it. And I really don't care what anybody thinks, you know?"
Opinionated, Fiery, IDGAF attitude: what Planetary Archetype would that remind you of? I would suggest Mars, which becomes even more appropriate given the focus of the song is War and it being fueled by righteous anger.
O’Riordan has a powerful but challenging chart (how’s my Astrology lingo coming along?). Her Mars — the Planet of War, where we channel our righteous anger — lies close to her Ascendent in the 1st House: where planets are most tied to our sense of Self, and most readily show up in our lives and personality. Mars is also conjunct the North Lunar Node Rahu, thought to represent our life purpose and direction.
Mars-Rahu forms a Grand Trine with Saturn in the 4th House (Struggles, Trials, Burdens in the Homeland) and Uranus in the 8th House (a Revolutionary Perspective on Death). Her Moon is in Sidereal Pisces (Empathy and Dreams), Opposite Uranus, forming an almost perfect Kite.
Here is a soundtracked 1 minute summary:
Zombie came as a shock — not in the least due to the delicate-looking Sun-Venus in Leo figure behind it. Based on the band’s debut album, those crunchy guitars and guttural bellows came from nowhere; in reality, it signified the moment O’Riordan first learned to channel this pure and embodied Mars energy (and the majority of their 3rd album went down the same road).
Few songs are more deeply entrenched in our cultural consciousness than Zombie: it is a Local Pub Cover staple and a Kareoke classic; it was the most played song on United States Alternative Rock in its release year of 1994; it even topped our own Triple J Hottest 100 countdown of that year. And, despite being almost three decades old (!?), it has arguably never been more relevant.
We all know it — but what exactly was the meaning of That Chorus: who, or what, is the Zombie taking hold inside human heads? O’Riordan, it appears, left this open for interpretation. Here are three options:
A commentary on how blindly cleaving to centuries old prejudices can reduce one's capacity for independent thought.
A metaphor to reanimate the children whose deaths inspired O'Riordan to write it.
A reckoning with the dead children that populate your mind; the dead bodies you've seen in the images that you can't forget.
https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1720094564529402017
Oof.
As many of us grapple with the existential choice of continuing to bear witness to the brutal human consequences of this mind virus, or protecting our mental health... at least we have Dolores to eternally thank for this piece of sublime Mars catharsis.
I’m not sure how many more dead children I can stomach, so let this be a testament.