Cranberries return with rosier outlook on
life, music
By Daniel Oliveira
Daily Forty-Niner
After insomnia, depression and nervous
attacks, The Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan Burton has returned with
a child, a smile and an album of optimistic songs, "Bury the Hatchet."
Between the premature end of the tour
for the album "To the Faithful Departed," in fall 1996, and the beginning
of the writing of "Bury the Hatchet," almost a year later, Burton and her
band partners vanished from the public eye.
"I was very, very ill and really needed
to cancel the tour," Burton said. "I was having panic attacks. I was having
nightmares every time I slept. I was shaking involuntarily."
Burton said her personal problems began
after the death of one of her record companyís representatives. She said
The Cranberries, consequently, got lost, while being guided by different
people in the music business.
"The time was very difficult because I
knew everybody was just into money," she said. "Nobody was like, 'I love
the song.' It was more like, 'This song can do better [commercially] than
that song.' That stuff upset me."
Burton said guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist
Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler also felt the pressure, but the music
media mainly reported her problems.
"[The pressure] didn't show as much on
them because theyíre not as famous as me and don't get as much attention,"
she said. "Anything that happens to the band is going to show on me first,
but behind the scenes, the boys were not into it anymore."
After leaving the music industry, Burton
said her pregnancy inspired her to write songs again and contact her band
mates to work on the new album.
"When I felt the baby moving, it made
me emotionally moved," she said. "I healed my wounds. I was growing and
forgetting the past. I was becoming the real Dolores, a real family person
as opposed to an injured rock star."
She said the song "Dying in the Sun,"
off "Bury the Hatchet," is about her gratifying experience of having a
baby. Other lyrics also reflect Burtonís optimism.
The middle verses on "Just my Imagination"
-- "There was a time I used to pray/I have always kept my faith in love/Itís
the greatest thing from the man above" -- talk about the positive role
God plays in her life.
"I'm quite spiritual -- I believe in God
and in good and evil," she said.
Cal State Long Beach philosophy senior
Giovanni Hortua values Burtonís lyrics.
"Frankly, I can't stand her whining voice,
but the message she sends is decent," he said.
The Limerick, Ireland, band has sold almost
30 million copies worldwide combining its four albums, according to Island
Records. |
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