The Cranberries: Zombie Meaning
Covered By: Bad Wolves (2018)
Zombie Lyrics
child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence;
Who are we mistaken?
But you see, it's not me, it's not my family.
In your head, in your head, they are fighting.
With their tanks and their bombs,and...
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This song is ambiguous, and a bit of a cop-out.
1. It could be saying that the Troubles in Northern Ireland are much the same as the fight for (southern) Irish independence in 1916.
2. Or it could be saying, 'The Troubles in the north are not my war, I've nothing to do with it, so why should I care' (a very common and saddening view taken by many southerners, even though many northerners helped them win 'their' independence).
I remember southerners during the Troubles saying, 'another person killed in the north. I don't want to hear about it anymore - booooooring'. These are the same people who now never shut up about the recession, basically because it affects them.
I'd say the first standpoint would be the best, but due to leaving her view on such a serious, emotive topic so open-ended - instead, turning to trite, pop-star dismissals of all violence - she doesn't really say anything. Is all violence 'bad'? Should we, as Europeans, have let Hitler do whatever he liked because 'violence is bad'. I don't think he would have suffered such an infantile view for long.
A better song would have looked at the motivations for certain wars, rather than being so self-righteous to assume that everyone involved in every war is a zombie.
Anyone can be a pacifist, until there's some thuggish soldier bursting in your back door and kicking your mother in the stomach. What're you gonna do? You gonna say then that 'violence is bad', or are you gonna stab that soldier in the chest.
I've never committed violence, but there's no way I would say that I wouldn't - that's just pop-star claptrap, that isn't seeing the context of things. Much like the lyrics of this song. -
I always thought that the "In your head" part was the fact that a lot of this war has been a silent one, fought in the minds of young people on both sides.
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The line "Child is slowly taken" could refer to the way that since the conflicts began children have been essentially brainwashed into believing that fighting is the way to live their lives and they are slowly being sucked into a world or killing and terrorism.
Another slightly more grim reason for this particular line could be that Dolores O'Riordan was disturbed to hear that during their 1993 tour of England the IRA bombed Warrington (a small town in the north west of England) and as a result two children died (a 3 year old who was killed on scene and a 12 year old who died five days later in hospital)
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Some people mentioned previously that because Dolores was RC she would be likely to be critical of the IRA. I disagree!!
"It's the same old theme since nineteen-sixteen.
In your head, in your head they're still fighting,
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns.
In your head, in your head, they are dying..."
Referring to 1916 Easter Rising when the British army defeated the irish rebels in Dublin. The singer is telling the IRA that the Fighting against the British is something conjured up in their minds ( in your head their still fighting ) . The song is definitely about the "Troubles" which started on August 12th 1969 with the "Battle of the Bogside". It shows a lot of footage from the North of Ireland in the video.
Zombie? Something brought back to life!
The idea that we must fight against the British!!
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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As a veteran, you guys should do some research on tanks and warfare at the time when trying to relate these things to the song. First off, since she's saying "It's the same old theme since 1916...", SINCE being the keyword here. These two lines of the song are obviously showing a look into the past, as if it's something looked back on, NOT the something that the song is entirely comprised of-- meaning what's going on now is WWI, or even later warfare, but it's the same thing that happened since the Easter Uprising. Since she also sings about tanks, bombs and guns- meaning tanks, planes and infantry - the first tank maneuver in any real combat scenario was in september 1916... months after the Easter Uprising. The use of tanks in normal military application didn't become mainstream for another two years (around the end of WWI).
As a veteran, let me take a stab at this:
Taking the innocence from a man is easier than you think. I know 21 year old war veterans who smile and laugh less than 50 year old non-veterans. It takes something out of you. Having your "head hanging lowly" would mean that the soldier is ashamed of what he had done, no matter if it wasn't his choice to carry out the order. Through the actions of taking another man's life, over and over through fear and the feeling of survival, that child-like innocence gets taken out of you-- no matter how much you fight it. Although I won't disagree that violence breeds more violence, I'd have to say that the silence that's referred to in the third line is talking about the veteran not talking about his experiences of combat, or the way we all keep it bottled up inside for some period of our lives.
The line, "But you see, it's not me, it's not my family" refers to the actions of either the songwriter's inability to relate to the veteran, because no one in her family went to the war that terrifies the vet still, or it refers to the way everyone else was trying to stay out of the war, thinking it wasn't any business of theirs. The lyrics, "In your head, in your head they are fighting" is how we replay the bad things in our lives over and over. People do this with relationship breakups and what they could've done differently to have kept that person in their lives. If you can agree with that, just imagine what losing a dear friend in battle is like or killing another human being out of fear or anger caused by fear. Take that breakup replay and times it by 100. When she says "they are crying", that could refer to the innocent family members crying over dead loved ones or the soldiers themselves either losing their minds right there on the battlefield or crying because they're dying and in pain. Because of lack of knowledge and exploration into the human body and mind at the time of world war one, training and morale of the soldiers was dismal and actually worked against the average soldier. Battlefield casualties are at a much lower rate today in comparison to wars at the beginning of the 1900's.
I won't deny that soldiers back then followed orders because of fear of the severe punishments towards disobedience, the soldiers today are more "zombies" than any other generation simply from the brainwashing techniques used. I'm not just talking about organized militaries like the U.S. and other large countries, but terrorist groups and other rebel forces as well. We follow orders not out of fear of repremand, but out of a fear of self-preservation. We are taught that these rules are here for a reason and if we should stray from these rules or a given order, then we could die by the hands of an enemy or get someone else killed... so we don't hesitate. We kill. That is the infantry's main purpose in life. That is our job. Yes, that could be the meaning of "zombie". But, it could mean something else. What is a zombie? Is it not someone who has died, but come back (without a conscience)? It's a dead human, that roams the earth-- maybe feeding on live humans? This could be the people the veteran has killed, haunting them. The dead people they have killed, coming back to feed on what's left of their souls. Innocence was already taken early on... so what's left to eat? You tell me... -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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Many excellent points have been made on this Site about this song. I just wish to add my thoughts on the double or triple meaning of Zombie. On the most obvious level, Zombie means 'idiot' as in, 'you must be an idiot to be involved in such inhumane, mindless stupidity as revenge violence going on for generations as took place in Northern Ireland. My apologies to those involved in Northern Ireland. I don't mean to be insensitive or over-simplistic.
Someone else touched on the notion that Zombie refers to those who perpetrated violence mindlessly/thoughtlessly because they were merely following orders.
But the level I haven't noticed anyone else suggest is this: In Voodoo, a Zombie dies; then comes to life again. I see this as a parallel to generational revenge violence whereby I kill Johnny because his uncle killed my cousin; so the violence never dies; or if it seems to die, it rises again and again, like a Zombie. -
I very much so agree with the top rated interpretation. I had another idea to share, however. The fact that it says "In your head they're still fighting" and "In your head they are dying" seems to me that she is speaking of someone who was involved in the war and is having post traumatic stress and flashbacks. He is still seeing these horrible events in his head.
Another idea that goes along better with the lyrics "Zombie" is that a person is being brainwashed into a zombie and these are the images being used to brainwash the soldier. "In your head, they are dying" and "In your head they are crying" might be images of propaganda shown to a soldier depicting his people being killed and tortured in order to make him hate the enemy. -
I liked your interpretation very much, I have only one little correction to make - "the violence caused such silence" - I think it just means that violence has the ability to leave u speachless, wordless...I am, also, sure that it's about northern Ireland - remember the video?!
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Just because the singer is Catholic doesnt meant this song is not a protest against the IRA.
The song is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, she uses 1916 to make the comparison that both conflicts are basically the same - Irish vs Britsh then recently IRA vs British. -
Zombie is indeed about the Northern Ireland troubles and was written as a protest to the bombings in Warrington in which 2 little boys were killed. The song went on to become one of their biggest hits.
An internet search can quickly find this fact.
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I think the song is about war, and the mindless submission of soldiers to follow orders of their "superiors". I don't think the song is about the Easter Uprising of 1916; although she does bring it up in the song, I think she is just using it as an example of "mindless submission". When she says, "What's in your head, zombie", I think she is pointing out the fact that soldiers, fighters, mercenaries, militia fighters, are fighting for a reason that they themselves do not fully understand. They are fighting because they are called upon, not because they believe that what they are fighting for is right. They are merely puppets of their superiors. When she calls them zombies, and asks what is in their head, I think she is saying they're completely ignorant in their reasons to fight. At the beginning of the song, she says "It's not me, it's not my family", she is saying that war isn't brought upon by the mass population, but by the few people who possess the influence and control of their country. I didn't mention the first line of the song yet because I wanted to explain what the song meant to me first. "Another head hangs lowly" - The soldiers who fight for the reasons that they do not understand themselves feel regret for the things they did. When called upon, they have a sense of obligation to fight and kill only because they have been brainwashed to do so (which is also why they could be "zombies", because they do not have thoughts of their own). She says, "And the violence caused such silence, who are we mistaken", The soldiers or drones who are fighting, bombing, killing, are speechless from the things they have done (talking about both sides of war). As a whole, the men and women involved see what they have done and cannot come up with a reason they did the things they did, they only did them because they felt an obligation to their country. When it comes down to it, I feel that in all wars, the people involved don't always agree with (or even know) the reasons they are fighting, they are only "zombies" who fight because they feel they have to, not because they believe they should.
BUT....i'm drunk (which is probably the only reason I wrote this) and had to go through this thing and do spell checks. I just wanted to voice my opinion. (I'm a 20 year old student who, at the time, is jobless and enjoying my summer as much as I can because I know I won't be able to be up at 4 am on a Tuesday night submitting a post on some random website I came across while looking up lyrics for a song. I'll live like this as long as I can before I have the whole 9-5 thing going on. Okay I feel like I'm getting onto a whole new subject now, and I'm just going to stop typing/rambling. GOODNIGH CRANBERRIES FANS! -
Hey guys... All the comments made above are great but one thing I thought about is what if it's not the actual war she sings about, but the soldiers (most probably the Irish soldiers) and how they relive the memories of 1916?... Seeing the children being taken and taking children following orders... Maybe they have become zombies from all these haunting memories?
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I think the song is about the pyschological pain of ongoing war. During the time England has invaded and taken over Ireland, the Irish people have died of starvation, had to emigrate to US and Australia to escape the resultant famines that resulted from having their land stolen off them. Just like in the movie Braveheart, where the English take over Scotland, the English do use psychological tactics to get "in your head", such as raping the women before their marriage date. I think the Irish people have had a history of seeing their children die of starvation and have a lot of pain following English occupation. Yet fighting through IRA forces could not stop the English. Eventually when people are pushed to the extent of generations of people denied equal chances for education and jobs in ireland, those Irish people have their heads stuffed up badly. It can result in abuse within hte family, as when children have been living in that kind of war zone, it is hard to not act out when they become adult. Children who experience abuse, and it extends into family members, start to feel dissociated and like zombies. Also the armies sent to take over another country are often zombie trained to believe it is ok to fire at civilians and also children if it makes the people more subservient. The Chinese managed to fight back enuogh, and the Indian people to overcome british rule, however it has taken so many generations for these people to trust outsiders, and to break through the extreme reactions left after being a wore torn country.
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