Today in 1993, Irish alternative rock band The Cranberries released their debut studio album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? The record was written entirely by the band's lead singer Dolores O'Riordan and guitarist Noel Hogan and contains the band's highest charting US single, "Linger".
The band’s drummer Fergal Lawler recalled how O’Riordan first auditioned as lead singer and how the song came to be:
“It was a Sunday afternoon. She arrived with a keyboard under her arm, just set it up and played a few songs. We couldn't really hear her because she was singing through a guitar amp or something. I gave her a lift up to the bus stop and I was saying, 'Will we see you next week?' We gave her a tape of the music for 'Linger', which she took with her. The following week she came back, and she had lyrics written out and melodies and she sang along to what we were playing, and it was like, 'Oh, my God. She's great.”
In the documentary '99 Love Life & Rock 'n' Roll, O'Riordan says that the song is about her first serious kiss. The band was not expecting the song to be as commercially successful as it was, and became one of their most popular tunes. In a 2012 interview O’Riordan had said:
"I remember when MTV first put 'Linger' in heavy rotation, every time I walked into a diner or a hotel lobby, it was like, 'Jesus, man, here I am again'. It was trippy, like Jacob's Ladder. I didn't even have to take drugs."
Today's ear X-tacy features a classic track or deep-cut from the Alternative era every weekday at 10:10.
