Watch Ruby Amanfu perform “Zombie” by The Cranberries at Brandi Carlile’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend 6 in Riviera Maya, Mexico. Ruby shared the following statement about the performance in the video caption.
After several deeply sick days in bed with my body battling a virus much like the one the collective now fights, I want to share a few words: Last week around 12:30am on inauguration morning, I sang “Zombie” (written by Dolores O’Riordan and released by @TheCranberries in 1994) with my friends in Mexico at @BrandiCarlile’s @JustWannaWeekend and then couldn’t stop crying backstage for a while. It means more than ever to me these days – and singing it with our human family at that particular moment, it was obvious that most of us felt it in our core. It is a call out against apathy and a call out to open our eyes. It’s going to be messy. It’s going to get distorted. It’s going to feel shaky. You’re going to lose your balance. But open your eyes.
We are in a marathon. A marathon. A marathon. Not all of us have to be the runners. Some are handing out the cups of water and oranges. Some are cheering in encouragement. Some are passing out towels. Some are medics tending to the dehydrated or lending an arm to catch those who are stumbling. We can all be in it somehow – together – and we must.
Resist.
Footage by @annahaas_creative
The iconic 90s song “Zombie,” written by Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries, is a protest song. According to American Songwriter, in 1994, O’Riordan said of the song that she was upset that bombings and warfare were being undertaken in the name of Ireland. “The [Irish Republican Army] is not me. I’m not the IRA. The Cranberries are not the IRA. My family is not. When it says in the song, It’s not me, it’s not my family, that’s what I’m saying. It’s not Ireland, it’s some idiots living in the past.”
The title of the song (Zombie) and its chorus is likely a reference to mindless troops, just following what the authorities say, killing or harming with no personal thought on the matter. Others believe that the zombies might be the many dead in Ireland who continue to haunt the region with their memories.
Another head hangs lowly
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 their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are crying
In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
What’s in your head, in your head?
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie, oh
From the war in Iraq to the genocides in Palestine and Sudan, the song, sadly, still rings true today with heartbreaking parallels.
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