Dolores O’Riordan was a singular talent as vocalist and primary songwriter of the Cranberries, and as a solo artist after 2003, before the band reunited in 2009. She had a distinct voice that made songs like “Linger” and “Zombie” beloved hits. A Dolores O’Riordan performance was instantly recognizable in the same way that a Sinead O’Connor performance was.
In a 2007 appearance on the French radio station Europe 2, O’Riordan performed a stripped-back rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way”. Accompanied by only an acoustic guitar, she eased into the iconic track with her signature breathy yet warbling vocals.
In the chorus, she held the mic an arm’s length away as her voice gained more strength. The familiar waves and breaks in her style worked well with “Go Your Own Way”. Particularly as an acoustic rendition. Listening to her cover, it sounds eerily like a Cranberries original. Like it could be unsuspectingly nestled in the middle of one of their albums. If “Go Your Own Way” weren’t such a well-known Fleetwood Mac song, it would probably fool someone who had never heard the original.
Dolores O’Riordan Makes Fleetwood Mac Her Own During 2007 Radio Appearance
As the performance continued, the halls around the recording booth filled with people. They peered in through the windows to watch Dolores O’Riordan, who was animated and lively as she sang.
That interest makes sense for a French radio station, actually. Around this time, O’Riordan had released her first solo album, Are You Listening?. It was well received in Europe, where it reached No. 2 on the Italian charts and No. 11 in France. Additionally, it hit No. 11 on the Billboard European Top 100 Albums chart.
Are You Listening? was O’Riordan’s most personal work at the time, she said. After The Cranberries went on hiatus, she took four years to write new music, approaching it more as a hobby than an active project. Out of 32 songs she wrote at the time, she chose 12 for the album that emphasized her need to understand herself without The Cranberries.
Speaking with Hot Press at the time, she highlighted the differences between her solo writing and writing with the band. She singled out the song “The Black Widow” for this example. “It’s completely different to the Cranberries,” she explained. “Lyrically too, I wouldn’t have written something as dark and personal as that with the boys.”
Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
The post Watch: Dolores O’Riordan Turns This Fleetwood Mac Song Into a ‘Linger’-esque Cranberries Track appeared first on VICE.
