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My Gen X Playlist: Linger – The Cranberries

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What could you do more of?
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Everyone in my family plays a musical instrument, except me. My mom and siblings play the piano, guitar and/or the ukulele. It’s not like I never tried. I took piano lessons when I was a kid for a year or two. The problem was I never practiced so you can imagine how torturous each lesson went. Once, I asked my parents if I could quit piano lessons. They agreed on the condition that I also quit basketball. Hey, I never knew the two were tied at the hip. I think this was one of those life lesson moments. Look before you leap. That’s what I learned from this one.

Looking back, I wish I learned to read music and play an instrument. I see so much joy when my siblings play. I recently borrowed my mom’s guitar and decided to jump in. At first I was intimidated about tuning it. What an impossible task for an untrained ear. It turned out to be simple using a tuning app. The app listens to each string and guides you to fine tune the guitar. How great is technology.

Thank goodness for YouTube. There are so many instructional videos to play your favorite songs. Recently, I’ve been working on Linger by the Cranberries. There are only a few chords (perfect) and it helps that I love the song.

Dolores O’Riordan: “. . .when I met this group called The Cranberry Saw Us, I was immediately impressed: they wanted to write their own songs. They couldn’t really play, which was part of their charm. Noel Hogan, their guitarist, used to make up his own chords, sometimes with just one finger. Linger was the first song we wrote.”

Noel Hogan: “We were terrible when we started. I knew about five chords and four of them are probably in Linger. But when Dolores heard the monotonous loops that would become Linger, she knew they had potential.”

– The Guardian

I found some encouragement after learning this. I know that’s five more chords than I have right in my pocket now, but hearing about a huge band going through similar struggles makes me feel a little less lame.

Transition from chord to chord is difficult. I’m told it takes time for muscle memory to kick in. The callouses on my fingers are getting a little tired and beginning to give me some attitude. I have to allow more time and practice and be patient. I’ll ignore the sarcasm from my fingertips for now and soldier on. Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck.

–

For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

If you, if you could return
Don't let it burn
Don't let it fade
I'm sure I might be rude
But it's just your attitude
It's tearing me apart
It's ruining everything
And I swore, I swore I would be true
And honey, so did you
So why were you holding her hand?
Is that the way we stand?
Were you lying all the time?
Was it just a game to you?

But I'm in so deep
You know I'm such a fool for you
You've got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

Oh, I thought the world of you
I thought nothing could go wrong
But I was wrong, I was wrong
If you, if you could get by
Trying not to lie
Things wouldn't be so confused
And I wouldn't feel so used
But you always really knew
I just wanna be with you

And I'm in so deep
You know I'm such a fool for you
You've got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

And I'm in so deep
You know I'm such a fool for you
You've got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?
You know I'm such a fool for you
You've got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?

31 thoughts on “My Gen X Playlist: Linger – The Cranberries”

  1. The backstory of Linger is encouraging! As I am also about to jump in with learning how to play the piano, not knowing a single chord yet or how to read music is a bit discouraging but the intention and spirit to learn how to play/jam is there. Good luck with playing the guitar! 🤘🎸

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  3. Oh I always wanted to play an instrument. I played the flute, violin, guitar and piano for a time, but none of it ever stuck. I was always off to the next shiny thing. Most recently I was interested in sound therapy and bought a tongue drum, which I like because you don’t really have to learn anything serious to play it. You can just happily make sounds and everything sounds nice. I wanted some singing bowls too, but they are pretty pricey. Maybe some day…

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  4. I don’t have the patience to learn a musical instrument, so I’ll leave that to you and anyone else who wants to learn one. 🙂 I’m trying to learn to draw again. I used to know how, a long time ago, but life happened and I fell out of practice.

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  7. I love that you’re learning to play the guitar. I’ve always wanted to learn.
    I loved playing clarinet in school for eight years. I never learned to read music and always played by ear. I was ashamed of this, so I never told anyone. I only started telling people this as an adult.

    Linger was my ex-husband’s and my first song. Not a wedding song, but the first song we ever danced to. For a long time, I couldn’t listen to it. But now I can, and I love it again. Thank you for sharing it. 🖤

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    1. Playing for eight years hiding the fact that you are unable to read music is pretty impressive. I’m probably not going to learn to read music, just look to play songs that I like. Hopefully pick up enough chords where I can have a little fun.

      Songs sometimes take time to recycle to the point you can listen to them again…

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  10. I used to play guitar but at that point I never learned chords, I didnt start learning to play them until I started making and playing cigar box guitars. After that i moved over to ukulele and have learned it of a sorts but dont play it often anymore. I have 2 of them. I did find an app for my phone called “chord!” It can show you chords for any stringed instrument and any tuning, which helped me out a lot. I have it on android but I think its on iPhone as well. Just remember, when learning a song, if you mess up, just keep going to the end of the song or else you get stuck to that point and will continue to mess up there, thats the crazy side of muscle memory.

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    1. Hey, man. I really really appreciate your message. Sometimes when I’m playing, I’m not noticing too much progress. Haha. I’m very curious about the cigar box guitar. Sounds interesting. I’ll check out the app. Great advice about keep going. Thanks!

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      1. Most of the cigar box guitars usually only have 3 or 4 strings, my first one was originally made from junk I had found. A cookie tin, 1×2 board, the tuners was from an old guitar neck I found that was rotting, and my frets when i decided to add the later was match sticks. I bought the strings from a local pawn shop and started playing around on it. I’ve got a video of my guitars I built on my youtube channel I can send ya if you want.

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      5. Not a problem, as for the sound of it, i used a piezo disc just taped to it and then just wired it to a rca jack so I could plug it into the amp. Ita amazing how much those little guys will put out and what you can use them for.

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  11. Good song choice and good on you jumping in to learn guitar. I can read music and played a brass instrument in school (my dad’s selection for me as he played brass) but I’ve always wanted to learn guitar. Maybe one day….

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