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PaperclipPerfector  12hr ago (text post)   457 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 17, 2026

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There's an Irish comedian called Shane Clifford who said that, if he could go back in time and kill one person, he wouldn't go for the obvious choice (Adolf Hitler) but rather a left-field choice: Leonard Cohen. Now, Clifford is a great admirer of Leonard Cohen, and loves his music, but if Clifford went back in time and smothered Cohen in his cradle, at least he'd never have to listen to a young busker butchering "Hallelujah" every time he walks down a pedestrianised street in the city centre.

Following the same reasoning, I think I might kill Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of the Cranberries. A song she wrote for the band, "Zombie", was recently voted the greatest Irish song of all time, beating out such indisputable, timeless classics as "With or Without You" and "One" by U2, "The Boys are Back in Town" and "Dancing in the Moonlight" by Thin Lizzy, "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, "Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues among countless others. You simply cannot fathom how much I despise "Zombie", nor how omnipresent it is among buskers or acoustic guitar dickheads in tourist-trap bars. The song sounds like a fifteen-year-old who got a guitar and a Boss DS-1 for Christmas and, after a month's practising, attempted to write a grunge song. There's no groove to speak of, the lead guitar tone is shockingly thin and tinny for what I can only assume was a very expensive album to record, and O'Riordan's staccato vocal tics (grating at the best of times) reach their nadir in the chorus. Not only is it not the greatest Irish song ever, it's not even the greatest song by the Cranberries: "Dreams", for one, is obviously superior.

Not only is it not the greatest Irish song ever, it's not even the greatest song by the Cranberries: "Dreams", for one, is obviously superior.

Zombie doesn't even sound like other Cranberries songs and is a clear outlier.

he'd never have to listen to a young busker butchering "Hallelujah"

Bonus I'd never have to listen to Cohen rhyming hallelujah with do ya, knew ya, or fool ya. Allure? Endure? Impure? Are these rhymes too obscure? Utter manure.

I suppose furnishing him with a rhyming dictionary would curtail the need to actually kill him, so I guess I'll choose that as my pettiest timeline tweak.

"Hallelujah? I barely knew ya!"

First of all, you can't prevent the creation of Zombie because then Bad Wolves wouldn't have been able to cover it in 2018, a cover which is better than the original. And also, if you killed Dolores O'Riordan, we wouldn't have Linger, and I can't abide such an outcome.

Bad Wolves wouldn't have been able to cover it in 2018, a cover which is better than the original

Sounds like Disturbed (derogatory)

we wouldn't have Linger

Fine, I'll kill her after the first album comes out but before the second album.

Very well, I can accept that compromise. Kill away, my good man.

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