Behind the songs: The Cranberries - Zombie

Zombie by The Cranberries was released in 1994 and it was included in the album No need to argue.
It was inspired by the IRA bombing in Warrington, England, in 1993, where two children were killed.
The band wrote "Zombie" to be a song for peace among England and Ireland.

The video clip was shot by Samuel Bayer who began as a painter and who was wildly creative in his videos when given free rein. His best-known work is Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Getting painted for the video was O'Riordan's idea. 

The Cranberries performed this at Woodstock '94 a month before the single was released.

In America, the song wasn't released as a single. This was a strategy in order to sell more albums. Promotional copies were issued to radio stations and MTV gave the video plenty of spins, so the song got lots of exposure, helping the album No Need To Argue sell over 7 million copies in the US.