Podcast 1053 – The Cranberries song, “Linger” Transcript

Hello, everyone. Welcome again to another Teacher Joseph podcast.

Today we are going to talk about the lyrics of a song by The Cranberries, and it’s called Linger, which means something that doesn’t go away. To linger is something which hangs around. To linger is something which is always there, and maybe you want to get rid of it.

If you look out of the window right now and you see someone standing on the street, you could say there’s someone lingering in the street and it can mean to be somewhere longer than expected. As well as people, you can use it to describe smells — “there’s a smell lingering around here.” The smell of coffee lingers in the kitchen. The memory of that day when a bad thing happened lingers in my mind.

It often has this feeling of gentleness or reluctance — to linger.

OK, so things linger in our minds, smells linger in the kitchen. People who don’t want to say goodbye, they kind of linger. Children do that. They often linger, don’t they? Before saying goodbye, you get a feeling that there’s something they want to say.

Or my cat — he lingers as well when he wants food. You know that he’s looking for something, although he’s a bit more direct. He just comes and bites me, usually!

But anyway, yeah, lingering — so a really good word.

Today we’re going to look at the song by The Cranberries, which is called Linger.

By the way, we often use this word when we’re arguing. If you find two English people arguing, you might hear one say to the other, “Well, it’s your fault. You wouldn’t let it linger.” It means you wouldn’t… well, perhaps you can guess what it means. What do you think it might mean? You wouldn’t let it linger. You wouldn’t let it hang around. You wouldn’t let it be. You were very quick to get rid of the thing.

Right, let’s go through the song lyrics, OK? By The Cranberries….. now, like any song, OK, these lyrics are very vague. They don’t really tell any good story, but I’m just using it because it has the word “linger.”

OK, so the lyrics say: “If you, if you could return, don’t let it burn, don’t let it fade.”
So we don’t know what she’s talking about with “burn.” I think she’s probably saying: don’t keep it in your head. Don’t let it burn you up. Don’t let it fade. Don’t let it go away. So don’t let it destroy you — but don’t forget about it either.

And then she says, “I’m sure I’m not being rude, but it’s just your attitude. It’s tearing me apart. It’s ruining everything,” she says.

OK. So we don’t really know what she’s talking about there

And then she says: “I swore.” Past tense — swear means “I promised.” I swore. I swore I would be true. That means I wouldn’t cheat on you. I wouldn’t see anybody else.

And then she says, “And honey, so did you.”
So, “honey” is what we call people when we’re in a romantic relationship with them.

So why were you holding her hand”? Ohh. OK.

So it’s becoming clearer. So obviously, she saw the guy holding someone else’s hand.

So she’s saying: look, I swore, I promised I would be true to you, honest with you, and not cheat on you — and honey, in other words, my love, so did you.

So why were you holding her hand?

“Is that the way we stand?”
This is an interesting thing. “Is that the way we stand” means: is that where we’re currently at?

We use that phrase — “Is that how I stand with you?” It means: is that currently how we are seeing each other?

Yeah. So if you come to me and say, “You know what, I think my English is terrible,” and I say, “Ohh yes, your English really is awful. Yeah, you’re not learning,” you might say, “Really? Is that really how we stand — that we’re just going to insult each other?”
Something like that.

OK. “Is that the way we stand?” means: is that our current understanding of each other? Is that where we’re at? A bit idiomatic, but still very nice.

“Why are you lying all the time?” — meaning you’re not telling the truth.
“Was it just a game to you?” — our relationship, OK.

And then she says, “But I’m in so deep.” That just means I can’t really get out of this. You know, I’m involved in this relationship.
You know, “I’m such a fool for you.”

Really, she really has let herself get into this, hasn’t she?

And then she says, “You got me wrapped around your finger.”
Then, “You have to let it linger.”

And it means that you have to hold on to this thing.
“Do you have to? Do you have to? Do you have to let it linger?”

And then she goes on to tell us about other things.
She says:
“Ohh, I thought the world would have you. I thought nothing could go wrong.”

“To think the world of somebody” means to see them in a very positive way.
I think the world of my little cat, for example.

“I thought nothing could go wrong, but I was wrong. I was wrong.”

“If you could get by…” — it means if you could live. To get by means to survive.

“Trying not to lie, things wouldn’t be so confused and I wouldn’t feel so used.”
“But you always knew…”
“I just wanna be with you.”

And then she tells us again that she’s in so deep and she uses the word linger.

So there we are — linger — lovely word, lovely word for things which just don’t go away.

And then, yeah, you know, when you break up with people, they often linger around for a while because they can’t say goodbye. It’s sad, isn’t it?

Well, there we are.

Right, so that’s the lyrics of today — The Cranberries and Linger.
So nice to go through these songs, isn’t it?
I like The Cranberries. Their other big moment, of course, was Zombie.

And, yeah, I’m still discovering these songs.
I don’t know exactly where I was in 1993, but I wasn’t listening to music, so I’m still discovering songs like this — which I really love.

So Linger by The Cranberries — that’s today’s song, and that’s today’s podcast.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and I’ll catch you all again soon.

Bye!