Linger

This song, by the Cranberries, is one of my favourite time machines. The plucked guitar notes chime ethereally as it hovers above the slow steady swirl of violins beneath it gently beckoning Dolores' dreamy hum before the drum signals its intent to take over. That opening always shivers me straight back to my spartan room in Bristol circa 1994 one cold and late winter night, alone and aching for someone to love in return. The future and all the naiviety of daydreams stretched out before me like the inky starless night - forbidding though the relentless drums that drove the song encouraged if not demanded challenge. All you need is persistence, diligence and a good solid drummer it demanded while I sat wrapped in my single duvet crammed as close as possible to the only source of heating in the room - the solid white metal heater, which ironically though not amusingly sat just below only source of cold in the room - the window. That song was on repeat so often and for so long that it weaved itself into a cocoon around me, seeping everything in that room, in those cold lonely nights, the occasional muted shriek of the wind outside, the cold sharp air in the room, the milk carton hung outside the window into the songs music, notes, rhythm and feel. All these things a picture could let me see but it cannot set in me, and linger like this song does with me.