Ever thought about how it feels to be the one carrying the emotional intelligence of someone who has already been wrecked by love at least twice, but at least learned poetry from it (if nothing else)? “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?” floats right there, between innocence and devastation, like it cannot decide whether it wants to kiss you or ruin you, both gently, of course.
The Cranberries knew what they were doing with this one. The guitars feel like they’re shimmering (like a musical Edward Cullen). The melodies make you sway, even if the lyrics hurt everything you’ve ever known. The vocals feel like confessions whispered into the wind, through rain and snot-soaked sleeves.
Every track is soft, but soft like a bruise that was left by the kind of feelings that show up at late at night and start ripping at the seams of your soul.
This album talks about infatuation, longing, emotional loops, quiet fury, devotion that hurts, and the slow dawning realisation that maybe, just maybe, you deserve more. It is romantic. It is wounded. It is wide eyed and tired all at once. And Dolores O’Riordan makes you feel every single word.
So grab the last of your braincells, make a cup of something warm, and prepare to be gently, emotionally, uppercut twelve separate times. Let us go song by song through one of the softest, saddest, prettiest, emotional labyrinths of the 1990s.
1. I Still Do
The album opens with vulnerability already unlocked, door wide open, heart sitting on the pavement asking strangers to please not step on it. “I Still Do” is about devotion that refuses to fade even when common sense is banging pots and pans in the background screaming move on. It drifts in slowly, almost shyly, like the feeling itself is nervous about announcing its presence.
I’m not ready for this
The Cranberries, “I Still Do”
Though, I thought I would be
I can’t see the future
Though, I thought I could see
I don’t want to leave you
Even though I have to
I don’t want to love you
Oh, I still do
The vocals hover rather than land, and that is what makes it hurt so much more. There is no dramatic climax here. Just steady, persistent longing. You cannot scream this out loud; you have to sit through it and feel it coursing through you. It will not explode, but quietly colonise your thoughts. Lyrically, it circles the idea of loving someone past the point of convenience, past dignity, past whatever deadline you promised yourself for self preservation. In theory, lyrically, it feels similar to U2’s “With or Without You”.
As an opener, it is genius. It tells you exactly what kind of emotional weather system you have stepped into. Not thunder. Not lightning. Just continuous rain that leaves you damp even after you think you have dried off. It welcomes you to the album and tells you that you are already attached.
2. Dreams
If “I Still Do” is yearning, “Dreams” is falling in love and not even pretending to be cool about it. This song does not have anything nonchalant about it. This is romance with stars in its eyes, knees shaking, diary entries being written in curly handwriting with hearts over the i’s.
Oh, my life is changing everyday
In every possible way
And oh, my dreams
It’s never quite as it seems
Never quite as it seemsI know I felt like this before
The Cranberries, “Dreams”
But now I’m feeling it even more
Because it came from you
Then I open up and see
The person falling here is me
A different way to be
The guitars sparkle like your eyes, when they go glassy, while thinking about how happy someone makes you. The rhythm bounces lightly, like the little skip in your step after a wholesome first date. The melody feels like looking at someone across a room full of strangers and feeling at home. If this is not what love feels like, I rebuke it.
What makes it so intoxicating is its sincerity. There is no irony here. No armour. Just awe. That terrifying, exhilarating moment when you realise someone matters too much already. The lyrics swirl around emotional intoxication, around being so overwhelmed by affection that it almost feels unreal, like a fantasy you have accidentally wandered into.
And now I tell you openly
The Cranberries, “Dreams”
You have my heart so don’t hurt me
You’re what I couldn’t find
A totally amazing mind
So understanding and so kind
You’re everything to me
Placed second on the album, it is cruel in the most poetic way. Because just when you are floating, thinking everything is lovely and romantic and soft focus, the album is quietly sharpening its knives for later. But for now, you are allowed joy. For now, you are allowed butterflies. For now, love feels uncomplicated. Cherish it. The album will not.
3. Sunday
As “Sunday” starts, it shifts the mood into something quieter and more contemplative, like walking home alone after a party while the world hums gently around you, dissociating. It feels homely and lonely at the same time, like your thoughts circling instead of sprinting.
Suddenly, the beat picks up, like you are running back to the party because the one you love is still there; and you owe them a When Harry Met Sally… type epic monologue to profess your love.
And I couldn’t find the words to say, “I love you”
The Cranberries, “Sunday”
And I couldn’t find the time to say, “I need you”
It wouldn’t come out right
It wouldn’t come out right
It just came out all wrong
The song carries a sense of emotional distance, of connection that is present but not fully reachable. Sundays here are not lazy brunches and laughter. They are raves where the silence you feel inside gets a little too loud, no matter how loud everyone else it. It sounds like thinking about someone while pretending you are not.
Lyrically, it plays with hesitation and uncertainty, that space where affection exists but is not being met with the same energy. It is gentle but heavy, like carrying something fragile for too long without realising your arms are getting tired.
4. Pretty
“Pretty” arrives shorter and sharper, like a sudden thought you have while looking in the mirror a bit too long. It flirts with insecurity, with wanting to be seen, admired, chosen. The bass and lyrics quietly poke at self doubt, which is frankly one of the most realistic emotional pairings in existence.
You’re so pretty the way you are
And you have no reason to be so insolent to meLa-a la-a-a (yeah, yeah)
The Cranberries, “Pretty”
You say you want to, but you won’t change me
There is a faint edge to it, a brittle brightness. Smiling while checking if anyone is actually looking. Wanting validation without admitting how badly you want it. The contrast between sound and subject makes it sting more, because it feels like masking. Like pretending everything is fine while low key spiralling inside.
It is a small track but it leaves fingerprints. It captures that universal feeling of wondering whether love is being offered for who you are or for who you are trying to be. Short, sweet, and quietly unsettling. The emotional equivalent of saying “I’m joking” after revealing something far too real.
5. Waltzing Back
Ah yes. The song for anyone who has ever gone back to something that already hurt them and fed themselves a new delulu perspective to make it seem romantic. “Waltzing Back” is about cyclical love, returning to the same emotional battlefield with fresh hope and absolutely no protective gear.
Who gave them the right
The Cranberries, “Waltzing Back”
Waltzing back into your life?
Your life, your life?
Now I feel fear
I wish that they’d never come here
The melody literally sways, which is sick and twisted in the best way because it mirrors the metaphor perfectly. You are dancing back into danger. You are pirouetting into heartbreak. You are romanticising the bruise before it even forms.
Lyrically, it captures tragedy; the one where you convince yourself this time will be different, this time they will change, this time you will not get hurt the same way. You know you are lying to yourself. But you lie gently. Poetically. With choreography.
6. Not Sorry
Here comes the quiet backbone. “Not Sorry” is restrained but resolute, like someone who has cried all night and woken up strangely calm. The vocals are soft, but the message carries weight. This is about refusing to apologise for existing, for wanting more, for finally drawing emotional lines in invisible ink and then tracing them over in pen.
I keep on looking through the window again
The Cranberries, “Not Sorry”
But I’m not sorry if I do insult you
And I’m sad, not sorry ’bout the way that things went
And you’ll be happy, and I’ll be forsaken thee
I swore I’d never feel like this again
But you’re so selfish
You don’t see what you’re doing to me
There is a subtle power to its delivery. No shouting. No dramatic declarations. Just firm self respect wrapped in a whisper. The kind of defiance that does not need an audience because it is happening internally first.
The instrumentation starts gentle and then progresses, which makes the lyrical stance feel even stronger. You expect anger. You get composure. You get someone quietly stepping back from emotional chaos and deciding they are done shrinking.
It is not a victory lap. It is the first step away from the mess. And sometimes that is far braver.
7. Linger
This is the one. The emotional centre of gravity. The track that has personally ruined everyone with any capacity to love. “Linger” is unrequited love rendered in slow motion, dripping with vulnerability and quiet desperation.
But I’m in so deep
The Cranberries, “Linger”
You know I’m such a fool for you
You got me wrapped around your finger
Do you have to let it linger?
The first few times I heard this song, it made me feel the same way as “Dreams” did:
“The guitars sparkle like your eyes, when they go glassy, while thinking about how happy someone makes you. The rhythm bounces lightly, like the little skip in your step after a wholesome first date. The melody feels like looking at someone across a room full of strangers and feeling at home. If this is not what love feels like, I rebuke it.”
However, once I understood the lyrics (in trying to sing-along), my eyes widened. This is NOT a romantic, happily ever after type love song.
And I swore, I swore I would be true
The Cranberries, “Linger”
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?
It is about staying too long, hoping too hard, accepting crumbs because you are starving for the box of cookies. It is about loving someone who does not love you back in the same shape.
Every line aches with imbalance. You can hear the wanting. The waiting. The disbelief that things have not turned out the way they were promised. It is not dramatic heartbreak. It is worse. It is lingering heartbreak. The kind that overstays its welcome and refuses to be evicted.
Oh, I thought the world of you
The Cranberries, “Linger”
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
If this song does not make you want to text someone you should absolutely not text, congratulations on your emotional stability. The rest of us are unwell.
8. Wanted
“Wanted” brings a sharper tempo and a more pointed frustration. This is longing with teeth. Rejection with rhythm. The speaker aches to be desired, to be chosen openly rather than half heartedly, and the impatience hums under every note.
The guitars move quicker, giving the song a restless quality, like pacing across a room while pretending you are totally fine actually. Spoiler. You are not fine. There is resentment here, but it is still wrapped in vulnerability: hurt first, anger second.
Sitting in an armchair with my head between my hands
The Cranberries, “Wanted”
I wouldn’t have to be like this
If you’d only understand
Too many misunderstandings causing such delay
And if it doesn’t work like this
Well, I’ll try another way
It explores that horrible space where you want someone desperately but can feel yourself slipping down their priority list. Where affection feels uneven. Where effort is asymmetrical. Where you are showing up in capital letters and they are replying late in lowercase.
It does not scream. It simmers. And honestly, simmering is often more dangerous.
9. Still Can’t…
Even the title trails off. Which is emotionally criminal. “Still Can’t…” is about paralysis, about being stuck in a feeling long after logic has packed its bags and left the building. You cannot move on. You cannot forget. You cannot quite articulate why either.
The track circles itself musically and lyrically, reinforcing that sense of being trapped inside your own head. The feeling has become furniture. It lives here now. You trip over it daily.
Nothing of what has happened surely shows
But your ego excelled and then your attitude
And you went on laughing and shouting
It’s all too shrewd‘Cause you wanted it all
The Cranberries, “Still Can’t…”
No, and there’s nothing at all
There is resignation woven into the melody, a softness that suggests exhaustion rather than fresh hurt. This is what happens when heartbreak settles in for the long term. When it stops screaming and starts humming quietly in the background of your life.
It is understated and devastating, which is frankly this album’s favourite personality trait.
10. I Will Always
This one leans hard into devotion, into love that borders on self sacrifice. “I Will Always” sounds like someone offering their whole heart without checking whether the other person is actually holding out their hands.
The vocals feel fragile, almost reverent, and the lyrics centre on loyalty that persists regardless of circumstance. It is beautiful and concerning in equal measure. The kind of love that poets adore and therapists side eye.
I will always go beside you
You will always understand itAnd now it’s all the same to me
So be whatever you want to be
Go wherever you need to goAnd when there’s nothing left behind
The Cranberries, “I Will Always”
Taken whatever you needed to
And leave it all into my mind
There is something tremulous about it, as though she is clinging to affection as a form of stability. It is not triumphant. It is pleading in the softest possible register.
A gorgeous, unsettling reminder that loving deeply is noble, but loving at your own expense can quietly hollow you out.
11. How
“How” feels stripped back and haunted, like wandering through your thoughts long after midnight when everything suddenly feels too honest. The question in the title stretches across the song, unanswered, echoing.
How did we get here. How did it go wrong. How do I fix something that keeps slipping through my fingers.
In your world, you’re alone in your face
The Cranberries, “How”
You’re alone in your world
You’re alone in your face
How you said you never would leave me alone, how
There is no resolution offered. Just contemplation. Just hurt being examined gently rather than dramatised. It is one of the album’s most introspective moments, and arguably one of its most mature. Heartbreak not as spectacle, but as quiet analysis.
It is a good post-heartbreak gym track, I must say.
12. Put Me Down
And finally, the album decides it has had enough. “Put Me Down” closes things with confrontation, bristling guitars and a tone that finally snaps back at emotional cruelty.
This is about being belittled, undermined, diminished, and realising you are finished tolerating it. The softness hardens. The patience evaporates. Self worth kicks the door in.
I can’t take this anymore
I decided to leave, walked out through the door
Oh, and why do you think I go?
Because you know it can never be soAnd you always prove me wrong
The Cranberries, “Put Me Down”
‘Cause you’re always putting me down
It is cathartic after so much vulnerability, like standing up after being emotionally curled into yourself for forty minutes straight. Not bitter. Just done.
A perfect ending. Not healed. But no longer silent.
It finds it’s strength in growing a backbone but not losing the softness, even after the heartbreak.
All hail The Cranberries!
Taken together, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? charts an emotional coming of age through romance, insecurity, devotion, heartbreak, resilience and the slow blooming of self respect. It starts with longing and ends with boundaries. Which is honestly the most realistic narrative arc of all time.
This album understands that love is rarely linear. You fall. You float. You spiral. You go back. You promise yourself things. You break those promises. You finally decide you deserve better. Then you still think about them sometimes anyway.
It is tender without being naive, wounded without being cynical. A record that sits with your feelings rather than rushing to fix them. One that whispers instead of shouts, but somehow lands every emotional punch.
If you have ever loved too hard, stayed too long, hoped too much, or had to relearn how to stand up for yourself after emotional demolition, this album is already your friend. Possibly your therapist. Definitely your late night companion.
Just like everyone at Her Campus at MUJ.
Everybody else was doing it.
Listening to this album and quietly having their heart rearranged.
So why can’t I, Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.