Zombie

Actress Sydney Lynn Stachyra walked into my recording space, blew my mind, and left me with an entirely new perspective on her scene in the Foreward podcast.⁠

The scene depicts a young woman singing a song called "Zombie" at the memorial service of her dear friend.  When the real life version of this scene unfolded many years ago, I didn't understand why she chose that song.  After my conversation with Sydney, I finally understand.  ⁠

After the shooting at my high school, the memorial was surreal.  A young woman stood on stage in front of thousands of people with her guitar.  The crowd was composed of our community and reporters as far as the eye could see.  I cannot imagine the courage it took to stand on that stage.  She told us that the young woman who lost her life that day had a favorite song.  The song was called “Zombie.”

In that moment the lyrics of the song felt brutal.  In the scene, someone in the audience starts giggling at the song choice as she starts singing.  It’s the kind of laughter that is so wildly inappropriate that it becomes impossible to stop.  I think most of us have been there, in a moment where the heartbreak is so intense that it seeps out of our pores in irrational and bizarre ways.  “I’ve laughed at a funeral,” Sydney told me.  “Sometimes the grief is too much.  Something strikes you, and you can’t help but let it out.”

The lyrics of the song are as follows: 

“Another head hangs lowly, child is slowly taken, and the violence, caused such silence, who are we mistaken?  But you see, it's not me, it's not my family, in your head, in your head, they are fighting, with their tanks, and their bombs, and their bombs, and their guns, in your head, in your head they are crying.”

All these years later… I understand that this young woman had not chosen an inappropriate song; she was making a powerful point.  

Sydney reminded me that there has been too much silence around the issue of school shootings. “The violence, caused such silence,”  Sydney sang. 

It has been 14 years since the shooting depicted in the Foreward podcast, and things haven’t changed in the United States.  They haven’t improved.  I’d like to think that in 2021 the release of this story might be irrelevant, but it’s not, because school shootings keep happening.

“Did you know the woman who originally sang that song in the Cranberries died by suicide?” Sydney asked me.    

“The violence, caused such silence” had Dolores O'Riordan once sang. It doesn’t have to. We can say something.