That was how Delores O'Riordan introduced herself to the Cranberries in 1990. At the time, Noel and Mike Hogan (guitar and bass) and Feargal (drums) had been looking around for a lead singer for their band but this small and frail looking girl standing in front of them just didn't look the part. Noel played her a few chords he has been messing around with and Delores went home that night and wrote a set of lyrics for them. She came back the next day with a song called "Linger". They gave her the job.

Delores wrote "Linger" about her first ever boyfriend, but when she sang it to the band for the first time, they weren't listening to the words, they were just wondering how something so small could sing so loudly - needless to say, they were mightily impressed. The band was still working under the name The Cranberry Saw Us (say the last two words quickly) which had been given to them by Niall, their first lead singer. With Delores on board, they decided to go into a studio in their native Limerick to record three songs. They pressed up 300 cassette copies of the songs, left them in local record shops and waited to see if they would sell. All 300 copies sold out within a matter of days.