"Salvation" is the lead single from Irish rock band The Cranberries' third studio album To the Faithful Departed. The single had some success in the United States, where it reached number one on Billboards Modern Rock Tracks chart for four weeks, and it was a chart hit in Europe and Australia, peaking at number four in Iceland, number six in Italy, number seven in New Zealand and number eight in Australia and Ireland. It also reached the top 20 in Walloon Belgium, Finland, France and the United Kingdom.
Content
"Salvation" talks about drug abuse, and how one should refrain from falling into it. The directness of the song was regarded as bland and too preachy by the media and critics, but Dolores O'Riordan said that it wasn't supposed to be an anti-drug song per se, but "kind of anti the idea of becoming totally controlled by anything, any substance at all", O'Riordan stated to Kurt Loder—adding that she knew what it was like and that "it wasn’t a nice experience and it didn’t get me anywhere. It just confused me more". She explained that the meaning behind the song was "reality reality, and unfortunately, no how much you go away, you come back, and it's always here".
Critical response
Dan Caffrey of Consequence of Sound wrote that the song "features an abrasive horn section and punk rock aesthetic that fit in quite nicely with the remainder of the video, which makes you forget about front-woman Dolores O'Riordan's overreaching words pretty quickly". Roisin O'Connor of The Independent described "Salvation" as a "fast-tempo track that served as a scathing condemnation of growing drug abuse in Ireland was taken from the band’s 1996 album To the Faithful Departed, around the same time as ecstasy use reached alarming new heights.
Music video
The music video for "Salvation" was directed in March 1996 by Olivier Dahan in France, for the company Bandits Productions. The video was the last video for the band to gain heavy rotation on MTV, as later singles failed to gain traction on the network. The video featured a crazed clown floating around a castle and its surroundings and driving around in a car a group of young girls, implied to be in the thralls of drug addiction. The video cuts between images of Dolores O'Riordan singing the song and a pair of adults, who alternate between trying to wake a comatose daughter from her slumber, and the evil clown tying up and terrorizing the couple with the now awake daughter kissing the clown. "Salvation" was nominated for the MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction, held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, NY, 4 September, 1996.
, a Christian rock group, performed a live cover of this song during their last few tours. Prayer for Cleansing, a vegan straight edge hardcore group, covered the song on their EP The Tragedy released in 2004. Senses Fail, an emo / post-hardcore group, covered this song as a bonus track on their 2006 album Still Searching. Ursula, a hardcore / crust punk group from California, covered the song on their 2019 second 4-track EP Regurgitate.
