THE CHARMING ISLAND OF IRELAND—Rolling Stone, a prestigious music journalism magazine, today broke a heartwarming, if exceedingly smelly, story titled “‘This song’s about a fart!’ Cranberries members recall late singer’s former husband’s flatulence.” The song in question, “Linger,” and its echoing plea—“Do you have to, do you have to, do you have to let it linger?”—reportedly were written by the Dolores O’Riordan to describe the strained relationship with her former husband, music manager Don Burton. On occasion, O’Riordan would quietly murmur that resounding plea as the couple lie in bed in the early Irish mornings following a night her then-husband had visited the pub, drank heavily into the night while in merriment among mates, and consumed copious servings of potatoes. “It smelled really bad, rank,” lead guitarist Noel Hogan told Rolling Stone journalists how O’Riordan described the situation then. “She told me sometimes he’d let out a squeaker when poor Dorrie was under the covers,” describing a phenomenon known in the Dutch language as an “oven.”

After much contention, music historians entered a record for The Cranberries’ “Linger” and its contents indeed “pertaining to flatulence, colloquially called in the singular form as ‘a fart.’”

At press time, TMZ had speculated, without proof, that the reason O’Riordan and Burton’s marriage had ended was due to “the farts,” though Hogan corroborated the claims, stating “the whole house smelled like arse! How could anyone live like that?”