Day 28. Another one influenced by Disco Elysium here. This song doesn’t appear in the game, as such, but appears as one of several easter eggs within the game which reference Manic Street Preachers song titles & lyrics. In the game world, the song was the anthem of a past Communist revolution in the main city, Revachol. An old man who fought during said revolution sings (or speaks, it isn’t voice acted) the opening lines of the song to you. When you ask him how the rest of the song goes, he says: “Something about shooting rabbits? I don’t remember.”
The song was originally written about the Spanish Civil War & became the Manic Street Preachers first number one single in the UK. The song is the longest song title (without using parenthesis) to ever reach the number one spot. It is, as far as I can ascertain, the only UK number one single to address the Spanish Civil War too, although I remember, at the time it was released, journalists saying that The Clash did it better with Spanish Bombs. I’m not sure where I stand on this.
The future teaches you to be alone The present to be afraid and cold So if I can shoot rabbits Then I can shoot fascists
Bullets for your brain today But we’ll forget it all again Monuments put from pen to paper Turns me into a gutless wonder
And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next Will be next Will be next Will be next
Gravity keeps my head down Or is it maybe shame At being so young and being so vain?
Holes in your head today But I’m a pacifist I’ve walked La Ramblas But not with real intent
And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next Will be next Will be next Will be next Will be next
And on the street tonight an old man plays With newspaper cuttings of his glory days
And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next And if you tolerate this Then your children will be next Will be next Will be next Will be next
I found this poster on a Manic Street Preachers fan page on Facebook and I just liked it so much I felt the need to share it. Hope you like it as much as I do.
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“He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.”
Hunter S Thompson, ‘He Was A Crook’
Earlier in the year, whilst furloughed from work in the midst of the pandemic, I read through Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone: The Essential Hunter S. Thompson. One of the most striking pieces in the book, for me, was the obituary he wrote for Rolling Stone following the death of disgraced Republican former president, & in many ways Thompson’s arch-enemy, Richard Milhous Nixon (Reprinted in The Atlantic here). The most striking thing about this article, here, in the year of our lord 2020, is that the poison that Nixon poured into the political discourse is what has, inexorably, lead to the batshit chaos of American politics today. The normalisation of lawbreaking by public figures, at least in the public eye, is probably the primary building block which lead to the incumbent Republican, criminal, president Donald J Trump. Unlike Nixon, however, Trump didn’t have the weasel cunning to jump ship, to resign, rather than face impeachment. As such the stain of being an impeached president will forever linger on his record.
The pardoning of Nixon in light of his many criminal acts, is perhaps the single greatest mistake made in US history. Had Nixon been convicted & imprisoned for his lawbreaking, perhaps the crass opportunism of Trump wouldn’t have turned so many heads in the 2016 election. This is all by the by, however, Trump’s opportunism isn’t his worse crime. He is merely a toxic byproduct of Reaganism/Thatcherism, a poisoned outflow. His greatest crime is the enormous amount of fraud & tax evasion he has committed o=ver the years to hide his greatest flaw, his lack of ability in business. Ironically, he presents his business acuity as his greatest strength, despite the wreckage of his many bankrupt business ventures littering the highway behind him. Richard Milhous Nixon normalised this use of criminal acts by a public figure, & normalised the notion of the said public figure then being able to ascend to the lands highest office.
The main reason, however, for my thinking about Nixon today, is that I heard the excellent hit single The Love Of Richard Nixon by Manic Street Preachers on YouTube earlier & decided that I’d put together a blogpost of artwork, pics & links about the both the song & the Hunter S Thompson article. The video & artwork are excellent & the song is extremely different to much of the Manic’s catalogue up until that point. Driven by synth sounds & motorik rhythms, The Love Of Richard Nixon resembles artists like Depeche Mode more than the usual list of Manics influences. Over this New Wave/Post Punk sound, singer James Dean Bradfield treats the lyrics with a wonderful vocal performance. According to one YouTube commenter, “it is loaded with wit, pathos, irony and humour.”
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Day 10. I’ve written a fair bit about Manic Street Preachers lately & will probably write more in the future. They’re one of my favourite bands from when I was a teenager & I’ve recently started listening to them a bit more again.
Their version of the theme tune from the classic Korean War drama M*A*S*H was recorded for a double a-side single with Fatima Mansions (who’s contribution was a cover of Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. The single was a charity single with proceeds going to The Spastic Society (since renamed SCOPE).
Through early morning fog I see Visions of the things to be The pains that are withheld for me I realise and I can see
That suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please
The game of life is hard to play I’m gonna lose it anyway The losing card I’ll someday lay So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins It doesn’t hurt when it begins But as it works its way on in The pain grows stronger, watch it grin
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please
A brave man once requested me To answer questions that are key Is it to be or not to be And I replied oh why ask me?
Suicide is painless It brings on many changes And I can take or leave it if I please
And you can do the same thing if you please
Looking for some great music? Why not check out the Song of the Day (Covers) Spotify playlist?
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I was reading Simon Price’s review of Futurology (Manic Street Preachers 2014 album) on The Quietus, & he mentions that, according to Bassist & lyricist Nicky Wire, the third song on the album, Let’s Go To War, is the “final part in the ‘You Love Us’/’Masses Against The Classes’ trilogy.” This was news to me, that a trio of disparate songs from disparate times of their career went together as a sequence. It’s difficult to believe that the “trilogy” was planned from the start. I suspect that Wire is referring to a sense of kinship he personally feels between the three songs. I thought it might be a good idea to cast a critical eye over the trio of songs from the point of view of them being a trilogy.
You Love Us (1992)
Quote used at beginning of You Love Us video
Back at the start of their career, Manic Street preachers were difficult band to pin down, ideologically speaking. Their artwork & lyrics were chock full of esoteric quotes & references. This was evidenced across the artworks of their records, music videos (see above) & even on their clothes or written on their skin in marker pen. New Art Riot, an early EP, had a several quotes printed on its sleeve. Karl Marx (“I am nothing and should be everything”) & a lengthy Andy Warhol one:
You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it…
Andy Warhol
This observation of the ubiquitous nature of Coca-Cola was reworked slightly -via contemporary slant- in the lyrics ofSlash ‘n’ Burn, the opening track on their debut album Generation Terrorists, as “Madonna drinks Coke and so you can too/Tastes real good not like a sweet poison should.” It’s unclear to me whether their image of Coke as a “sweet poison” is echoed in the Andy Warhol quote, but it seems as though the Manic Street Preachers viewed it that way.
Another early single, Motown Junk channels William Burroughs on its sleeve:
Rock and roll adolescents storm into the streets of all nations. They rush into the Louvre and throw acid in the Mona Lisa’s face. They open zoo’s, insane asylums, prisons, burst water mains with air hammers, chop the floor out of passenger plane lavatories, shoot out lighthouses, turn sewers into water supply, administer injections with bicycle pumps, they shit on the floor of the United Nations and wipe their ass with treaties, pacts, alliances.
William S Burroughs, Naked Lunch
This brief sequence from Naked Lunch, Burroughs’ seminal & nightmarish cutup masterpiece, seems to be ascribing qualities to the new generation of teenagers that he wished upon his own generation. This paragraph echoes, in my mind at least, what the German expressionist group of artists known as Die Brücke were saying in 1906: “We call upon all youth to unite. And being youth, the bearers of the future, we want to wrest from the comfortably established older generation freedom to live and move.” The group aimed to build a “bridge to the future” & I’m certain that Burroughs, writing in the mid ’50’s, could see the potential of the nascent youth-movement coalescing around the equally nascent Rock ‘n’ Roll genre of music, to fulfil this promise. To build this “bridge to the future.” The Manic Street Preachers not only printed this on their record sleeve, but the concept of throwing acid into the Mona Lisa’s face likely influenced the line in You Love Us: “throw some acid into your face.”
A slight diversion here but Die Brücke weren’t the only 20th century European art movement which influenced the Manic Street Preachers in their early days. The Situationists love affair with the art of The Slogan also rubbed off on them somewhat. It’s easy to draw parallels between the slogans the band scrawled across their clothes in the early days with the slogans which the Situationist International scrawled upon walls throughout Paris of 1968. Something like “BOMB THE PAST”, written on one of Richey Edwards shirts in ’91, isn’t dissimilar to something like “AFTER ART, GOD IS DEAD” by the Situationists.
While Stay Beautiful quoted Burroughs’ friend & peer Allen Ginsberg, form his epic Beat Poem Howl!
Moloch whose Soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose Poverty is the specter of Genius Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless oxygen Moloch whose name is the Mind. Robot apartments
Allen Ginsberg, Howl! (1954-1955)
These sections from Howl! about Moloch are pure Manics. Moloch [from Wikipedia] “is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war.” Ginsberg was drawing connections between death, war, child sacrifice & relentless march of technology & modern society. While not directly pro-communist, it’s difficult to argue that Howl! isn’t anti-Capitalist. “A cloud of sexless oxygen” seems to me, to be one of the most beautifully poetic descriptions of boredom I’ve ever heard.
This quotational diarrhoea, while being hugely appealing to a 13/14/15 year old version of me, was a bit of a red flag for the band’s well meaning, left leaning but confused ideology. This same confusion/contradiction was as visible in the band’s music & artwork too. Musically, & You Love Us is a prime example of this, Manic Street Preachers didn’t know whether they wanted to be Punk or Hair-Metal. Songs were short, aggressive & spiky but James Dean Bradfield’s excellent singing voice & virtuoso guitar playing often lent them a ‘big Rock’ sound which seemed to shave against the grain of the Punk lyrics & rhythms. Most songs included the ‘big Rock’ moment: the impressive guitar solos which were inspired by the bands love & dedication to US hair-metallers Guns And Roses.
You Love Us seems to be a coalescence of these diverse influences & confused ideologies. There is a preoccupation with sin in You Love Us, “we are not your sinners/our voices are for real.” To sin is to be inauthentic in their minds. The latter line has an uncomfortable (& prescient) relationship with the infamous “4Real” incident. In a strangely 2020 couplet at the beginning of the second verse “’til I see love in statues/your lessons drill inherited sin.” This could almost have been written for the ‘controversy’ surrounding the destruction by protestors of statues to infamous slave traders & Confederate generals. “Inherited sin” in this case being the slave trade, the uncomfortable & shameful foundation stone supporting much of modern, western society.
There are lines which seem to express frustration with Neoliberalism (Thatcher was still in power & Reagan had only recently being replaced by Bush senior when these lyrics were written) “PR problems,” “Parliament” being a “fake life saver” & poisoning “mineral water” (a drink associated with the Yuppy movement in the early ’90’s) “with a strychnine taste.”
The other thing the Manics were unable to escape during their early years was The War. The Second World War, that is. The Holocaust in particular. The “Death Mask uniforms” of the first verse are a pretty clear reference to the skull-logo of the SS, including senior staff of concentration camps & use of the word “holocaust” itself in the second pre-chorus.
& then the final piece of the puzzle is the self-centred arrogance of the songs title itself. The Manic Street Preachers were famously arrogant in their early days. At least in the press. It was obviously all an act & designed to get good press, but it informed this song heavily. “We won’t die of devotion,” they sing in the first pre-chorus, “understand we can never belong.” Is this a hint of resignation, pessimism? Admission that they will fail at their stated plan: to sell 16 million copies of Generation Terrorists & then split up completely. This hyperbolic bravado certainly succeeded in garnering masses of attention from the music press, so job done in my opinion.
The Masses Against The Classes (2000)
“Went to Cuba to meet Castro…” Manic Street Preachers meeting Fidel Castro, 2001
Before discussing The Masses Against The Classes in any detail, it’s worth noting a cool piece of Rock n Roll trivia. The Masses Against The Classes was the first new UK number 1 single of the 21st century. It’s a hell of an achievement & one which the Manic Street Preachers will always hold over their detractors.
The Masses Against The Classes (named for a quote by 19th century British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone) was described in terms of a return to an earlier version of the Manic Street Preachers. Writing in NME, Victoria Segal described it as “an attempted return to the primordial punk slime of their birth.” Journalist Martin Power likened it to the “raucous, guitar-driven […] Pop-Punk” of Nirvana’s On A Plain. Nicky Wire claimed they wanted an “Iggy & The Stooges vibe.” It’s important to remember that The Masses Against The Classes was released in the wake of their commercial peak: the polemic powered proletarian Rock of Everything Must Go which bled into the chart-bothering late-’90’s Indie Pop of This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours.
This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, named for a quote by the great Labour politician Nye Bevan, came dangerously close to falling into the beige subgenre of late-90’s Indie where you’d find things like The Verve, Travis, Coldplay etc. Despite the slowed down, polished up sheen of This Is My Truth, it still provided the band with some of the most compelling music of their career. Lead single, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, with its flanged guitar chords & dense keyboard soundscapes, became (probably) the first UK number one single to address fighting Fascists during the Spanish Civil War.
The Indie music press, though, had written the Manics off as just another commercially successful band in the sea of beige. Contemporaries of Chris Martin & co. So, The Masses Against The Classes was seen as a rebuttal of that safe, smooth image. It was supposed to be a roar of anger against the band’s detractors & a reassuring gesture for fans that they may have lost (or come close to losing) in the post-Richey years. It is a downtempo, heavy guitar driven slice of Alternative Rock. The Nirvana comparisons are probably about spot on. The “ahh ahh ahhh ahhhh” intro is a nice enough throwback to the early days of Rock n Roll (specifically the Beatles version of Twist And Shout), which was obviously on their mind a lot at the time because one of the b-sides was a cover of Chuck Berry’s Rock And Roll Music.
Lyrically, The Masses Against The Classes feels a little shallow at first glance, especially fresh from listening to You Love Us with its dense web of references. It is however bookended by a pair of quotes. The song opens with a quote from American dissident linguist Noam Chomsky: “The country was founded on the principle that the primary role of the government is to protect property from the majority, and so it remains.” Stick a heavy reverb on that & we’d almost be in Choking Victim/Leftover Crack territory. The song closes with James Dean Bradfield screaming out an Albert Camus quote: “The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.” The choice of quotes seems to muddy the waters of what the song is about rather than offer any clarity. This is compounded by the quotations printed on the record sleeve. Mao Tse-Tung on the 10″ vinyl (“We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.”) & Kierkegaard on the CD (“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be read forwards.”). Profound these quotes may be, but it’s hard to tie them into The Masses Against The Classes lyrical content.
“Hello it’s us again,” the opening line states, “we’re still so in love with you.” I suspect that the “us” here is the same “us” that “you” loved back in ’92. This backs up the idea that The Masses Against The Classes is reaching out to lapsed (or betrayed) fans in some way. “You” can still love “us” because “we’re still so in love with you.” It’s quite simple & transparent. On the nose. I personally miss the opacity of earlier lyrics, like You Love Us. To confuse things slightly though, the end of the first verse seems to insult the same lapsed fans they were just trying to appeal to: “You thought you were our friends/ Success is an ugly word/Especially in your tiny world.” Even in transparency, the Manics embrace contradiction.
The chorus is also quite contradictory. “The masses against the classes/I’m tired of giving a reason/When the future is what we believe in.” In the final chorus, the song echoes You Love Us completely by declaring that “we’re the only thing left to believe in.” I take from these lyrics that the band are becoming increasingly uncomfortable in explaining their politics. It’s a classic dilemma of the left. Left-wing politics based on theory, history & dialectical analysis. By contrast, right-wing politics appeals to nothing other than greed, selfishness & hate. There is no future through Neoliberalism. The masses should, logically, be always against the classes because that’s the only way they have a future. The band are tired of “giving a reason” why they’re “against the classes.” They believe in the future, that’s why. The final lines of the chorus seem to me to be a bit of copy/paste Manics mythology trivia. I distinctly remember (although have failed utterly to find) an interview in which the band state that they prefer winter to summer. The reasoning, as I recall, was along similar lines to “we love the winter/It brings us closer together.”
I’m fairly certain that the first part of the second verse is addressing the absent Richey Edwards. “So can you hurt us anymore/Can you feel like it was before/Or are you lost forever more/Messed up and dead on alcohol.” This is addressing the pain which his disappearance caused the band. There’s a probing quality, like a tongue poking at an aching tooth. Will this return to our roots hurt? Will it bring back the pain of your loss all over again? The second couplet addresses Edwards’ reliance on alcohol & wonders aloud if he’s dead or alive. The second half of the verse feeds back into the You Love Us continuation. “Hello, fond farewell my dears/I hope you hear this nice and clear/Our love is unconditional/Our hate is yours to feed upon.” Is the “fond farewell” a signalling of the end of the original version of the Manic Street Preachers? The Punkier, angrier nihilists who wrote You Love Us & Motown Junk? It seems to read that way to me, though their following album, 2001’s Know Your Enemy, included several rawer, Punkier songs, like lead single Found That Soul.
Let’s Go To War (2014)
“…here in my safe European home…” Manic Street Preachers, 2014
Let’s Go To War is the only song in the secret trilogy to not have been released as a single. It is also the one I am least familiar with. As a fan, I was left slightly disappointed by the scrappy effort that was 2001’s Know Your Enemy, & I lost touch with the band for a long time. I remember someone playing me Lifeblood & I enjoyed it, but it didn’t excite me the way their older material did. Recently, I have decided to try & catch up with everything they’ve released since Know Your Enemy. Futurology is definitely the highlight of the bunch. Recorded at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin (of Bowie/Iggy fame) & channelling a love of European culture & music, Futurology is thought of by many to be ‘their Krautrock album’. That’s a little simplistic & inaccurate though. While it’s clearly inspired by Krautrock, Futurology is still very much the Manic Street Preachers we know & love.
The influences actually do a lot to bring the percussion to the front of the composition process, making Futurology, perhaps, Sean Moore’s album; his time to really shine. The motorik, propellant beat of Let’s Go To War is definitely aided by having as accomplished a stickman as Moore on the drums. The walking bass & steady drumming almost bring to mind Faith No More’s powerful We Care A Lot to mind. There’s even a little guitar lick before the chorus which is eerily similar to a certain slap bass lick from We Care A Lot. Not to mention the similar choruses, composed from the same number of words & syllables. I sort of wish I hadn’t noticed that similarity.
Lyrically, Let’s Go To War seems to be almost resigned to a coming conflict. One which was both anticipated in the lyrics to You Love Us & The Masses Against The Classes, & which the Manics hoped to avoid. It’s almost like spending all of your time & resources trying to win elections, to save lives through official/proper channels, only to realise that you’ll actually have to build those guillotines & spill a little blood after all, even though avoiding that was the entire reason for your legitimate campaign.
The song lists things, in the first verse, which could be references to the legitimate campaign & the hostile opposition it faced. “All the complications/All the deviations/All the holy edicts/All the broken subjects.” James Dean Bradfield sounds almost defeated in this verse, downhearted, downcast. There’s a sense of resignation. That things are not getting better. & then you have the Faith No More lick which leads into the chanted chorus of “Let’s go to war.” “To feel some pureness and some pain […] we need to go to war again,” it continues. This certainly seems to me to be the resignation I mentioned before.
The second verse, which speaks of “working class skeletons” which “lie scattered in museums” seems to be addressing the futility of war, as well as the reality of it; that those who do the killing & the dying are from the working classes. The First World War is often viewed as mechanised slaughter of the working classes by a cabal, on each side, of bloodthirsty toffs. The “false economies” which “speak falsely of your dreams” are both the justification & the rewards of war. And all of these ‘rewards’ generally go to the rich. The “working class skeletons” rarely, if ever, see any benefits from the wars they fight in.
In the bridge section of the song we get a continuation from The Masses Against The Classes. An affirmation that despite all of the “knives they will now sharpen,” the Manics still love you. “So don’t forget we love you still,” James sings. It repeats through echoes several times, as if to underline the point. The point being that You Love Us & we love you.
& that, I believe is what the secret trilogy of Manic Street Preachers songs is about. Love & War. They love us, hope/want us to love them & will both lead us & stand by us in the vaguely defined war. Another takeaway is that despite their blurred & confused ideology, the Manics definitely mean what they say & say what they mean. Even if they don’t understand it. Or know how to properly articulate it.
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Day 32. From Carrion by British Sea Power to Kevin Carter by Manic Street Preachers. The link in the chain is the line in Kevin Carter, “vulture stalked white piped lie forever”. The reference to vultures -or carrion- is the link.
Kevin Carter is bouncy, upbeat Pop Rock from Manic Street Preachers’ commercial breakthrough album, Everything Must Go. Released in the wake of guitarist/lyricist Richey Edwards’ disappearance, it is an album which feels like it’s making a clean break from the bands past (“escape from the history”), as such, it’s commercial success feels bittersweet in the light of the disappearance. Kevin Carter is one of the few songs on Everything Must Go with lyrics written by the erstwhile Edwards & is about the eponymous, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, specifically his suicide in 1994.
Hi Time magazine hi Pulitzer Prize Tribal scars in Technicolor Bang bang club AK 47 hour
Kevin Carter
Hi Time magazine hi Pulitzer Prize Vulture stalked white piped lie forever Wasted your life in black and white
Kevin Carter Kevin Carter Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter Kevin Carter Kevin Carter Kevin Carter
The elephant is so ugly he sleeps his head Machetes his bed Kevin Carter kaffir lover forever Click click click click click Click himself under
Kevin Carter Kevin Carter Kevin Carter
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This interview, which has been uploaded to YouTube today, was probably one of the last that Manic Street Preachers lyricist & rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards gave before his disappearance, nearly a year later. Most of the interview focuses on the bands late manager, Philip Hall, who’d lost his battle with cancer in 1993, & a special award he was being issued posthumously for services to music. There are, however, strong hints of the depression which drove Edwards to maybe take his own life.
Anyway, this afternoon I transcribed this video, which is why I am sharing it. The reason? Because I have never transcribed anything & wanted to know if I could do it. It’s something I feel the need to practice. I have to say, you really notice all of the utterances & dysfluencies in everyday speech, which we normally don’t pick up on, when you’re transcribing informal interviews like this.
Transcript
Paul King: In fact, first time I’ve ever spoken to you, surprisingly over the years.
Richey Edwards: I recognise you from your dubious past.
PK: But we have, 120 in particular, we’re very supportive of the Manics, from early days. I think it was probably the first people who played those vids
RE: I think so, yeah
PK: But you don’t need that kind of support anymore, you’re… I think you’re one of these, termed as established bands now. Is that what you think you are, would you say?
RE: I don’t think any band is established. Most bands have got a career of, maybe, three or four years, then they fade into oblivion and end up checking out dole checks at the DSS, maybe.
PK: Or you go the other way and end up checking in those tax accountants and making millions, that’s… that’s the other alternative, isn’t it?
RE: Yeah maybe, but that’s for the very lucky, the very few. I don’t think that’ll be us, actually.
PK: Well I’ll always remember, the Manics, that you swore that after the first album, you’d break up then anyway, which you obviously didn’t do.
RE: No, I mean, that was a big… ultimately, we wanted to be the perfect band that could make a record that sold globally, you know, millions, and that there would be no need to make another record. All we’ve ever been interested in doing is making a record which encapsulates a mood and a time and then, it can be a full stop, you know, bye bye. You know? No need. Go and live with my dogs on the coast, wherever.
PK: Well the last records anyway, well the last record, was very well received for the group and was seen very much as a mature progression for yourselves. As songwriters and also as musicians.
RE: Yeah, I mean, it was called mature, which is something I find difficult to live with, but I guess it was. I mean… I think the older you get the more life becomes more… miserable. Definitely. I mean, you just…. All the people you grew up with die. You know, your parents die, grandparents die, your dog dies. Your energy diminishes. There’s less books to read. There’s no more groups to discover, you know. You end up a barren wasteland, just trying to find something new which never really occurs. You end up finding worth in groups which, maybe two or three years ago, you would have just spat on. Which is depressing. Which I do all the time. I mean, I’m getting into Buffalo Springfield, which to me, I mean it’s a nightmare…
PK: For what it’s worth, as the song said (haha)
RE: For What It’s Worth is their best song, but you know…
PK: Well on that positive note then, what are the Manics up to at this moment in time? Getting depressed or actually getting positive.
RE: Well, since Philip died, we cancelled everything and just went into a crappy little studio about a quarter of this room’s size and just been writing new songs, just like we did at the start. Just tried to, you know, maybe….
PK: And Philip Hall was obviously the special award this evening.
RE: Yeah, Philip was a very special person to us. It’s pretty well documented, but we spent, maybe, a year, year and a half writing letters, phoning journalists up, you know, people like MTV. Any address or phone number we got, we would write to or phone up. And there was, like, never any response because, like, an unknown band, you know, who cares, or whatever. And Philip was one of the first people who ever called us back, erm, and he said he was interested in coming to see us play in London, erm, and we obviously couldn’t get any concerts here at all, because it’s impossible. So, he drove down to see us practice in, you know, a crappy little schoolroom in South Wales.
PK: Yes, I mean, it’s well documented the guy…he was a very big supporter of new music, that’s why he’s represented tonight at the awards.
RE: He drove down, he saw us play, he liked what we did, he got us some gigs in the Bull and Gate, you know? the Falcon, wherever. And then, just sort of looked after us. And even then, when we started to get some press, he just said, oh, come and live with us. He’d been married, maybe, like a year. So, we slept on his, like, lounge, his kitchen, wherever was available.
PK: So, I appreciate that for you, this evening, here, with him being represented it’s a more of a… a kind of a reflective mood you find yourselves in tonight.
RE: I mean, the only reason we are here tonight is because of Philip. I mean, we’ve never been to one of these things before in our lives. It was just [for] the memory of Philip that we came here. We’re not the sort of band that is seen en masse, in these sort of public occasions. We’re a very private band. We didn’t like these, kind of, showbiz awards.
PK: Well, on from that, can I get a video from you? Would you like to see anybody?
RE: Ermm.
PK: No (haha).
RE: No (haha), yeah, erm, I’d quite like Roxanne by The Police.
PK: Okay, we can go back in time.
RE: Thanks very much. A long time ago.
PK: The Police.
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If only I’d waited until today for the blogpost about Manic Street Preachers demos I would have been able to include this excellent version of Roses In The Hospital.
This one is definitely a pale imitation of the finished product which appeared on the album. It’s too bouncy & upbeat compared to the beautiful anthemic melancholia of the album version. & is that the guitar riff from album track Yourself used as a bridge on this version? Interesting how they removed one riff from this demo & developed it into a totally new song.
Despite my above criticisms I still love this. It’s great. I love how, as also mentioned above, it provides a window into the bands songwriting process. The idea that they may have decided that Roses In The Hospital had to many great melodies in it so why not write a whole new track out of one of them.
There doesn’t seem to be an upload to YouTube of this tune yet though it is available on Spotify etc.
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Over the last couple of weeks Manic Street Preachers, gearing up for the release of the long awaited Deluxe Edition of unloved classic Gold Against The Soul, have release two previously unreleased demo recordings as singles/teasers.
The first of these was the albums title track, Gold Against The Soul. The punkier, more lo-fi production shows the song in a whole new light. Stripped of it’s studio rock sheen, Gold Against The Soul is revealed as downtempo, polemic Rock with an, almost robotic, drum machine feel to the rhythm.
Drug Drug Druggy is often seen as a bit of a throwaway. An upbeat rocker about addiction & depression. They rarely play it live & the title is slightly in ‘cringe’ territory. The fidelity drop brings out different instruments to the album version. There’s a very nice organ part playing beneath everything else which I couldn’t swear, one way or the other, is on the original version. Multitalented multi-instrumentalist James Dean Bradfield shines magnificently here. His voice sounds incredible, the rhythm guitar is choppy & precise, & the lead guitars are as good as any that he’s played before.
As a bonus they have also uploaded this Top Of The Pops performance of their single Roses In The Hospital. Fun trivia: that isn’t Nicky Wire miming the bass. He had just got married & was un honeymoon, forcing him to miss the TOTP performance. To replace him they gave their tallest roadie a Minnie Mouse mask & asked him to mime along. Everything in a TOTP performance, bar the vocal, is mimed anyway so it made no difference. Manic Street Preachers lore is awash with such incidents. As a teenager I used to have abootleg VHS cassette which featured all of the bands TOTP performances so I had seen this before.
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Welsh rock group Manic Street Preachers, London, 2nd June 1993. Left to right; drummer Sean Moore, bassist Nicky Wire, singer James Dean Bradfield and guitarist Richey James Edwards. (Photo by Kevin Cummins/Getty Images)
With the impending release of the deluxe edition of Manic Street Preachers sophomore long player, Gold Against The Soul on 12th June, now seems like a good time to have another look at this overlooked & under-loved album.
Sandwiched between the hugely ambitious flop of their debut album Generation Terrorists (“we wouldn’t be happy unless it sold sixteen million”) & the Post-Punk terror of their bleak masterpiece The Holy Bible, sits Manic Street Preachers first steps away from the upbeat anxiety of the former & towards the desolate internal strife which characterised the latter. Gold Against The Soul was produced by Dave Eringa (who had produced their Motown Junk single, three years previously) at Hook End Manor, an Elizabethan mansion formerly owned by Pink Floyd guitarist, Dave Gilmour.
With production levels more polished & commercially accessible than Generation Terrorists, Gold Against The Soul brings to mind The Clash’s sophomore album, the Sandy Pearlman produced Give ‘Em Enough Rope. A lot of the raw, punk edge seems to have been rolled off and replaced by shimmering concessions to radio friendliness. Also like Give ‘Em Enough Rope, Gold Against The Soul has, despite early indifference, grown in stature in the eyes of the bands fans.
The lyrics are definitely darker & more focused than Generation Terrorists. Lead single From Despair To Where is about the crushing realisation of the futility of adulthood. La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) is named after a line from Vincent Van Gogh’s suicide note & describes the hypocrisy of how we treat veterans & parade them around at the Cenotaph every year. Symphony Of Tourette is a cross between an apology/explanation for some of the offensive statements the band members made around the time (“Let’s hope Michael Stipe goes the same way as Freddie Mercury”, “I hate Slowdive more than Hitler”) & a longing for the social freedom which the writer imagines Tourette’s syndrome affords a sufferer.
The album kicks off with some incredibly powerful riffing on the excellent Sleepflower, one of this writers favourite ever album openers. This ode to insomnia certainly carries a lot of weight & (I read in this article) uses the same guitar amp that was used on the bands independent single, Motown Junk, three years previously.
The singles from this album are beautifully produce & have gone on to be staples in the Manic Street Preachers live show over the years. From Despair To Where is a masterclass in rock radio production. La Tristesse is pure power pop. Roses In The Hospital has a loose limbed, almost Madchester feel to it, instantly dispelled by the profanity in the chorus: “We don’t want your fucking love” – or the cringeworthy radio edit which swaps that line for the songs title sung to the same vocal melody. Life Becoming A Landslide drifts effortlessly between elegaic pop verses, soaring, anthemic choruses & intense crunchy riffing.
On 12th June 2020, the deluxe edition of Gold Against The Soul will be released. The band have put together this trailer, featuring a number of clips of live performances of songs from the album.
Manic Street Preachers have confirmed the re-issue of a deluxe edition of their 1993 second album ‘Gold Against The Soul’ on 12th June 2020.
Available as a 120 page A4 book featuring unseen images from the band’s long time photographic collaborator Mitch Ikeda, many personally annotated by Nicky Wire and original typed and handwritten lyrics from the band’s own archive. It will contain two CDs featuring the remastered album, previously unreleased demos, b-sides from the era, remixes and a live recording of The Clash song ‘What’s My Name’.
Also available is a 180g vinyl version of the original album with download codes to the extra tracks on CD1 and a digital version featuring all the songs.
Scruffy Theory 