Part 1 of a lot of parts of a story, a real story, not made-up, where I try to make some sense of being a fan of the Manic Street Preachers. If you've not heard of the Manic Street Preachers, I really don't know what to say at this juncture.
I was talking about music with my (only/best) friend’s older sister. I was a massive James fan (more of that later on this blog, no doubt). I’d just started reading the NME – I was a latecomer, I was sixteen. It was fireworks night. She said this band, the Manic Street Preachers, they were worth checking out. She liked Suede, I figured she had some taste. I also had a bit of a crush on her too, but that’s neither here or there. Honest.
I went to Beckenham Library, typed the album name into the computer (or maybe I looked it up in some kind of ring-binder, which seems slightly more plausible?) and they had Gold Against The Soul in a different library in the borough. The next night, I got the bus to West Wickham Library, checked out the tape, probably paying 32p for the privilege, and listened to it. All the way home, and for about the next year, pretty much constantly. I’d say I listened to the Manics about 50% of the time, and that’s being generous to the rest of the records in my collection. I got the CD for Christmas, having taped the copy from the library (proof that home-taping had fuck-all to do with killing music, that was all Coldplay and James Blunt’s fault).
Gold Against The Soul, I guess, offers a very different ‘way-in’ to the Manics than the metal/hard-rockism of Generation Terrorists or utter bleakness of The Holy Bible, and completely unrelated to the Brit-pop-rock of the later albums. This was radio-friendly(ish) FM rock, big riffs (‘Sleepflower’), power chords (‘From Despair To Where’) and the oddly baggy-esque and danceable ‘La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh)’. Even the punchline ‘We don’t want your fucking love’ was radio-edited out for the single version of ‘Roses In The Hospital’.
This was all on the back of their most successful single to date: a cover version of ‘Theme From M*A*S*H (Suicide is Painless), a charity release in association with the NME. Backed by a cover of this Bryan Adams song by the Fatima Mansions, it hit number 7 in the UK hit parade. I should imagine it’s the first song of theirs that I was aware of, I didn’t remember the name of the band, but I knew the song. I guess any chart success bred an amount of familiarity and credibility in those days.
Certainly that’s the way the Manics saw it too – and probably why they dislike it so much. It was an attempt at commerciality, to appease Colombia Records, to establish themselves as a serious rock act, to take on this grunge music thing that was spilling across the Atlantic. But to those of us young and impressionable enough, it was like giving away candy-floss laced with crack. For every cranked-up multi-layered Les Paul driven guitar solo, there was the universal sense of being alone and adrift – ‘From Despair To Where’ with its delicate opening, ‘I write this alone on my bed... The place is quiet and so alone/ Pretend there’s something worth waiting for’. These lyrics got me, they got me.
Let me explain. I was 13 when I got Gold Mother by James. I couldn’t relate to 'Come Home' (‘after 30 years... I’ve become the kind of man I’ve always hated’ - I was 13!) but as a undiagnosed depressed teenager, to hear the other hit single, to hear someone sing ‘Those who feel the breath of sadness /Sit down next to me’ gave me such warmth and comfort and the knowledge that maybe there was something wrong with me, and also that I wasn’t alone. And to see so many people on the Come Home Live video singing along so passionately to every word, it helped me understand that even though I didn’t have friends, that I would find people who thought like me, ran at the mouth like me, felt like me. There’s another song on Gold Mother, ‘You Can’t Tell how Much Suffering (On A Face That’s Always Smiling)' – that was me. I was the class sarcastic funnyman, the fat-kid with the sharp tongue, getting in sly digs as a defence mechanism. I fucking hated school.
Three years after ‘Sit Down’, to hear the pleading urgency of ‘From Despair...’. To hear the everlasting sadness, the futility and empathy of ‘La Tristesse...’. It made me feel like I belonged, that this was my club, my band. While the rock was catchy, the beats heavy and rebellious, and the hooks all tightly in place, the lyrics, the lyrics were the clincher. The lyrics grabbed my heart, my mind, where no other band ever could.
And it’s a great teenage album, too. Because despite being a lonely depressive, I was sixteen, and you know, a bit rebellious. Although, any acts of rebellion were mainly reserved for chopsing=off to/at teachers. So the sneering sarcastic and spiteful ‘Yourself’ and ‘Nostalgic Pushead’ (favourite lyric: ‘My cheeks blood-red as my favourite port /But hey, cocaine keeps cholesterol at bay’); the fairly fucking needless swearing on ‘Roses...’; the wonderful frankness of ‘Symphony Of Tourette’ (I mean, what teenager isn’t intrigued by Tourette’s?) and the politically astute title-track all ticked boxes and fired synapses* and pressed buttons and flicked switches in my head.
And a class-mate of mine, Michael, he read Kerrrrranggg! and due to the Manics’ crossover appeal, from Smash Hits! to RAW! (did all music mags have exclamation marks, or am I imagining it?), we were able to find some common ground, and we went to see the Manics together, Brixton Academy, January 28th 1994**. My first gig. Awh... and that, dear reader, is another story.
To be continued, stay beautiful etc...
Jamie
* I know nothing about science. Do synapses fire? Do electrons and protrons go round an atom? I don’t know, don’t care, and never will. My dad is a scientist. My wife is a scientist. I am not. Let it go. I have.
** I didn’t have to look this up. I couldn’t tell you about anything to do with what happened yesterday, or how to use the washing machine, but that date just flew straight out of my head. Verify it if you want to. Where, I dunnoh, but feel free to try...
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