Pete Doherty – Musician, Poet, Artist, Babyshamble & Libertine

“I fall in love with Britain every day, with bridges, buses, blue skies… but it’s a brutal world, man.”– Pete Doherty

Pete Doherty – an introverted, artistic, daring, kind and romantic Englishman is perhaps the most real person there is out there in the music business and that is one of the reasons the media portrays him as a substance user, bohemian lover and fake poet, at the same time neglecting and purposely ignoring the real Pete Doherty; a musician, a poet and an artist.

Pete Doherty is a product of a comfortable middle class family and though he showed an early interest in music when he started playing guitar in order to impress a school friend Emily whom he fancied, his primary interest was literature; at the age of sixteen he won a poetry competition. After achieving eleven GCSEs, 7 of which were A* grades, he was offered to study English Literature at Oxford; an offer he gladly turned down in favour of moving to his grandmother’s flat in London and working at a Willesden Cemetery where he filled graves. However, most of the time he spent reading and writing poetry while sitting on the gravestones; that really sounds atmospheric. He eventually did go to college Queen Mary to study English literature but he left the course after the first year. After leaving the university, he moved into a London flat with his friend, and a future band member, Carl Barat.

The Libertines is a band formed from a close friendship between Pete and Carl, a friendship Carl has described as having the obsessiveness and jealousy and all the things that come with first love. The Libertines had that kind of raw energy, spontaneity and liveliness so much needed on the British music scene in the first years of the 21st century. However, after the second album The Libertines the group split due to Pete’s increasing drug problems and all the unfortunate events caused by it. No one really sat face to face with Pete and told him that he was kicked out of the band, he had heard it on the radio, read it in the newspaper, and this left him feeling hurt and betrayed. What saddened him the most was the fact that Carl was his best mate and this left him contemplating what was the line people were prepared to go to in order to gain success or wealth. ‘I’d rather starve my guts than stab a friend in the back.’ he said. His response to this was a new band called Babyshambles.

It was in Babyshambles that Pete’s true artistic and poetic character came out of its shell and created an album Down in Albion filled with beautiful, dreamy songs. He did write songs in The Libertines but writing them with Carl has surely been different than writing them on his own. Various literal influences have come to the fore on many of the song featured on the album, most notably A Rebours (title taken from the same named nineteenth century novel by Joris-Karl Huysman). I can’t resist adding that A Rebours was the first song out of all Babyshambles’ that I fell in love with and is my favourite now still. I just can’t forget that line ‘…you ignore, adore, A rebour me..’

Sitting on the marble gravestones and reading books in the long Autumn afternoons, gazing at all those red and yellow falling leaves while the breezing wind brought anxiety and melancholy has surely been useful for Pete who listed his favourite novels as George Orwell’s 1984, Graham Green’s Brighton Rock and Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet along with complete works by Oscar Wilde. From poetry he mentioned Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire and works of Emily Dickinson. He also put particular emphasis on Romantic poets and also on existential philosophers. Judging by his song, the book A Rebours would also be on his list. The deepness of both his lyrics and his characters are often undervalued due to the extreme infatuation the media has with him as a drug addict and a rebel. Pete is a rebel; rebel against conventions, normality, simple-mindedness and elitist aspect of art. He said ‘I don’t really know what “intellectual” means, but if it means you’ve got a desire to learn, you’ve got a desire to look for things that haven’t been presented to you, then, maybe. I think that “intellectual” is quite an exclusive word. I think it’s just for anyone that has a thirst or a hunger to improve themselves, or a yearning to escape from somewhere to get to a better place.’

On the first sight Pete probably does seem as shallow and fake as the media portrays him, but the real Pete; Pete the intelligent and humble poet, the artist, the libertine is a person worth being inspired by, worth listening too and worth giving respect to. A libertine is ‘one devoid of most moral restraints’ or ‘one who defies established religious precepts’; a freethinker and that’s exactly what Pete is; despite the odds he managed to stay oblivious to the public and media’s opinions and harsh judgements – “I’m not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I’m not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions.” Seems like the public ignores, adores, a rebours him, leaves him washed up begging for more...

It’s important to stay ignorant to public opinions and just stay in your own world which is as beautiful, as romantic, as peaceful and interesting as you have created it. That’s what Pete does; he lives in his own world, leaving the harsh greyness of reality outside the door. He still has that rush, that desire, that absolute contamination of soul with melody and music. (‘I think I only needed something to hold on to. It has never been about depravity. It’s always been about melody. But melody and I met in many depraved situations. Meeting melody is the victory of the empty spiralling nightmare.’) He keeps living his life no matter how fucked up it is, not knowing what’s going to happen next, crossing the borders of reality into the unknown. In some terms Pete’s lifestyle could be compared to some nineteenth century bohemian poets. Every generation has its leader, it is the one who represents all the despair, coldness, alienation and sadness numerous young people feel. Pete sort of has that aura of bohemianism and romanticism about him; his intelligence, open-mindedness, his sensitivity and strangeness connected to him certainly help too in drawing people towards him. Pete is the icon of the 21st century romanticism, like a today’s Lord Byron; he escapes reality into his own world of imagination and praises individuality and honour.

Album Down in Albion is Pete Doherty’s world of imagination. Decision is yours whether you want to enter it or not. It’s a beautiful, melodic album, gentle and dreamy (compared to loud, noisy songs of The Libertines, but let’s not forget that Carl plays his guitar in punk style) and the songs sound so contemporary in a good way, something I can relate to, something touchable and real. Besides the already mentioned song A Rebours I also like songs Fuck Forever (‘And fuck forever/If you don’t mind/See I’m stuck forever/Oh I’m stuck in your mind, your mind, your mind…’), The 32nd of December and In Love with a Feeling. Song Killamangiro is very fast paced and vibrant. Song La Belle et la Bete also sounds very nice, and it’s a duet between Pete and his then girlfriend Kate Moss. I also have to mention one more song, though it’s not on this album it is written by Pete Doherty for The Libertine’s second album, and it’s the song ‘What Katie Did’; it’s very melodic and soft and lyrics are sweet (‘Oh what you gonna do, Katie?/You’re a sweet sweet girl/But it’s a cruel, cruel world/a cruel, cruel world. (…) …You won’t just leave me standing here/And don’t give in/Not to the darkest sins/Oh what you gonna do?/It’s up to you.’) However, on album Down in Albion there is a song called What Katie Did Next, I’m just saying.

Musically the album is seen as a move from The Libertines’ style of music; now we at least know what Pete and Carl’s musical preferences would be like. However, The Libertines are back together again and, wait for it, they are planning to release, what would be their third album, in 2015. This news came like a cherry on top, at least I hope. I know that I am very, very, very exited to hear that since I feel like I’ve missed out on lot of things in music and sometimes it’s nice to be able to listen and love and album released in your lifetime.

P.S. If you want to have more insight in Pete Doherty’s world of imagination, or you’ve been wondering what’s inside his whimsical mind, you can read his diary, or look at I should better say. It is really interesting. I would describe it as a sneak peak into Pete’s mind.

 “If you’ve lost your faith in love and music then the end won’t be long.”

Gimme Shelter – The End of The 1960s

There’s no doubt that the 1960s are my favourite decade of the 20th century. It’s a decade that symbolizes the birth of rock ‘n’ roll and hippie movement. For me it’s a wonderful decade inspiring in both musical and fashion sense. However, nothing lasts forever and so this decade came to an end but what it created culturally, musically and artistically can’t be erased.

The year 1965. was year zero for rock and roll. It was the year everything begun. In the early ’60s music for teenagers was sweet, safe and slightly soulless. Radio stations were filled with manufactured pop created by song writing teams in pop factories. Teenage girls’ idols were nice, proper white kids singing pop with a little beat such as Bobby Vee and Bobby Vinton who would went to American Bandstand and lip synched. That sound was manufactured by the American market for the British market. However, people were getting tired of it. The new generation of British teenagers craved for music with more raw, rebellious edge. They found what they were looking for in blues; music of the American black underclass, music emerged from suffering. British working class totally identified with the black America. Blues had that element of underground rage, something which British teens craved for.

Out with the old and in with the new. By 1965. a generation of rebellious teenagers who had grown up listening to black American blues had invented their own adrenaline charged sound: Rock. The Who brought attitude and volume. The Rolling Stones brought swagger and sex. The Kinks came on the music scene with their distorted guitar sound. Even Bob Dylan was inspired by the new sound and with his leather jacket and hairstyle he was almost like a Rolling Stone wanna-be.

It was playing blues that melted the emotional polar frost of the 1950s post-war English austerity. Because of its emphasis on improvisations it unlocked the creativity in young artists playing it. In 1962. a band was formed in suburb west London – The Rolling Stones when the singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards bonded over a shared love of the blues. When The Stones became more well known they stopped playing at venues such as The Crawdaddy Club. Instead, they gave up their place for the new band whose sound would be the first to denote the true Rock sound – band The Who.

The Who combined the rebellious spirit, Mod-scene image with the bold self-expression of the Pop Art. They were also very interesting because they made fashion statements with their clothes. Guitarist Pete Townshend wore particularly bold and memorable gear. He wore a jacket made out of a flag, for example and the drummer Keith Moon wore Pop Art T-shirts with targets and hearts. Pop Art was popular because it was not as confined as other art movements and consequently became an important part of 1960s culture, and an important part of Swinging London as well.  With The Who exploring more provocative imagery and ideas, it was clear that the new music movement was taking shape.

Swinging London or the capital of cool, as it was sometimes called, was a place to be in the 1960s. After the initial blues-inspired Rock came something more avant-garde, Rock evolved and psychedelic-art rock emerged from the sound of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett exploring what he could do with his guitar. In 1967. Pink Floyd released a single Arnold Layne, a song about a clothes-stealing transvestite, introducing a new concept in Rock music – psychedelia. This was rock meets the mad hatter’s tea party. Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper at The Gates of Dawn was released in August 1967; at the peak of London’s Summer of love. Pink Floyd had previously recorded a single See Emily Play on 23rd May 1967, and released it less than a month later. The song was about a psychedelic schoolgirl whom Syd Barrett had reportedly seen after taking acid and falling asleep in the woods. Characteristics of psychedelic rock in this song are use of echo and reverb, whimsical lyrics and the slide-guitar work done by Syd using a plastic ruler.

Syd Barrett enrolled in Camberwell College of Arts in London in summer of 1964. to study painting. Camberwell proved to be a hothouse of ideas. Actually, art schools developed what we today know as the 1960s Swinging London for they were the place where the creativity came from. Education authorities put those who did not fit in elsewhere into art collages. Entrance qualifications were vague, with academic scores waived when portfolios showed promise. Art schools produced gifted painters, promising fashion designers, artists and musicians. Even in art schools, the ground for psychedelia was set with drab post-war colours discarded in favour of violent pinks, aquas and reds. Art college students liked their music likewise amplified; sharp, short and shocking. Syd felt that art was made of the moment and the springboard to the next work and next moment. Other notable musicians that were attending art schools were Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, John Lennon and Ray Davies.

So at around 1967. psychedelic culture prevailed over the Mod culture that dominated during the first half of the decade. The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band released in June 1967, just before the peak of summer of love, marks the transition between pop to the more psychedelic sound. Psychedelia might have opened minds to new ideas, sounds and images but it also propelled rock music into world of hedonism and excess. The Who came to America in summer of 1967. They shocked the hippies with their destructive and aggressive performance but Monterey soon established the festival as an arena for rock ‘n’ roll music, but it also represented the climax of summer of love for the optimism of the ’60s gave way to more volatile and uncertain times.

Utopia of the ’67 could not possibly last for it was not universally accepted. Psychedelic youth and hippies were only one segment of society, and only one fragment of it. You could just feel the change in the air; the atmosphere changed and it all became much more politicized. The Woodstock ’69 festival would see the sun set on the sixties hippie dream. By that time the business started to be more in control of the music; the freedom of the sixties was lost forever. It was a beginning of something; a beginning of the end.

The Rolling Stones quickly dragged inspiration from the changing mood and uncertainty of those times. They were one of the few bands that found creative zeal in the darkness. There was a new world going on but The Stones weren’t afraid to embrace it. They channeled all that darkness with morbid relish in one song; Sympathy for the devil. It was the theme that fascinated them since they dipped into blues. However, The Stones would be plunged into the darkness of their own in a year marked by controversy and tragedy, from the mysterious death of the guitarist Brian Jones to the murderous chaos of the Altamont festival in California in December 1969. when they recruited Hell’s Angles to provide the security. Hell’s Angels soon caused turmoil and the man was murdered as the cameras rolled. The innocence of the ’60s was lost forever.

In the song Gimme shelter it seems as if The Stones were asking for a shelter, some place safe from the turmoil, darkness and uncertainty that overshadowed the Sun like the dark clouds. (The floods is threat’ning/ My very life today/ Gimme, gimme shelter/ Or I’m gonna fade away) Another song from the same album Let it Bleed released in ’69 called You can’t always get what you want also reflects the atmosphere of the time. Each verse discusses a topic relevant to the ’60s: love, politics and drugs. The song captures the essence of the initial optimism and the eventual disillusion, followed by the resigned pragmatism of the chorus. (I saw her today at the reception / In her glass was a bleeding man / She was practiced at the art of deception/ Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands.) Rock provided a soundtrack for the changing times. It had become an incredible political and artistic force. It had given music volume and attitude.

Still, the dark atmosphere at the dusk of the sixties had impact on other artists, such as Syd Barrett. Compared to Pink Floyd’s first album The piper at the gates of dawn that mirrors the optimism and decadence of the Swinging London, Syd’s main contribution to the second album was the song Jugband blues whose lyrics show that inside his mind he was still acutely self-aware despite the madness and darkness that had begun to engulf him. The dusk of the sixties proved to be a fruitful period not just for The Rolling Stones but for Barrett as well for its product was his solo album The Madcap laughs.

The Madcap laughs, released in January 1970. but recorded between 28. May 1968. and 5. August ’69, was Barrett’s debut solo album. It was warmly received and the madness of king Syd seemed to have touched a nerve with a generation who had seen the end of the decade take a darker turn with Altamont, the bombing of Vietnam and apparent failure of hippie culture. Its lyrics are introspective and range from lovely, almost child-like songs about love and friendship (Terrapin: I really love you/ And I mean you/ The star above you/ Crystal blue) to deeper and darker subject that mirrored what he was feeling at the time; I’ll take Dark Globe as an example; its a cliche to say that the opening lines are memorable, no, they are much more than that, they are haunting and loveable and strange, dark and crooked at the same time. (Oh where are you now/ Pussy willow that smiled on this leaf/ When I was alone/ You promised to stone from your heart.) In other songs he expresses his sadness and loneliness (You feel me/ Away far/ Too empty/ Oh so alone, I want to come home), something which young people at the time could relate to for they felt slightly betrayed and lost at looking at the ’60s the golden years of their youth gone by.

1960s faded away, but they left us with achievements that cannot be denied. They produced numerous good bands, ventured into unknown areas of music, brought new and daring fashions and shaped attitudes and ideals that had not been forgotten despite the time gone by.

Manic Street Preachers – My Tribute to Culture, Alienation, Boredom and Despair

I could write about Manic Street Preachers forever. Their music and lyrics mean so much to me; they taught me how to think, showed me the world in a different light and they sang about things I could relate to. They are the first band I truly loved, believed in, the first band I really understood.

The members of the band (Richey Edwards, Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore) were all friends since they were little and as they grew up, they shared opinions and had the same view on the world. Inevitably, they started expressing themselves through music. One has to find a way to express oneself; whether it’s art or music. They sang about ‘culture, alienation, boredom and despair’ which is actually a verse from their song Little Baby Nothing.

In 1990. Manics released an EP called ‘New Art Riot’ which featured four songs that finally gained them the attention from the press. With sharp sound, heavily influenced by The Clash, this EP proved to be merely a prelude to success which was later to come. Their next single ‘Motown junk’, released in January 1991, came as a confirmation of their dedication and persistence. Lyrics of the song show the boredom, saturation with culture, and want for something new, fresh, valuable ‘All you ever gave me was the boredom I suffocate in…’ / ‘…21 years of living and nothing means anything to me’.

Manic Street Preachers, a self proclaimed ‘mess of eyeliner and spraypaint’, were a band everybody loved to hate, whereas they hated every band in existence. With slogans such as ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll suicide’, ‘Sensitivity’, ‘Spectators of suicide’ and ‘Culture of destruction’ on their customized shirts, they expressed their yearning to bring Rock ‘n’ Roll back to life. A band that started with hating everyone and everything, despising culture surrounding them and deeming everything worthless have indeed succeeded in bringing rock back to life, but perhaps they are now, sadly, the last true rock ‘n’ roll band. The Libertines were, in my opinion, the last truly honest rock band that makes you really believe what they are saying, but they have burned out, as was suspected for the Manics.

Manics’ original plan was to make a double album which would sell 16 million copies and reach Number 1 worldwide. After they would achieve their grand plan, they’d split up, declaring ‘The most important thing we can do is get massive and then throw it all away.’ Instead, they carved a two decade career and are about to release their twelfth album.

The first song I heard from the Manics was Little Baby Nothing, and, after hearing it for the first time I listened to it another ten times the same morning. The idea that influenced that song was cheap sex, that is, the sexual exploitation of a woman, and it’s no wonder that it features vocals of Traci Lords. Manics needed a symbol, somebody that could symbolize the lyrics; a woman who had power and intelligence and was used by men. ‘Your beauty and virginity used like toys/ Used, used, used by men /Little baby nothing, Loveless slavery, lips kissing empty, Dress your life in loathing/ Sexually free, made-up to breakup, Assassinated beauty…’

‘Moths broken up, quenched at last’ is an interesting line, knowing the poem ‘Lament for Months’ by Tennessee Williams which meant a lot to the Manics, especially to Richey Edwards, about the moths who are drawn to light which ultimately kills them, there’s that delicacy in moths.

Song ‘Love’s sweet exile’ has undoubtedly the best video, others videos I love are ‘From Despair to Where’ and ‘You love us’, but the lyrics truly display their alienation and despair, being misunderstood, surrounded by meaningless, suffocating trivial things that, despite their material value, all lead you to feeling void. ‘City reflections pour out misery’ is a brilliant verse; misery, woe and loneliness under the city lights, feeling an endless sorrow among the concrete buildings and flashy neon lights.

Motorcycle Emptiness, with its similar message, attacks materialism; hollowness of the consumer lifestyle offered by capitalism. Young people are expected to conform the capitalistic ideal: work, eat, buy, consume then die. Today’s world is sensationalistic, ineligible and empty; it’s all about money: how to get it and how to spend it. The late twentieth century gave birth to a culture of consumerism which is very hard to kick against once it’s rooted itself. The result: art, music and culture sluts; I can empathize with finding no value, because there is no value in modern world.

Song ‘So dead’ is a real gem, though it’s not a single, for its lyrics are haunting ‘You’re so easy to dehumanize’/It’s not that I can’t find worth in anything, It’s just that I can’t find worth in enough, It’s not that I can’t find worth in anything.’ I find this song a peak of Richey’s quest for value, it’s not that there’s no value, there’s just not enough of it. People are so damn easy to dehumanize; once they became rich or famous they seem to forget the problems of the less fortunate ones. People start endless wars, pretending it’s for the sake of people. The privileged few enjoy while the working class is starving.

‘Another invented disease’, whose title is a deliberate word play on Aids, is referring to a conspiracy theory insinuating that the virus was created by American biological warfare scientist. Another song ‘Slash ‘n’ burn’ deals with the exploitation of the third world.

Quite a political first album.

Their second album ‘Gold Against the Soul’ had, as they said it themselves, the typical second album syndrome. The depth of its lyrics may have been overshadowed by the following album The Holy Bible, however I still think this album is decent, despite its more commercial sound. My particular favourite is From Despair to Where, a song that, according to Richey, refers to the western concept of despair which isn’t realistic because everybody has a good living conditions compared to the third world countries, but most of the people feel disappointed with their lives for they didn’t reach any kind of fulfillment of what so ever, they just feel let down. ‘Pretend there’s something worth waiting for/ There’s nothing nice in my head, The adult world took it all away…/Down pale corridors of routine…’

The nature of the lyrics also changes, showing introspective melancholy rather than political spark. I find singles the best songs on the album, such as ‘La Tristesse Durera’ whose title is taken from the last words of Van Gogh, and can be loosely translated as ‘the sadness persists’. However, the song is about a war veteran, suffocating in his own sadness, living in a new liberal society where he’s pitied and treated like a fashion accessorize, but still he’s forced to sell his medal; legacy of his fame from the battle for his country, only to pay the bills; survive in cruel reality that has no understanding.

Song ‘Roses in the hospital’ is, in musical aspect, inspired by the song ‘Sound and vision’ from album Low by David Bowie. This is such a thrilling thing to me for I love Bowie as well, and album ‘Low’ denotes the beginning of the ‘Berlin era’ (’77 to ’79), which I am particularly fond of. Imagine my excitement when I discovered that Nicky loves Bowie’s work from ’77 to ’81. Nevertheless, song Roses in the hospital has some, to me, memorable verses such as ‘Want to feel something of value…/ Nothing really makes me happy…’ and there’s a reference at the end on the song ‘Rudie can’t fail’ by The Clash who had a big impact on the Manics.

The Holy Bible, released in 1994, is perhaps the most critically acclaimed album of their entire career. For me it was to dark and miss understandable when I first started listening to Manics, but I feel that with their first three album you just have to ripe to be able to fully appreciated them. That’s what happened to me; after the initial infatuation and rapture with Generation Terrorists, I started exploring the sound of Gold Against the Soul, only to end up loving The Holy Bible more than I could have ever imagined. Fact about this album is that the singles are not the best songs at the album; so you have She is suffering, Revol, Faster and P.C.P, which are all undoubtedly good songs, but songs such as Yes and Die in the Summertime are maybe even better.

The Holy Bible displayed yet another musical and aesthetic change for the band as they had started listening to their early musical influences such as Joy Division. The music shifted to a darker, post-punk, almost gothic sound. The lyrics, mostly written by Richey Edwards, are brilliant in their honesty, depth and genuine darkness, described by Sean Moore ‘as far as Richey’s character could go.’ Song ‘Yes’ was the one that caught my attention the most. Despite its focus on prostitution, the song’s meaning is much wider (‘Ev’rything’s for sale’). Everybody wants power, and money, that comes along, can buy everything, including a prostitute whose wishes and desires are ignored for she’s just an object of somebody’s lust. She feels like in a purgatory because someone will always say yes and confirm her sad, sad life. ‘And I don’t know what I’m scared of or what I even enjoy/ Dulling, get money, but nothing turns out like you want it to/ I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you, Puking – shaking – sinking I still stand for old ladies, Can’t shout, can’t scream, I hurt myself to get pain out/…Power produces desire, the weak have none.These sunless afternoons I can’t find myself.’ What value does it put on things if you can buy everything. What pleasure can arrive from something you’ve got only because of your money.

Song Faster is perhaps their best single and it’s one of the songs from this album I’ve first fell in love with. This song leads me to Manics’ melodies; they’re so thrilling, unusual but captivating. None of their songs sounds like something you’d expect from a song; riff, overture, chorus, the end. No, their songs sound so fresh, dynamic, strong, brutally honest, and, as I know that these lyrics were hard to write music for, I bow to James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore for making such brilliant, haunting melodies. Anyways, song Faster is the one whose lyrics stayed in my head for a long time. ‘I am an architect, they call me a butcher, I am a pioneer, they call me primitive, I am purity, they call me perverted/ I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing/ So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything.’ Perhaps the universal feeling of an artist; to be called primitive when in fact you’re a pioneer while the people surrounding you are actually primitive and their apathy and void are barriers for them to understand something far beyond their mind set.

Song ‘Die in the Summertime’ can describe what was going on in Richey’s head at the time, though he said it himself it was about an old man wanting to die with a childhood memoirs in his head. ‘Scratch my leg with a rusty nail, sadly it heals, Colour my hair but the dye grows out, I can’t seem to stay a fixed ideal.’ I can’t possibly express the rapture and enthusiasm when I hear James’ voice singing ‘…stay a fixed ideal’ for he sings the last word is such a striking way. He really succeed in conveying the lyrics to music in a way that it created a unified ensemble. ‘I recognize dim traces of creation, I wanna die, die in the summertime, I wanna die…’

Nicky is responsible for the song ‘Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart’ which is not an attack on America, as some may suggest, but it’s about ‘how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense.’ It’s crazy, when you think about it, how we let America be the standard in its so called culture and lifestyle, while Europe is a true ‘cradle of civilization’. I think we shouldn’t uncompromisingly accept everything America has to offer.

 

Another thing that I love about the Manics is that their songs display their interest in literature. In one interview Richey said that his two most influential books are A season in hell by Rimbaud and 1984. by George Orwell. He also showed interest in works of Albert Camus, Philip Larkin, William Blake, Primo Levi, Dostoyevsky, Mirbeau, Tennessee Williams and T.S. Eliot, to name a few.

I’ll quote Nicky saying ‘By the time I was 16 I’d read and studied the complete works of Philip Larkin, Shakespeare, all the Beat generation, every film.’ He also said that he’d been crazy about T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land which he had discovered at the age of sixteen. Though I love literature myself, Manic Street Preachers have indeed inspired me to read some of the book that they were infatuated with. I’m reading Kerouac’s On the road right now.

I think that music, art and literature must be amalgamated, and I’m delighted to see that happening. Manics’ connection to literature sorts them in the weird intellectual-punk breed of alternative rock ‘n’ roll. It’s something most exciting to me, to find out what influenced my favourite bands. Syd Barrett, for example, one of my favourite musicians, was influenced by the book On the Road and Naked Lunch and he also loved Rimbaud, but he was influenced by art too. Not to mention that a have a sentimental attachment to album The madcap laughs and I was wondering for a long time, what do the Manics think of it. Do they love Syd Barrett’s solo work or are they not fond of it so much as I am.

Still, I think that Syd and Richey have similarities. Their lyrics are quite different for sure, Syd’s are more introspective rather than concerning problems around him like Richey’s lyrics do (and I’m not saying that Richey’s lyrics weren’t introspective because they were: ‘4st 7lb’) In my opinion they are the two best song-writers in the rock music.

Moving to Manics’ post-Richey work. Their first album without Richey was Everything must go; the title being taken from a play by Nicky’s brother Patrick Jones. Even more interesting, the working title was Sounds in the Grass; named after a series of paintings by Jackson Pollock. I’m just so delighted to see connections between music and art and literature! My favourite song on the album is ‘No surface all feeling’.

Their next album, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, was even more commercially successful and has many good songs. Though I love the song If you tolerate this your children will be next and You stole the sun from my heart, I prefer the song Socialist Serenade for its lyrics shows Nicky’s intellect and interest in politics. ‘What’s the point in an education/ When you have to pay for the privilege/ This side of the truth where no sun shines/ They don’t count the cripples and the blind/ I was thinking everybody had a chance (…) I can’t see the past anywhere/Anywhere.’  The song ends with words ‘Change your name to new/ Forget the fucking Labour.’ I just love how they can deliver their albums so intellectually and yet so good sonically.

Their following album was ‘Know your enemy’ but I’m more fond of Lifeblood; their seventh studio album which features some great songs such as 1985, Empty souls and Glasnost, not to mention The Love of Richard Nixon. Emily is a song about a leader in the British women’s suffrage movement – Emmeline Pankhurst. The theme of the song reminded me of the song Suffragette city by David Bowie.

Send Away the Tigers, their eighth album, was seen as a return to the hard-edged, more guitar-driven sound. The band members have described it as a mixture of Generation Terrorists and Everything Must Go. My favourite song on the album is Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, not just because it’s a single, but because I love the strength and intensity of it, and the vocals of Nina Persson. The album sleeve features a quotation from Wyndham Lewis ‘When a man is young, he is usually a revolutionary of some kind. So here I am, speaking of my revolution’; in my opinion this quote would be more fitted for Generation Terrorists.

Their ninth album ‘Journal for Plague Lovers’ is interesting because all the lyrics are written by Richey Edwards and before I listened to it, I was curious to see how did they write music for his lyrics. I love how it finally turned out, my favourite songs being ‘All is vanity’ (It’s not “What’s wrong?”/It’s “What’s right?”/ Makes you feel like I’m talking a foreign language sometimes.) and ‘Journal for plague lovers’ (Pretend prayer/ Pretend care/ Makes everything seem so fair.)

On the album Postcards from a Young Man, of which the Manics’ have said they’re going for a big radio hit on it, my favourite song is the one that shares the album title – Postcards for a Young Man. ‘I don’t believe in absolutes anymore/ I’m quite prepared to admit I was wrong/ This life it sucks your principles away/ You have to fight against it every single day/ These are the postcards from a young man/ They may never be written or posted again (…) It is like so many other things/ As distant as your former sins/ So sad and lonely and so derelict/ As the optimism that we once shared.‘Nicky just couldn’t be better at writing lyrics and James and Sean at writing music. I mean, their albums are like an escape to another world, much more interesting world.

I have not yet listened to their album Rewind the Film, but instead I’m more than just excited about the forthcoming Futurology. The songs I have heard by now sound promising, fresh and intriguing; Europa Geht Durch Mich, Walk me to the Bridge and Futurology.

Song ‘Europa Geht Durch Mich’ is, in my opinion, brilliant and it makes me proud of being a European. It can loosely be translated as Europe passes trough me which makes me think of all the beauty and glory of nature, history, art, culture and languages Europe has to offer. In modernistic way (since the title is Futurology) the meaning could be that Europe is united through European Union and in that way it passes through me, that is, every European; we’re connected on this little continent and we share the richness of history, art, music and literature. The song also features vocals of Nina Hoss, a German actress who starred in movie Barbara that was recommended by James Dean Bradfield himself on a concert.

Walk me to the bridge was the first song I’ve heard from their new album, on the 28. April; the day they released the video. I’m looking forward to their new album for I knew, once I’ve listened to this song, that it’s going to be awesome. I can’t wait to hear more of their new songs such as Sex, Power, Love and Money; the title sounds intriguing. But, back to this song.

Though the lyrics such as: ‘We smile at this ugly world/ It never really suited you (…) So long my fatal friend…’ undoubtedly remind me of Richey, Nicky said, well I might as well quote him:

‘People might have the idea that this song contains a lot of Richey references but it really isn’t about that, it’s about the Oresund Bridge that joins Sweden and Denmark. A long time ago when we were crossing that bridge I was flagging and thinking about leaving the band (the “fatal friend”). It’s about the idea of bridges allowing you an out of body experience as you leave and arrive in different places.’

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the song’s lyrics worth a thousand meanings. Still, this verse ‘The roads never end, the motion starts/ Reality gives no romance’ reminded me of something Nicky once said in an interview: ‘We’re romantic realists, we’re always aware we’re not blinded by too much flowery aesthetics. Our romance is always based on where we come from anyway. A desire to escape boredom.’

However, verse ‘Still blinded by your intellect’ is still haunting me and it doesn’t leave my head for it so reminds me of Richey, as if the Manics are still blinded by his intellect. Since Nicky has explained the true meaning of the song I can only say that I’m still blinded by Manic Street Preachers’ intellect.