10 minutes to write, excluding the chorus

November 30, 2015 6:03 PM

How Writing 'A Design For Life' Saved Manic Street Preachers [Youtube] / Live Jools Holland 1996 performance
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (16 comments total)

Did it really 'save' them?

Well, they kept going post-Richie largely due to that song and accompanying album, so yes?
posted by Artw at 6:40 PM on November 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

yeah this is one of those moments where the video would have answered that question. shame you couldn't watch it.

The video is pretty great. I never really had an understand about what Richey's disappearance had done to them. Really great insight, generally.
posted by shmegegge at 6:44 PM on November 30, 2015

This song always catches me unaware with the emotional gut punch it gives me. I think I've heard it enough times that its sting is gone and then I watch the Jools performance and damn, there it is again and my eyes prick tears and I have a hard time swallowing.

This band were my generation. Too young for punk but just old enough to grow up on post punk and the last band to genuinely connect to me in that way that bands do when you're a teenager. Except I was in my 20s and too old for that kind of feeling. But they did it anyway.

Whip smart. Knowing. Vulnerable. Richey's disappearance broke my heart. The way they're dressed down for the Jools performance, like survivors wearing their plainest clothes so they don't stand out. Every visual aspect of the band thought through a million times over. No accidents.

I miss feeling that way about a band but then I realize that I still do feel that way about the Manics. Still interesting, often brilliant, with a history that would sink a lesser group.

You Love Us indeed.
posted by merocet at 6:45 PM on November 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

To me it's pretty clear that Richey's disappearance affected all of Nicky Wire's lyrics going forward. There's not a single song that isn't touched by that loss in some way. It's really heartbreaking.

Journal for Plague Lovers was an excellent return to form for the Manics, and also I finally went and saw them last year on the Holy Bible tour. It was so weird to be seeing a band that sells out stadiums in the UK play to a half-full club on a Monday night here in the States. I believe it was their first time ever playing in DC. It was really incredible. All that energy is still there. And it felt more than any other concert I've been to lately like really being a part of something. merocet, it's just like you said.
posted by capricorn at 7:25 PM on November 30, 2015 [6 favorites]

It's embarrassing to admit that I've never listened to The Manics. Like, at all. I grew up on grunge and when I got into post-punk their name always put me off.

This song is fantastic. Do ya'll have more recommendations as an intro to this band?
posted by special agent conrad uno at 8:33 PM on November 30, 2015

The lyrics of "A design for life" do sound like they took 10 minutes to write to me - there is a reference to Arbeit macht frei - but there is not much more going on by the standard of what the band could write. The vast bulk of the song's emotional power comes from James Dean Bradfield's vocal performance and from Andrew Waters' string arrangement, I think.
posted by rongorongo at 11:33 PM on November 30, 2015

Generation Terrorists came out when I was 19. It's THE stand-out album of my university years. I saw them live just before things really started to take off and they were outstanding, even if it was a bit unclear whether Ritchie's guitar was actually plugged into anything. The whole performance was spine-tingling. They were just something else altogether. I cracked a couple of ribs in the mosh and then James stage dived onto me and dislocated my thumb, so the next morning was a bit sore. I saw them a lot later in the late 90s and they were a very different band, but still amazing, still angry, still charged up. But more melancholy. Design For Life was an anthem live.
posted by dowcrag at 12:25 AM on December 1, 2015

>> This song is fantastic. Do ya'll have more recommendations as an intro to this band?

The Manics are a weird one to recommend – each album they made some pretty significant stylistic shifts. Most big fans of the band have a favourite era, and will argue your ear off about its supremacy. The kind of band where most comments on their Youtube videos are rankings of albums, with thousands of rejoinders.

Here's a couple of suggestions from each album of their early career (links taken from the ManicStPreachersVEVO Youtube Channel, which seems legit and will hopefully work cross-borders. Spotify of this playlist).

Generation Terrorists
Brash glam punk – they appeared on the scene ready to fight with anyone and assured of their passion and excellence. Their original plan was to sell a million copies of this and then split up. Their failure to do either begins the quixotic cycle of reinvention with every album.
You Love Us
Their first ballad, the least glam punk thing on the album, and one of their most famous songs: Motorcycle Emptiness

Gold Against the Soul
Like a weird LA Hair Hangover to the first album. Lots of quite bad music on this record (the band didn't do drugs so wrote a song condemning their use called 'Drug Drug Druggy'). Their ballads on this one are pretty affecting though.
Roses in the Hospital
La Tristesse Durera

The Holy Bible
Generally considered their masterpice, much denser, darker and musically offputting than the other stuff. The last album before Richey went missing.
Faster
4st7lb

Everything Must Go
This is the album with A Design For Life on it. They moved to a much more poppy sound. Some fans never forgave them.
A Design For Life
Everything Must Go

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours
Elegiac, featured their first UK number1 hit, 'If you tolerate this'. The quietness drove away quite a few fans who were on the fence after Everything Must Go. If you went to their shows for this tour, which were at larger stadiums for the first time, old fans would still be dressed in leopard print and lipstick and the new fans were in jeans and T-Shirts. I think it's a corker personally.
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
The Everlasting

Know Your Enemy
The album where they have a crack at all the different elements of their past. Tonally all over the place, this album's got a load of really good songs – it almost feels like a B-Sides compilation.
A rock song: Found That Soul
A political song: The Masses Against The Classes
A ballad (James Dean Bradfield's first lyrics, for his mother undergoing treatment for cancer) Ocean Spray
A pop confection: So Why So Sad

I'm afraid I listened to all their albums after this one and didn't like any of them, so can't go any further. Any late-period fans who can help out?
posted by Cantdosleepy at 12:58 AM on December 1, 2015 [10 favorites]

This song is fantastic. Do ya'll have more recommendations as an intro to this band?

This might be better as an ask, as the manics contain multiples. If you like Design for Life, you'll probably like songs from the album it's from, Everything Must Go. Check out "No Surface All Feeling" or "Enola/Alone". You could also listen to the lovely "If You Tolerate this, then your Children will be next" (which is about the Spanish civil war, because the Manics are just superb) from the not terribly good album This is My Truth Tell me Yours.

If instead you respond to some of the raw emotion in that song, you can't find any better place for raw emotion than their best (I said it) album, The Holy Bible. Check out "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" or "Of Walking Abortion" or "Faster" or "This Is Yesterday" or "4st 7lb" or "This Is Yesterday" . OK it turns out it's quite difficult to recommend one song from one of my favourite albums...
posted by Cannon Fodder at 1:00 AM on December 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, The Holy Bible almost exists as a concept album where you should sit in a dark room and listen to the whole thing in one go. Compared with the other albums it feels hermetically-sealed.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 1:04 AM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm afraid I listened to all their albums after this one and didn't like any of them, so can't go any further. Any late-period fans who can help out?

That would be me! I came in with Everything Must Go.

Lifeblood (2004) Disliked by many old fans, but I loved it.
The Love of Richard Nixon
Empty Souls

Send Away the Tigers (2007) Fine offering, but not my favourite.
Autumnsong
Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

Journal for Plague Lovers (2009) Many fans of the early stuff loved this, but it didn't click for me.
Peeled Apples
This Joke Sport Severed

Postcards from a Young Man (2010) Possibly my favourite late-Manics album.
(It's Not War) Just the End of Love
Postcards from a Young Man
Some Kind of Nothingness

Rewind the Film (2013) Maybe their gentlest album, apart from the lead single.
Show Me the Wonder
(I Miss the) Tokyo Skyline

Futurology (2014) Great stuff. Also possibly my favourite late-Manics album.
Futurology
Walk Me to the Bridge
The Next Jet to Leave Moscow
Europa Geht Durch Mich
posted by rory at 2:46 AM on December 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

I should take the opportunity to link to the two threads on the Manics at Popular, Tom Ewing's blog of every UK number one single: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next and The Masses Against The Classes. Note that it's a blog where the comments are often as important as the (excellent) entries.
posted by rory at 3:01 AM on December 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

Rewind the Film and Futurology got me back in to the Manics after being bored of everything post Everything Must Go.

The Manics were a huge touchstone for my teenage years - not least for the quotes on their record sleeves
posted by brilliantmistake at 7:03 AM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

The lyrics of "A design for life" do sound like they took 10 minutes to write to me - there is a reference to Arbeit macht frei - but there is not much more going on by the standard of what the band could write.

Yeah, you can really feel the difference in lyric writing post-Richey. His work is pretty dense in references and allusions, whereas Nicky tends toward more sparse and slogan-esque writing. It was in the combination of those two styles that you got the classic Manics style of dense verses and sparse, sing-along-worthy choruses, like on La tristesse durera and NatWest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds.

Journal for Plague Lovers is an especially interesting example because the core of the lyrics was actually drawn from Richey's notebooks written mostly while he was institutionalized, so it's the same process, just posthumous. The 2009 Manics had a good decade under their belt of writing accessible mainstream rock music by that point and if you compare the notebook pages (released along with a special edition of the album) side by side with the final lyrics, you can see they carved out a good chunk of the original poetry in order to make it actually workable as songs, and they're a lot easier to sing along with on a whole than the other three Richey-penned albums. Unfortunately the only one I can find online right now is the most absurd example of that effect, William's Last Words, which is really the one terrible song on an otherwise great album. The original is a long, rambling monologue written in character as an elderly man in his last days. Nicky and James tortured the poor thing into a saccharine bit of schlock that really feels like them trying to imagine Richey's own last thoughts in order to comfort themselves. It's unfair to James and Nicky to use that as an example because the rest of the songs on the album are pretty honest to the poetry Richey wrote, but it is definitely revealing as to their process. (I'll admit that most Manics fans don't hate William's Last Words as much as I do but boy I hate it.)
posted by capricorn at 7:23 AM on December 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yes, if you're looking for a synecdoche of the Manic's combination of intellect/pseudointellect/posturing/truthtelling, you can find it in the fact that their song ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart is bang on in sentiment but has a misplaced apostrophe.
Oops.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 2:23 PM on December 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

Note that it's a blog where the comments are often as important as the (excellent) entries.

O/T but to illustrate, it is a blog where a comment like "... The reason we can find both of those movements in this song must lie in the way it manages to combine a propulsive forward momentum with those rhythmic interruptions: not just the slow down and stop shortly after the two-minute mark but also those triplets that take us from the first to the second line of the verse, the simple but crunchily exciting steps up the scale that bridge the second to third, and the false rallantando that propels us into the restatement of the chorus. It both rocks and interrupts." is made in relation to this song.
posted by rongorongo at 12:32 AM on December 2, 2015