Preachin' - the gospel of the Manic Street Preachers

[Phil C]

This is a rather long and probably quite rambling 'article' (for want of a better word) I just felt like writing, and which I put together over the last couple of hours. I have no idea if anyone will find it of even the remotest interest or be able to get to the end, but here it is for the fool-hardy few (Finn might want to read up to 'There By The Grace Of God' as I quote his/her comment about how it sounds live - I have done this totally without permission but in the spirit of quoting texts in essay writing and I hope they don't mind. I shall remove the line if offence is caused). Any errors are due to my only quickly skimming for them.

I’ve been thinking about the gospel elements in the Manics back-catalogue, prompted by the number of fans on this forum who have reacted so strongly against them on ‘Postcards From A Young Man’ (album , as well as track). Personally I like gospel, and look out for pop/rock tracks that wear it on their sleeve (from Primal Scream’s ‘Movin’ On Up’ or Marvin Gaye’s ‘Can I Get A Witness?’) as well as actual gospel (mainly the Blind Boys Of Alabama).

The first real suggestion of any kind of gospel influence in the Manics catalogue comes, for me, in the chorus of ‘No Surface All Feeling’ – James sings it high, in a voice that sounds like its stretching for some kind of transcendence. It’s obscured by the rawness of the guitar, but it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to hear a choir singing ‘Feel the guilt of a sinner / Feel the cold of a winter’. But if this first moment was tucked away at the end of its parent album, the next would be much bolder.

In 1998 the Manics released one of their finest singles. ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ was chosen to launch their new album. On first listen it’s the electronic effects that attract the attention, being a first for the band. Then there’s the guitar solo, one of James’ finest but most under-stated. And then comes arguably James’ finest moment as a singer up to that point (and possibly up to now also) as he launches into a series of ‘ah’s that couldn’t have been bettered by any choir you could find. If not quite gospel then like other notable tracks on ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours’, it’s certainly hymnal. Opener (and second single) ‘The Everlasting’ was inspired by 'The Battle Hymn Of The Republic', while the organ-heavy ‘Ready For Drowning’ feels like the kind of sturdy hymn popular in churches up and down the country – more ‘Jerusalem’ than Blind Boys Of Alabama.

This development should really have paused on the deliberately rough and ready ‘Know Your Enemy’ but in the typically contrary Manics way, it was on this album that they produced their first fully-fledged gospel moments. To showcase the different sides of the album they released two singles on the same day. One was the Stooges thrash of ‘Found That Soul’. The other was one of the strangest tracks they’ve ever released. ‘So Why So Sad’ opens with a repeated backing of ‘ba-ba-da’s before James comes in with the lead. On the second chorus these continue, but are overlaid with a vocal which repeats the main vocal line. It’s classic gospel ‘call and response’, although at the time people focussed more on comparisons to The Beach Boys (not unfairly). Listening to it now, ten years after it was first released, I still can’t make my mind up whether I like it or not. Part of the reason it sounds so unusual is that it fits in with the more upbeat gospel tradition, something that doesn’t fit very easily into their style. But the album’s other gospel moment, for me, works much better and remains one of the band’s most affecting moments. ‘Let Robeson Sing’ (a ‘political love song’ to singer and activist Paul Robeson) was described in advance publicity for the album the Manics equivalent of Blur’s ‘Tender’. The comparison isn’t quite spot on but you can see why it was made. In fact ‘LRS’ is much more subtle than Blur’s track. James picks at the acoustic guitar while an organ hums quietly in the background. The choir comes in at the end of the first verse but are understated, almost not there, before swelling in the first chorus. In the second verse, Nicky Wire’s rough vocals join in with James’, as though a congregation were joining in with a soloist. And then, in the middle eight, Robeson’s voice booms out reading a poem about the Freedom Train coming to collect passengers regardless of colour. The track ends with the repeated refrain ‘Sing it loud/Sing it proud/I will be heard/I will be found’. It’s a wonderful track and should be a huge fan favourite. Astonishingly it’s regarded by many Manics fans as a bit embarrassing, a common favourite when discussing tracks that shouldn’t have made that album’s cut.

When ‘LRS’ was released as a single, it was backed by ‘Masking Tape’ and ‘Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?’ The latter is an acoustic gospel track that Robeson had previously sung, while ‘Masking Tape’ contained a slightly odd break in the middle which had been put on ‘Know Your Enemy’ as a kind of hidden track, uncredited between songs towards the album’s end. ‘Happy black days / It is the summer’ repeats James, backed by his own ethereal vocals.

Religion was clearly on Nicky Wire’s mind during this period as the band took time off from new albums to release a greatest hits album. The album contained two new tracks, both of which contained clear religious themes. ‘Door To The River’ was actually recorded during the ‘KYE’ sessions but its orchestral sound meant it couldn’t go on an album that the band had promised would include no string sections. Wire admitted that the song wasn’t cynical. Again, it was perhaps more of a hymn than a gospel track. The lead single for the album was ‘There By The Grace Of God’, a surprisingly electro track that didn’t really represent what the band had produced before.* Lyrically it fits easily in what you would imagine would be the themes of modern gospel; ‘And all the drugs in the world/Can’t save us from ourselves/Victims with the saddest hearts/Passing by the grace of God/With grace we will suffer/With grace we will recover’. In a surprising twist, electronic sound of the song doesn’t hide the tone of the lyric, but actually re-enforces it as the synths become the choir, masked at first by the thumping drums but gradually emerging throughout, until the final chorus where they ascend behind the lead vocal. As with ‘LRS’, ‘TBTGOG’ is not a fan favourite, and has not been played live since 2002. Finn, a poster on the Forever Delayed fan forum, described it as having 'tremendous power live, it's not so much a song the band perform for us as on us - it's a sonic attack with a riff like a wave of body blows. It's nothing less than awesome.' It was the highlight of the night on the one occasion I saw them play it, and I can only hope it makes a comeback in the light of the new singles collection.

Tucked away on the ‘TBTGOG’ b-side was another track in the lyrical vein. ‘Unstoppable Salvation’ is a stripped down track, and a complete contrast to its a-side. Lyrically it remains secular (‘There is unstoppable salvation in these words’), more about feeling saved by the songs the band write, but the language is clearly religious in origin. It feels oddly produced, slightly too rough in places then glossy in others, but after initially disliking it I find it’s a track I come back to frequently.

This use of religious language was almost taken to the next level on the following album ‘Lifeblood’ which had ‘Litany’ as a working title. The track ‘Litany’ eventually turned up as the b-side of second single ‘Empty Souls’, and while the title is its only gospel-related element, it’s still a lovely track worthy of a place on the album. ‘Lifeblood’ itself sold badly and has split fan opinion – completely dismissed by some, treasured by others. It follows the lead of ‘TBTGOG’ in its greater use of synths, but largely backs away from other electro touches. The album also does not mix the electronic with the gospel much either. The obvious exception is one of the few ‘Lifeblood’ songs to be recalled to the set-list in recent years – ‘Solitude Sometimes Is’. The track opens with a skippy refrain backed by an ancient-sounding drum machine before glistening synths take the song’s weight. ‘If black were truly black not grey / It might provide some depth to pray’ sings James with all the sincerity of gospel singer proclaiming the power of prayer. Strangely, I didn’t take to the song properly at first, and it was only when I heard it live that it properly clicked with me.

The band took a break in 2006 with James and Nick both producing solo albums. While for me it was (much to my astonishment) Nick’s ‘I Killed The Zeitgeist’ that won the battle of the band members, James did flirt with gospel again, and on one track all but married it. ‘Bad Boys and Painkillers’ and ‘Which Way To Kyffin’ both feature gospel-esque backing vocals, but it’s on ‘The Wrong Beginning’ that he went all out. A tribute to missing band member Richey Edwards, the song builds slowly with a quite rough guitar riff, before the choir joins in, initially wordlessly before repeating the phrase ‘surrendering your piece of mind’ and blossoming out in the chorus. At the time it was the most full-on use of gospel vocals on any track connected with the band. And for the next few years to seemed like it would remain so until they retired. The Manics’ comeback album ‘Send Away The Tigers’ was a much more ‘straight ahead’ mainstream rock album than they had produced in some time, a deliberate attempt to re-start their commercial career. Opening single ‘Your Love Alone Is Not Enough’ did have a gospel touch in its use of backing vocals repeating what had just been sung in the lead (going back to the traditional ‘call and response’ style again) but it was largely alone on the album. The title track opens the album with the sound of a church organ but sadly it lasts only a few seconds before vanishing, while final track ‘Winterlovers’ sounds like the bitter, twisted brother of ‘So Why So Sad’ with its ‘na-na-na’ backing against a much rockier tune. ‘SATT’ was followed by ‘Journal For Plague Lovers’, an album written around lyrics left behind by Richey, a much starker collection of rock songs that made only fleeting attempts to sound commercial. It was a critical success.

But this is the Manics, a band constantly torn between the desire to try to be the biggest band in the world, and that to throw all popularity away with a piece of hard-to-swallow rock-art. And the pendulum was about to swing back.

The band’s tenth album came with, for me, exciting news. Gospel choirs were to be added to the mix on an album designed to sell bucketloads or die trying. In fact, four of the twelve album cuts would feature backing singers. The final one – the Wire-sung ‘The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever’ – used them more to back up Nick’s improving but still rough voice. The other three however were more ambitious. The title track is a gorgeous string-backed ballad which makes little use of backing singers until the song’s conclusion, when they suddenly kick into life to help James deliver the final coda; ‘I won’t betray your confidence/I won’t pretend my way was lost/This world will not impose its will/I will not give up and I will not give in’ – the message of the album summed up in four lines.

This is immediately followed by ‘Some Kind Of Nothingness’, on which any restraint is put up against a wall and shot. There’s no holding back here as James and guest vocalist Ian McCulloch are joined on each chorus by a glorious choir. At the middle eight they ascend up through the scales before breaking out into the first line of the chorus on their own in one of the most uplifting moments the Manics have ever gotten on record. Again, it’s a song fiercely criticised by a section of fandom who find it all too OTT. But for me it’s the sheer size of everything that makes the song work (it’s also feels extremely good to sing along to).

Finally comes a song that even a number of the album’s haters have to accept as a classic. ‘Golden Platitudes’ stands out on an album designed for commercial success by managing to sound like an out-and-out hit despite not actually having a chorus of any sort. It builds from a simple piano refrain over which James sings the opening lines before the drums and a sparse guitar part join in. The song’s momentum builds to a marching rhythm, and the choir ghosts in the background as the lyric unspins its critique of New Labour. As the second verse unfolds the choir becomes more of a force, repeating the lines ‘Why colonise the Moon/When every different kind/Of desperation exists’ before joining in on the punchline ‘In every single home?’ Having built like the pressure in the air before a storm, the track breaks with a full blooded ‘la-la-la’ sing-along over a punchy guitar riff. It’s the moment when the band manage to combine their commercial instincts with their more ‘difficult’ artistic ones and is a total triumph.

Given James’ voice is perfectly suited to this kind of music, it is perhaps surprising that many of these recent tracks (‘Your Love Alone’, ‘Some Kind Of Nothingness’, ‘The Future Has Been Here 4 Ever’ and ‘Golden Platitudes’) were actually mostly written by Nick.

The band have promised that their next album will be more self-indulgent and less interested in commercial success. Personally, while I love the band to rock out as much as anyone, I do hope they don’t forget to do a little preachin’ at the same time.