Project on Richey's lyrics

[Tetsuo]

You took a lot of liberty in assuming that Richey wrote all of those lines that you examined. There's no mention of Nick's input to the lyrics and you can't really be sure who wrote which exact lines.

Your analysis makes too much of Richey's alledged "anti-capitalist" stance - the man gorged on consummerism! You went to quite some length to drum home home the "tortured artist" angle. Richey never explicitly espoused a belief in Marxist politics and him and it could be argued he did nothing more than name-drop the bearded man for fashionable effect.

You took more than just a little bit of liberity with the closing paragraph, in particular "Richey was a young and troubled person disillusioned with the world". Your entire essay seems to paint a picture of a man who was too immature to grow up and accept "normal" things you obviously do like forming loving relationships .

You use the word "cynical" about 7 times in your essay and it's quite fitting as the whole thing is exactly that.



Oh and where is your proof or at least a source for your suggestion that he "probably experimented in drugs"?

[DangerousObsession]

This is reflected also later on in the song with ‘someone will always say yes’, morals are thrown out of the window where money is concerned, money means that where there is a will, no matter how disgusting, there will be a way. This shows not only his disgust but his morality, he believed that there were more important things than material wealth and that we should act out of empathy as well, personally he tried as hard as possible to be a good person, despite his rock n roll image he went to University and studied hard and tried to get on with people. He was appalled to see morally bad acts being committed....a rather optimistic person at times Richey hates to see people suffer and people commit bad acts for money....His disgust for what humans were capable of came from seeing the exploitation of other human beings around the world in places like the sex trade in Thailand...

Not sure I agree with this. Richey hiring a prostitute for a handjob shows, IMO, that he was willing to use his wealth for "immoral" acts and wasn't really that empathetic or worried about being a "good person". After all, who knows whether prostitutes are doing their job out of their own free will or are being forced/pressured into it? From what I've read he also didn't try to get on with the majority of people at university. I also wouldn't describe him as optimistic, the majority of his quotes would suggst the total opposite.

Richey was a young and troubled person disillusioned with the world but happy to be in a band and doing what he loved writing and performing I think towards the end of THB tour especially Richey was not at all happy to be in a band and performing. There was, for example, the incident when he threatened to chop off his fingers so he wouldn't have to go onstage, and the time he asked the band if he could just contribute lyrics but not be a visible, touring member of the Manics any more.

[franny]

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

You took a lot of liberty in assuming that Richey wrote all of those lines that you examined. There's no mention of Nick's input to the lyrics and you can't really be sure who wrote which exact lines.

Firstly thanks for reading and criticising. I agree that Nicky did write a lot of these but I made sure I choose ones which seemed to be more influenced by him and more accurate to his views. With those from THB and JFPL I think it's fair to say they were pretty much completely him and LBAL seemed very clearly to be a Richey song. Spectators and Druggy I would agree weren't completely by him

Your analysis makes too much of Richey's alledged "anti-capitalist" stance - the man gorged on consummerism! You went to quite some length to drum home home the "tortured artist" angle. Richey never explicitly espoused a belief in Marxist politics and him and it could be argued he did nothing more than name-drop the bearded man for fashionable effect.

He was a hypocrite like most of us and I seem to recall him describing the band as being Marxist.

You took more than just a little bit of liberity with the closing paragraph, in particular "Richey was a young and troubled person disillusioned with the world". Your entire essay seems to paint a picture of a man who was too immature to grow up and accept "normal" things you obviously do like forming loving relationships.

Not so much immature as nostalgic, he said himself he preferred childhood and that life went downhill from then so it's fair to say he was troubled and not quite at ease with adult society. Perhaps 'disillusioned with the world' was too strong.

You use the word "cynical" about 7 times in your essay and it's quite fitting as the whole thing is exactly that.

Meh, whatever, this was done more as a personal thing which would help me get into universities and interest me at the same time so yes, it was cynical.

Oh and where is your proof or at least a source for your suggestion that he "probably experimented in drugs"?

I agree that this phrase was too strong but he had certainly tried a spliff in his time.

[franny]

Originally Posted by DangerousObsession

This is reflected also later on in the song with ‘someone will always say yes’, morals are thrown out of the window where money is concerned, money means that where there is a will, no matter how disgusting, there will be a way. This shows not only his disgust but his morality, he believed that there were more important things than material wealth and that we should act out of empathy as well, personally he tried as hard as possible to be a good person, despite his rock n roll image he went to University and studied hard and tried to get on with people. He was appalled to see morally bad acts being committed....a rather optimistic person at times Richey hates to see people suffer and people commit bad acts for money....His disgust for what humans were capable of came from seeing the exploitation of other human beings around the world in places like the sex trade in Thailand...

Not sure I agree with this. Richey hiring a prostitute for a handjob shows, IMO, that he was willing to use his wealth for "immoral" acts and wasn't really that empathetic or worried about being a "good person". After all, who knows whether prostitutes are doing their job out of their own free will or are being forced/pressured into it? From what I've read he also didn't try to get on with the majority of people at university.

He didn't try as he didn't want to socialise, he was there to work and they were not as motivated.

I also wouldn't describe him as optimistic, the majority of his quotes would suggst the total opposite.

This was based on his attitudes around late 1994 and 1995 where he appeared to become much happier

Richey was a young and troubled person disillusioned with the world but happy to be in a band and doing what he loved writing and performing I think towards the end of THB tour especially Richey was not at all happy to be in a band and performing. There was, for example, the incident when he threatened to chop off his fingers so he wouldn't have to go onstage, and the time he asked the band if he could just contribute lyrics but not be a visible, touring member of the Manics any more.

That's a good point but earlier on he loved the attention and being a rock n roll guitarist. I should however have mentioned that this did degenerate.

[DangerousObsession]

Originally Posted by franny

He didn't try as he didn't want to socialise, he was there to work and they were not as motivated.

That's what I'm saying, in your essay you said that he tried to get on with people at university.

[MrsCarbohydrate]

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

You use the word "cynical" about 7 times in your essay and it's quite fitting as the whole thing is exactly that.

Why?

I liked it, although I thought that maybe it's not a good idea to assume a one-to-one correspondance between what Richey wrote and what he thought. After all, he did write through characters a lot.

[franny]

Originally Posted by DangerousObsession

That's what I'm saying, in your essay you said that he tried to get on with people at university.

Ah well I was wrong though I had thought he would have tried to be friendly before realising they were more concerned with having fun. Sorry

[Tetsuo]

This is all a bit bizarre with different people seemingly claiming to "know" a person that's been missing for near 20 years. In fact, I think the OP would've still been a toddler when the Holy Bible was written. It is precisely what the band spent years trying to distance themselves from - that kind of caricature some people paint of their band member.

Originally Posted by DangerousObsession

Not sure I agree with this. Richey hiring a prostitute for a handjob shows, IMO, that he was willing to use his wealth for "immoral" acts and wasn't really that empathetic or worried about being a "good person". After all, who knows whether prostitutes are doing their job out of their own free will or are being forced/pressured into it? From what I've read he also didn't try to get on with the majority of people at university. I also wouldn't describe him as optimistic, the majority of his quotes would suggst the total opposite.

On the prostitute/handjob thing... I think there was an interview where someone put it to him did he not find it immoral. I don't know what he really thought or not but in the interview he started talking about Britain exploiting its kids by sending them up chimneys or something. I don't think any good can come out of speculating about one man's decision to pay for a wank two decades previous.

Originally Posted by franny

Spectators and Druggy I would agree weren't completely by him

Most of the lines in SOS were nicked from Situationist pamphlets as far as I know.

Originally Posted by franny

He was a hypocrite like most of us and I seem to recall him describing the band as being Marxist.

I read in a 1994 interview reprinted in the NME a fewyears back that Richey described the Manics at the time as the "last Marxist band in Britain". Quite what that was even supposed to mean is up for debate. I don't really know what their or his politics where back then. Where did Marx extol a preference for people to join musical bands and sign a 10record deal to Sony and buy a fancy apartment in a rejuvinated bay area and whatever

Originally Posted by franny

Meh, whatever, this was done more as a personal thing which would help me get into universities and interest me at the same time so yes, it was cynical.

I didn't mean to criticise too harshly so as to get personal or anything so sorry if it came off wrong. Fair play for putting it together but you may have done better to stick to concrete sources. The old NME Manics issue had dozens of interviews, there's interviews on youtube and there's stuff like these liner notes on the Holy Bible where you're getting from the horses mouth what the songs are about. I've seen other short explanations about songs from other albums online over the years.

Originally Posted by franny

I agree that this phrase was too strong but he had certainly tried a spliff in his time.

The band as a whole seemed to always have had a strong anti-drugs stance and that's been well documented.

[ron the little seal]

Interesting read congrats

[franny]

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

Where did Marx extol a preference for people to join musical bands and sign a 10record deal to Sony and buy a fancy apartment in a rejuvinated bay area and whatever

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

I didn't mean to criticise too harshly so as to get personal or anything so sorry if it came off wrong. Fair play for putting it together but you may have done better to stick to concrete sources. The old NME Manics issue had dozens of interviews, there's interviews on youtube and there's stuff like these liner notes on the Holy Bible where you're getting from the horses mouth what the songs are about. I've seen other short explanations about songs from other albums online over the years.

Cheers and no worries, I just thought it would be intersting to see what I came up with without already knowing the conclusions.

[foundthatsoul]

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

The band as a whole seemed to always have had a strong anti-drugs stance and that's been well documented.

I'm nearly sure though that it's reported that Richey had on occasion smoked a joint, and I think Nicky disapproved...I definitely read it somewhere on here, I think it may have been one of the old skool fans in the Richey thread who said it. Gah my memory's shot these days, but I know I read it somewhere!!!

[franny]

Originally Posted by foundthatsoul

I'm nearly sure though that it's reported that Richey had on occasion smoked a joint, and I think Nicky disapproved...I definitely read it somewhere on here, I think it may have been one of the old skool fans in the Richey thread who said it. Gah my memory's shot these days, but I know I read it somewhere!!!

It's in the Jovanovic book that Nicky got really grumpy and ignored him for a day.

[Tetsuo]

Originally Posted by franny

It's in the Jovanovic book that Nicky got really grumpy and ignored him for a day.

I'd take whatever's in that book with a grain of salt.

[franny]

Originally Posted by Tetsuo

I'd take whatever's in that book with a grain of salt.

Aye true but i think most people know drugs were in his life at one point even if not for very long.

[Tetsuo]

Nicotine and alcohol are drugs I suppose....