Which EMG songs were written before Richey disappeared?
 

This has been bugging me for the past few days. I've seen people claim in the past that even if Richey hadn't disappeared, EMG would still have sounded like it did since they had already written some of it before he went. But having just finished A Version Of Reason the other day, it reminded me that even the songs that Richey had apparently heard weren't necessarily how they ended up turning out. Here's how I think they break down:

Before he disappeared
Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky - I'm positive that Richey had heard and approved the music for this one
Removables - this was written soon after THB, I believe
No Surface All Feeling - since the final version supposedly contains bits of Richey playing guitar, then it's safe to say this was already written before he disappeared

After he disappeared
A Design For Life - the two-page poem it was based on was written in mid-1995
Enola/Alone - inspired by Nicky's wedding photo with Richey and Phillip, who had both now gone
Everything Must Go - about them carrying on after Richey
Australia - Nicky wanting to escape the events of 1995

Not sure
Elvis Impersonator - certainly begun when Richey was around, but since Nicky had to finish off the words himself, then presumably the music wasn't finished either - perhaps explaining the massive musical difference between the first verse and the rest of the song?
Kevin Carter - a Richey lyric, but I believe he didn't like the first "draft" James did, and I think I've read that the final version was what James thought Richey would have liked, i.e. Richey never actually heard the version that went on to be recorded
The Girl Who Wanted To Be God - from the Raindrops sessions, so certainly one of the earliest songs written, and supposed to be the one lyric the actually sat down and co-wrote, but does anyone know if the music was written before Richey disappeared?
Interiors - can't recall seeing anything that suggests when this was written - anyone know?
Further Away - a Nicky lyric from on tour in 1994, but I have no idea if the music itself was written around then. Being the weakest track on the album, I can imagine it perhaps being a late inclusion

Can anyone shed any light on this? I'm basically trying to figure out if EMG could have ended up being an album I would have been more happy with, because I feel that the ones that were definitely post-Richey songs pretty much define the sound of the album.

I'm not exactly sure, but I thought James said that the general sound of how we know Kevin Carter was what Richey perhaps wasn't too keen on - didn't James joke that he wondered if that was what made think about disappearing?

He certainly wasn't keen on the version James played him, which I think is when he came out with his Pantera-meets-NIN-meets-Screamdelica idea. I think A Version Of Reason mentions that James redid it to how he thought Richey would have liked it, but he could have just said that :P

It's very bold of you to claim Further Away as 'the weakest track on the album' as if it's a fact because you think it. Sheesh!

The interview I'm thinking of with James talking about demoing to Richey may have been on the EMG 10th anniversary DVD but I can't remember. I'm thinking of a video interview anyway.

I was under the immpression that Removables had been knocking around since GATS?

With Interiors you need to find out when the Willem de Kooning documentary was broadcast, but I suspect it was post-disappearance.

I think the lyrics were but they couldn't decide how the music would work.

:mrgreen:

Yes, I was going to put "in my opinion", but then I figured it's probably the most basic track, both lyrically and musically, so I would have thought even people who still really like EMG would have gotten a little sick of it by now.

Although if anyone wants to speak up for why Further Away is not their weakest track, then by all means go ahead!

Well, it certainly could have. I just know I've seen people putting it on THB-era playlists, saying that it was probably going to be a b-side for the abandoned Yes single. As River Boy says, they perhaps just took a while putting all the pieces together for that one.

Either way, I think we're all agreed it was a pre-disappearance song.

Further Away is in my top 10 Manics tracks. I agree it's a straightforward track, including lyrically but I like those lyrics a lot, with some of my favourite Wire lines amongst them.

Everything gels together and sits well for me in the song and there's a nice nostalgic feeling about it (and I don't mean nostalgic feelings of my own). For some reason it's a song that I've liked more and more over the years, and the demo on the anniversary edition was part of that.

Fair enough. I've always considered This Is Yesterday to be the weakest track on THB, and yet it's some people's favourite track, so it just shows what I know :P

This is Yesterday's a good song, but I do skip it sometimes as although having a lighter moment in the album's a good thing, the change is sometimes a bit too jarring. I prefer most songs on the album to it though.

My pick for song that gets a lot of love generally that I don't give is Little Baby Nothing.

Yeah, I used to love that song, but it's become a skippable track for me.

There aren't many songs on the album that are complex, so I don't know how it can be described as basic. Always felt the title track to be the simplest Manics song around, but each to their own.

yes, because Removables or A Girl Who Wanted To Be God are. but more Removables.

some quotes
@ Elvis Impersonator
Nicky: Richey wrote a draft and it sounded a bit like the group Wire. Me and Sean hated it. There weren't many lyrics anyway. Then I added a verse. I never spoke to Richey about what the original idea was. I suppose it's about kids wearing American basketball tops and stuff.

@ Removables
Nicky: That was written about three years ago. It's the oldest song on there. It was written befor The Holy Bible, and we've finally knocked it into shape. We'd forgotten about this - and then we find a bit of a Nirvana/MTV Unplugged vibe to it, being honest. It was completely done live in the studio. We've had to wait six years (sic!) but we finally played it together in the studio.

Written two years ago when Edwards was heavily into the lyrics of Kurt Cobain. Bradfield and Moore have provided a fitting Nirvana Unplugged backing. A one-take, live studio recording. - from Select Mag June 1996 by Andrew Male

all I could find atm, hope it helps.

Well, I suppose I base that a lot on the fact that it was the first one I was able to play all the way through when I first started learning guitar. No alternate tunings, no fiddly chords, and the solo is pretty simple too. Maybe that's the main reason I got bored of it before the rest.

Okay, so that confirms that Removables had indeed started out from the GATS era initially, and I'm going to take "we'd forgotten about this" to mean that they'd had it fully written before he disappeared as well.

If he never spoke to Richey about the original idea, I'm guessing that's because he added his bits later, which probably means that the music of at least the second half of it was written post-Richey.

Niether of us are going to win this one as Further Away was the last song I was able to learn when I was first learning.

:P

Shall we just call it quits then?

Whilst on the subject of EMG and Richey's involvement - do we know whether any of the EMG era B-sides were demoed at the House In The Woods sessions in early 1995? I have always assumed that these were all written by Nicky after he disappeared??

Also, can Judge Y'rself be counted as part of the EMG batch of songs - does anyone now how much of the finished recording is actually from 1995? I think Richey was present at the Judge Y'rself session, but only stayed for a couple of hours?

Really wish a book existed detailing all the recording sessions and what was recorded when.

I think australia was written because sean wanted to escape and move away, this is where the song came from

Black Garden has always struck me as a very Richey-esque lyric and, even though it is credited to Nicky, I can't help but think that it could have been one of his (or at the very least, an idea upon which Nick expanded). They had gone on record as saying they wouldn't use any lyrics that Richey had left other than those that had already been worked upon before he disappeared so perhaps they thought it would cause too much of a stir to acknowledge his hand in Black Garden (i.e. capitalising on Richey in order to sell the Everything Must Go single)? The three tracks on that single were credited as "Music & Lyrics by James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore and Nicky Wire"" if I recall recorrectly, as opposed to the usual separation of credits for music and lyrics. I don't have a physical copy but I'm guessing the God Save The Manics EP featured the "All songs by Manic Street Preachers" credit to cover Richey's lyrical contributions?

I could be totally crazy though :P does anybody have any radical information/opinions on this?

Black Garden is definitely Richey penned to some extent, it sounds like a THB song, it wouldn't surprise me if it was written way before EMG.

*jumps on the "I love that song!" bandwagon*

That's what I heard too, and that they didn't like their earlier musical suggestions.

The only one I wonder about is No Surface All Feeling. I always assumed it was written after Richey's disappearance, largely because of the lyrics. Sounds like standard Wire "feeling detached and empty during the remainder of '95" stuff to me. Now I hear Richey played on the song?

The No Surface All Feeling one has always been a bit of a mystery to me - I can only assume that if Richey plays on this, he is playing rhythm on the bit right at the end whilst James does the final solo. This last bit of the song sounds very much like a clip of a demo version that was tagged onto the end of the more polished studio version that was presumably recorded after Richey disappeared.

Further Away = annoying

James has dismissed the rumour that Richey played guitar on No Surface...He couldn't play his guitar and had been reported to the Union for Rock Star Guitar Players by Mr Disgusted Rockster of Tunbridge Wells who withdrew his membership card

That latter bit may be another rumour

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person on FD who actually likes "Removables".

Nope, I love that song to bits.

Love it! That short solo after the first verse is one of my fave Manic solos.

The closing moments of "Removables" are wonderfully unsettling. One of my favourite little musical pieces in the entire Manics canon.

Great song. There are a few on the album I find average, none I actually dislike.

Removables contains one of my top ten MSP moments - the start of the second chorus where James lets go and screams 'ALL REMOVABLES!!'

I think it was a shame that the EMG 10th anniversary edition didn't include any of the demos that were actually completed when Richey was still around. According to Simon Price's book they had demoed Kevin Carter, Elvis Impersonator & Small Black Flowers in late 1994. Would be good to hear the versions of songs that Richey would have heard.

What did James say exactly about it? Because as far as I can tell the rhythm guitar bit at the end of NSAF sounds very much like Richey's guitar playing (check out the Glastonbury 94 performances when Richey actually played, the tone and overall sound of his guitar sounds pretty close as far as tone goes to whats played at the end of NSAF.)

Well, seeing as Richey wrote the lyric, I think it's safe to say it was written before he disappeared.

Unless the Manics really have known where he's been all this time? :P

Sean Moore: famous lyricist!

I have to jump in on a thread where Further Away is getting bashed. Due to my own self-inflicted EMG over-exposure, I hadn't listened to the album in almost a decade when one night I drunkenly decided to play some tracks from it. Playing this song reduced me to horrible tears in a way I wasn't prepared for or expecting in the slightest. It's now my favourite from that album.

Oh, I don't think Richey wrote NSAF. I remember reading in Q or something just after EMG came out that the song was written by Nicky while he was on tour and missing his wife (must have been written during the THB tour). As I recall, he mentioned it being 'a sort of love song to her'. So, it was neither written by or about Edwards.

Yeah I'm fairly certain NSAF's lyrics would have had to been written post-Richey's disappearance, the lyrics in fact reflect that I believe. I was under the impression Richey's only possible involvement with that song was that they possibly had a take of Richey playing some guitar lying around (either that was unused or they were working on the music for the song before Richey's disappearance and Richey simply contributed a small guitar part for the song) and they decided to add it into the song's mix.