Quote:
Originally Posted by Tish
Dear Stephen is the song that's grown on me the most, at first it passed me by but then the tune wormed its way in and I realised I was humming it to myself without even knowing it.
I don't really know what Nicky is trying to say with it though, the way he's described it in interviews, as being about his own failure to move on from the past, seems completely at odds with the lyrics themselves, which seem to just be having a pop at Morrissey for not being "kind" , in complete contradiction to the lyrics of Critical Thinking, which mocks the whole "be kind" culture.
It does seem that the world of cancel culture and self censorship is a running theme in the album, Critical Thinking, Deleted Scenes and One Man Militia all make mention of it. Morrissey is the ultimate British example of someone who has supposedly been cancelled, but who is still very much in the public eye, regularly selling out tours and having his every word reported in the press.
I do wonder if Nicky is a bit envious of the freedom that Morrissey, as a solo artist with no family, has to say and do whatever he likes, safe in the knowledge that his hardcore fanbase will love him anyway? Whereas Nicky is presumably very aware that any ill advised comment he makes will effect James and Sean, his kids, his brother, and the whole little army of people who rely on Manic Street Preachers Inc for their livelihoods.
I imagine it gets quite frustrating, artistically, to always have to reign yourself in from saying what you really think and speak in riddles all the time.
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Great post Tish.
On this idea that the “be kind”s are in contradiction, I would once again remind everyone that the band repeatedly described the album as one of opposites. There are numerous contradictions, if one wants to characterise them as that, but they don’t read to me as some careless accident, I think they are the point.
In People Ruin Paintings we are told “I just don’t care about the framing”, whereas elsewhere the framing, or context, is vital in understanding the meaning. To me that is the poetic, enigmatic genius of much of the album and what makes it tick.
Hiding in Plain Sight discusses the mirror being “a trap that fails” and seeing “a portrait of myself”, despite people ruining paintings. Later in Deleted Scenes, Nicky writes “I prefer the mirror to the screen…”. These are ostensible contradictions, but they are informed by the subject matter and context around them.
“Be kind” in the title track is part of a list mocking empty generalised phraseology, criticising that which Nicky presumably perceives as frustratingly reductive and shallow. “Be kind” in Dear Stephen is a heartfelt yearning from his past that has genuine and specific meaning.
The album is chock-full of opposites, duality and alternative views of similar (sometimes the same) concepts, sometimes in the same song, sometimes inviting to be compared and/or contrasted with other songs. The opening track asks “what happened to your critical thinking?” and even that phrase, the title of the album, can be interpreted multiple ways - in terms of who the question is being asked of, in terms of being framed within statements in an apparently mocking tone, followed by genuine expressions of frustration (and on another level one could analyse exactly where the line between genuine criticism of the substantive subject matters and the criticism of the empty jargon-ising of even well-meaning concepts begins and ends).
I think Nicky went out of his way in every interview to avoid any confirmation that Dear Stephen was intended as a patronising, finger-wagging plea to Morrissey to stop being so problematic, even if that is a very reasonable surface reading that he must be aware would likely occur. But I think it’s much more interesting than that. I would like to know if the mis-spelling of Stephen is intentional, but either way I think it kind of works in the song’s favour, that Nicky is addressing a heroic, idealised version of someone he wishes he could return to, who could be called Stephen, Steven, Stefan, or anything really… as much as he wants to “let the light to return” and “be in love with the man I used to be in a decade I felt free” — I think this nostalgic Stephen (and Larkin) he yearns for are externalised versions of the same impulse he feels for the nostalgic internal version of himself, as much as anyone else.