Working titles

[Automatik]

Haven't seen a thread on this, so here I go again.

As I mentioned before, I have 'shadow' playlists of each studio album, consisting of b-sides and extra tracks from that era. I name them after the working title of each album, thus:

Culture, Alienation, Boredom & Despair (GT era)
Sounds In The Grass (EMG era)
Manic Street Preachers (TIMTTMY)
Fidel (KYE), also separated into two thematic albums named Solidarity and Door To The River as Nicky's hindsight preference would have had it
Litany (Lifeblood)
It's Not War - Just The End Of Love (PFAYM)
70 Songs Of Failure And Hatred I (RTF)
70 Songs Of Failure And Hatred II (Futurology)

In the Mastertapes interview James said the working title for THB was Songs Of Death (or something similar - I didn't write it down).

Does anyone know what the working titles of GATS, TBGOG, SATT and JFPL were?

[Marconi Delorian]

Wasn't Blueprint for Exile one? And The Unwritten Diaries? Maybe both for Lifeblood? Never heard alt titles for GATS etc.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by Marconi Delorian

Wasn't Blueprint for Exile one? And The Unwritten Diaries? Maybe both for Lifeblood? Never heard alt titles for GATS etc.

Very interesting! Not heard of either of those.

[Dancing Kirby]

Wasn't Lifeblood originally listed for preorder in HMV stores under the name Goodbye Suicide?

[Marconi Delorian]

Here's some evidence:

http://manics.rawkstar.net/archives.php

Scroll down to "Back In The Studio"

[Marconi Delorian]

Goodbye Suicide was definitely mentioned, think it came down to that and Lifeblood in the end.

More evidence:

http://www.gigwise.com/news/2006/manics-life-blood

[Automatik]

Wow!

'...Known working titles include "Blueprint For Exile", "Litany" and "The Unwritten Diaries"....'

I still prefer Litany. The first suggests a premonition of their own emotional exile from everything they produced for the record, whilst the last hints at the title of Journal For Plague Lovers.

I love all this stuff.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by Marconi Delorian

Goodbye Suicide was definitely mentioned, think it came down to that and Lifeblood in the end.

They must have ditched Litany as a potential title when they relegated Litany the track - sadly in my opinion - to the lowly status of b-side.

[Marconi Delorian]

Also raises the question of whether Goodbye Suicide was ever recorded for potential inclusion on what became Lifeblood.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by Marconi Delorian

Also raises the question of whether Goodbye Suicide was ever recorded for potential inclusion on what became Lifeblood.

Was thinking that. Excellent point.

By the same token I've wondered if left-over songs from I Killed The Zeitgeist and The Great Western were later used as Manics b-sides.

I'll come back with definitive suspects once I double-check.

[Librarian On Fire]

Sounds in the grass, err sounds rather lovely. That's probably why they ditched it.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by Marconi Delorian

Goodbye Suicide was definitely mentioned, think it came down to that and Lifeblood in the end.

More evidence:

http://www.gigwise.com/news/2006/manics-life-blood

That source is even more fascinating because it includes Firefight, Askew Road, Voodoo Polaroids and Litany on the actual album. The relegation of Firefight to freebie is especially striking - it's still one of the Lifeblood era songs that they have played most often live. I've always felt the band held it in esteem.

(I think titles like 'Solitude Sometimes Is, Glasnost' are listing errors on the part of the author rather than evidence that the two songs were once one.)

Great detective work!

[Marconi Delorian]

Yeah, it's funny how early favourites of the band fall by the wayside as the album sessions go - wasn't Be Natural intended to be their come back single until Tolerate was born? Firefight was criminally overlooked, as were the other two songs on that EP.

[Automatik]

Originally Posted by Marconi Delorian

Yeah, it's funny how early favourites of the band fall by the wayside as the album sessions go - wasn't Be Natural intended to be their come back single until Tolerate was born? Firefight was criminally overlooked, as were the other two songs on that EP.

Completely agree. Both Firefight and A Secret Society wouldn't have been out of place on Lifeblood. Picturesque is good but since it partially uses the earlier Richey-penned lyrics of the later All Is Vanity - which I think is the better song - I prefer that. Didn't James write the lyrics to Firefight?

Btw, I've lost track of the number of times I've read or heard (or possibly even imagined) Nicky (and it's usually always Nicky) say, 'In retrospect we wish we'd put x on the album'.

First time I can recall it clearly was Prologue To History. Which, oddly, as brilliant as it is, probably wouldn't have sounded right on TIMTTMY. (It would have been great on KYE.)

[circle-the-wagons]

i'm sure Nicky was toying with an album title before hitting upon PFAYM along the lines of 'Give Em Enough Rope'...i remember reading it in an interview he did.