the lyrics editing...

[Phil C]

Originally Posted by pennyroyalty

the words have always been filtered through the wing of the band that had actual musical talent and Richey would have known that whe he wrote them. it would have been nice if even more of Richey's leftovers had worked with decent music but evidently they didn't, 'cos if they were that great as lyrics they'd have, you know, been in the songs.

Exactly. I'm sure the band really wanted every lyric to work perfectly so they wouldn't have needed to edit them. But they don't.

[Dancing Kirby]

Originally Posted by pennyroyalty

what you can probably tell from the JFPL special edition is that The Holy Bible had the more 'difficult' structures not simply because Richey's lyrics were that off the wall but because that was what James was into at the time...

That says everything about the problem I'm having with James at the moment. Yes, in places JFPL refuses to follow SATT's attempt to make an entire album of the worst, most generically structured songs possible to a songwriter. But if SATT was a dumbed down Generation Terrorists, then JFPL is a dumbed down Holy Bible. Not in terms of the style, which is great, but in terms of there never being a plan B for any song. THB's songs have some great endings, JFPL has songs like Peeled Apples, MASH and VSEC which just stop like you'd expect a demo to. There are words there that could have given them thrilling endings on a par with Mausoleum, PCP and Of Walking Abortion.

So why not? Why would he return to something like THB and take away from it rather than build on it? Why is he going backwards? There isn't a truly bad song on the album, there are just many undercooked ones. There's the moment in This Joke Sport Severed when you hear it for the first time and you think he's finally going to free himself... then... nope back to the chorus... with added strings. Compare that song to Everything Fades on Nicky's IKTZ to see who should be taking charge of the music in the Manics today.

See also William's Last Words for that matter. Does that even have a chorus? I don't know because Nicky doesn't stick a great big flag in the middle of it. If it does have a chorus, it has to be the 'isn't it lovely...' part, which actually opens the song. Ooh, a bit of variety. Go Nicky. There are other instances in the original JFPL lyrics where Richey puts the chorus at the beginning of the song, but that's too much for James to cope with so he reverts to his current safety net.

[raven]

"These songs are in no particular order of preference although some lyrics are obviously better than others, infancy speech, all is vanity, etc"
-Richey.

T'was a journal he gave them of prose and pieces n lyrics so i think it's fair to assume he never thought they'd all be used exactly as written, that didn't seem to be the way they worked when he was around. Had he stayed maybe they would have been used a little different to how they have or maybe they'd be as they are now but they wouldn't have been exactly as they appear in the journal.
I guess concerns that they haven't remained 'faithful' to Richey's lyrics was bound to be raised and that's why I think it's remarkably honest and straight of them to include the writings and drawings as Richey produced them, judge (for) y'self ... but they haven't failed their friend

[pennyroyalty]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

That says everything about the problem I'm having with James at the moment. Yes, in places JFPL refuses to follow SATT's attempt to make an entire album of the worst, most generically structured songs possible to a songwriter. But if SATT was a dumbed down Generation Terrorists, then JFPL is a dumbed down Holy Bible. Not in terms of the style, which is great, but in terms of there never being a plan B for any song. THB's songs have some great endings, JFPL has songs like Peeled Apples, MASH and VSEC which just stop like you'd expect a demo to. There are words there that could have given them thrilling endings on a par with Mausoleum, PCP and Of Walking Abortion.

So why not? Why would he return to something like THB and take away from it rather than build on it? Why is he going backwards? There isn't a truly bad song on the album, there are just many undercooked ones. There's the moment in This Joke Sport Severed when you hear it for the first time and you think he's finally going to free himself... then... nope back to the chorus... with added strings. Compare that song to Everything Fades on Nicky's IKTZ to see who should be taking charge of the music in the Manics today.

See also William's Last Words for that matter. Does that even have a chorus? I don't know because Nicky doesn't stick a great big flag in the middle of it. If it does have a chorus, it has to be the 'isn't it lovely...' part, which actually opens the song. Ooh, a bit of variety. Go Nicky. There are other instances in the original JFPL lyrics where Richey puts the chorus at the beginning of the song, but that's too much for James to cope with so he reverts to his current safety net.

you can't use such structures in themselves as an attack on the record. it is what it is, there are a billion and one things it isn't or doesn't have. clearly part of the point is that it's more compacted than a record like The Holy Bible... and anyway there's plenty of things i like on JFPL that aren't verses or choruses, loads of great touches. you're exaggerating. i probably shared your line of thinking in theory before i actually heard the record, i hoped that The Holy Bible 2 meant we'd get some less straightahead structures because such, um, complication is part of what makes THB very listenable for me still when SATT isn't. but as it turns out my experience of listening to JFPL proved my theory wrong. what i appreciate about JFPL, the overall thrust and energy, is actually reliant on these short sharp bursts of compacted gritty pop. it's part of what makes it more than just The Holy Bible 2.

maybe such an approach didn't hit deep on SATT not because it was intrinsically flawed but because the album itself wasn't really taking advantage of it. JFPL does- right out of the gates, bang bang bang, no bloated arrangements and Underdogs edits to take you out of the experience and get you worrying about where the middle 8 is.

[The Gutless Wonder]

Agree with Pennyroyalty on this one.

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

I agree with pennyroyalty too, it is the bloat that has been the problem since KYE. It almost seems as if Richey came back & brought some discipline to the proceedings, how apt. If not the style I hope they can keep that mindset for the future.

[The Gutless Wonder]

I wouldn't call it bloat on SATT just pop sensibilities. It's still quite a tight record in regards to length of tracks.

[Mr Richey]

The original final line of the chorus to 'All Is Vanity' - about invisibility cream and such - is one of the worst things Richey ever wrote. It's frankly just laughable. So thank god for Nicky editing it out.

[The Gutless Wonder]

Just reading that line now and I don't know - I think you could read alot into that line prehaps.

[Mr Richey]

Originally Posted by The Gutless Wonder

Just reading that line now and I don't know - I think you could read alot into that line prehaps.

It's just how I feel my friend. I read it out loud and it sounds ridiculous. 'It's the facts of life sunshine' is just the logical ending to that chorus. Can't believe Richey himself didn't see it.

[The Gutless Wonder]

That's fine. To me it's like a childlike thought of being invisible or becoming invisible.

[Nabby]

I also wondered about these lines in queston. For instace what if "its the facts of life sunshine" wasnt there. If that line didnt exist how would the song be affected?
Sorry, i just found that interesting - but back to the main topic im a fan of the compact feel to the songs. Its like punk, even though its not primarilly punk music it just has a ramones touch to it all due toe the length i feel. I like that

[Benny Hiroshima]

While I would have preferred certain lyrics to remain untouched (eg Pretension/Repulsion), I don't think anyone can really grumble too much.

A Design for Life started off as a three page poem and got edited down - and the band have always edited their lyrics down from the initial drafts. The only difference this time is that people got to see that process because the band made Richey's typed lyrics public. I have to say fair play to them for first of all for allowing something so personal to them to be available to fans, and second for having the balls to put the unedited ones up; they must have known they would get criticism for the way the lyrics were edited.

In essence, we get some rather nice sexy tunes and some mind-blowing poetry. How many other fucking bands do that? God bless the Manics indeed.

[chinaboatman]

Originally Posted by pennyroyalty

they probably tried to use all of the words at some point and they just sounded shit in the songs. you cannot simply sit there with a lyric like some of these and come out with decent, integrated pieces of music that work with all of it. you have to sit there and try out bits and bobs, and successes in that process will naturally guide the song in a certain way. i expect that some lines which may look just as good on paper didn't match up when it came to the music that was working, didn't sound as powerful with the vocal delivery, the phrasing etc. given the lack of fondness for proggy rock concept albums round these parts, i'm sure that very few of even the peeved off people here would actually have liked the record which would have resulted from treating some of these lyrics as gospel which dictated the movement of melodies and musical structures.

what you can probably tell from the JFPL special edition is that The Holy Bible had the more 'difficult' structures not simply because Richey's lyrics were that off the wall but because that was what James was into at the time... i mean come on, as a composer he didn't go from Gold Against The Soul to that in like a year just because his lyricist went nuts. the words have always been filtered through the wing of the band that had actual musical talent and Richey would have known that whe he wrote them. it would have been nice if even more of Richey's leftovers had worked with decent music but evidently they didn't, 'cos if they were that great as lyrics they'd have, you know, been in the songs.

So sure of the self evident truth of what you write and yet all such subjective pish...

[chinaboatman]

Originally Posted by Dancing Kirby

That says everything about the problem I'm having with James at the moment. Yes, in places JFPL refuses to follow SATT's attempt to make an entire album of the worst, most generically structured songs possible to a songwriter. But if SATT was a dumbed down Generation Terrorists, then JFPL is a dumbed down Holy Bible. Not in terms of the style, which is great, but in terms of there never being a plan B for any song.

Spot on. They've jsut gone with the first tune that worked with whatever line or verse they were trying to write for. Then, if the rest of the lyrics don't fit that tune that they've 'set their heart on' they've just gotten rid of them. That's not good songwriting. It's lazy songwriting.

I keep saying it: the amount of subconscious plagiarism on this record (and it is plagiarism - we're not talking similarities, we're talking about entire lifts from songs) really is the giveaway that they didn't think these tunes through. They just ran with the first idea.