Why are Nicky's lyrics in the EMG, TIMT and KYE eras his best?

[Takk]

I've never found nicky's lyrics amazing on their own, but then I am very much a song person - a lyric can be average and really fit the music perfectly and be great, which is often the case with nicky's stuff for me.

[Europa Gluten Free]

Originally Posted by Heart2Heart

To me, Nicky at his finest >>>> Richey's lyrics. And I'm saying this as someone who has a pic of Richey set as my iPhone wallpaper. Unless you count 4st7lbs, a good Nicky song can become stuck to someone and become their personal anthem in a way a Richey song can't. 1985, Tolerate, and for many ADFL...such powerful songs.

You see its this idea that lead me to re-listen to certain eras I haven't in a long time.

After seeing a pic of the towel/scarf on here with all the cartoon Manics from the various eras, it made me realise that Richey was only active for 3 eras (well 4 counting JFPL). Ok, for two of those eras, he wrote the vast majority of those lyrics, if not all of them - but for the other two he only wrote 50%. In the grand scheme of things that's not a massive input quantitively in the Manic's career.

It's impossible and quite frankly, damn stupid to sit and compare them. All I was thinking about with this thread was that Nicky, arguably, doesn't get the considered recognition for this lyrics. People tend to pore over Richey's lyrics, probably due to their density and complexity, but Wire's lyrics can be just as profound or interesting. I think his strengths lie in his neurotic, self-obsessed lyrics as well as his sociohistorical commentaries. Maybe Wire will always feel that he's in Richey shadow but the band have become 100 times the band they were with Richey.

[pingu]

Originally Posted by Bryter Layter

Sometimes he writes with insight and maturity, sometimes he writes like it’s a high school poetry assignment.

for me it's about 25% good lines, 75% GCSE English - and they are mostly only lines, there are very few whole songs where he gets it right. I have to agree that there's no one era where he did significantly better than any other.

I think I'm in a minority when it comes to finding the lyrics to SATT(song) to be one of the best things he's done in ages? especially compared to some of the other lyrics on that album.

oh, and the EMG botched edit-jobs pale in comparison to what was done to William's Last Words, imo. still annoyed about that.

[Midlands_Junk]

He was on top form back then, more love is due for his lyrics on Lifeblood too.
However I think if he tried to write If You Tolerate This today, it would be called Enough Is Enough (There Just Isn't Enough Love, Love)

[Heart2Heart]

Originally Posted by pingu

oh, and the EMG botched edit-jobs pale in comparison to what was done to William's Last Words, imo. still annoyed about that.

Nicky was singing the suicide note of a friend, and the note happened to have a lot of self-loathing, masked under a "different character". There's just some things you can't sing because it means you agree to it.

I like the edit. It's not Richey's authorial voice, but it sounds like Nicky coming to terms with a loss and remembering the sweetest, imagining that there just might be an afterlife where all loose ends are tied.

[Takk]

I don't think it's richey's suicide note...isn't it meant to be an old guy?

I see your point, but if you cherry pick words completely it's hardly richey's lyrics. Also, james could have sung it.

[Heart2Heart]

Originally Posted by Takk

I don't think it's richey's suicide note...isn't it meant to be an old guy?

I take it as his suicide note. I read it as Richey communicating through the voice of another character (a failed artist/entertainer), so that there's some degree of detachment between himself and what he's writing about, but imho it seems clear from the whole prose work that it is.

I also think it's Richey's finest writing.

[Takk]

It's a suicide note, I just don't think it's his.

[Littlesue]

Originally Posted by Takk

I've never found nicky's lyrics amazing on their own, but then I am very much a song person - a lyric can be average and really fit the music perfectly and be great, which is often the case with nicky's stuff for me.

I'd agree with this, unless its story telling lyrics which Wire could never do its always the tune for me, I very rarily understand James's voice anyhow.

[nocultureicons]

Nicky has had the occasional great lyric but I think it's the subject matter that is the most interesting aspect - some of the things he's written about that they've had as hit(ish) singles is unlike pretty much any other band.

Lifeblood has his most believable lyrics I reckon.

[River Boy]

Originally Posted by Bathtub

I always thought there was a strong element of old style Welsh Methodism to it, which was big in the valleys around the mid to late 18th century and that the references in the song to libraries, social conformity, drinking and poverty relate more specifically to that rather than some grand vision of the working class condition.

Wales, that well-known home of libraries.

[Bathtub]

Originally Posted by River Boy

Wales, that well-known home of libraries.

Actually the Calvinist Methodist movement in Wales as well as shaping the region generally, was responsible for the establishment and upkeep of many of South Wales' libraries and their development as centres of learning in towns where formal education had been all but abandoned (there were child workers in the mines long after legislation (I think in the mid 1800's) that was meant to stop it).

And as, I reckon the song is about the Welsh mindset derived from the dominance of Methodism and the success and failures of that doctrine that's kind of relevent. The opening lines of the song are steeped in the irony of a movement that did so much to further learning, but whose idea of salvation indirectly supported the exploitation in heavy industry, through the idea of the protestant work ethic.

[mr bowlase]

Surprised no one has mentioned his solo album, which had better lyrics than Lifeblood and SATT combined...

[amay]

Originally Posted by mr bowlase

Surprised no one has mentioned his solo stuff, that had better lyrics than Lifeblood and SATT combined...

I agree, I don't know whether it was because he was writing just for himself rather than the whole group, but his solo stuff has some fantastic lyrics.

[River Boy]

Originally Posted by Bathtub

Actually the Calvinist Methodist movement in Wales as well as shaping the region generally, was responsible for the establishment and upkeep of many of South Wales' libraries and their development as centres of learning in towns where formal education had been all but abandoned (there were child workers in the mines long after legislation (I think in the mid 1800's) that was meant to stop it).

And as, I reckon the song is about the Welsh mindset derived from the dominance of Methodism and the success and failures of that doctrine that's kind of relevent. The opening lines of the song are steeped in the irony of a movement that did so much to further learning, but whose idea of salvation indirectly supported the exploitation in heavy industry, through the idea of the protestant work ethic.

You know what, you could be right. But I guess we'd need to see the whole 2-page poem JDB got the song from - I think Design for Life and Working Class Something-or-Other - in order to make a complete judgement.

Though for me political movements in Britain and what results from them are ultimately British, even if they emerged from the valleys. Bit like claiming a song about the Labour movement is therefore a song about Scotland; British would be a far more accurate description of them both.