Richey Edwards

[Wolfie]

When I saw this thread resurrected I thought the first post would be along the lines of "Guess who's presenting the beebs new travel show"

Funny post - Well played, Sir!!

[Wolfie]

Class of the remaining Manics to still donate money to him. He was a youth friend after all and they still see him as a part of the group. When they put the pictures of all 4 original members on the Forever Delayed cover, James said "This is maybe the last chance for us to be with Richey in our lives..."

I've seen the Manics on a few occasions but they played a cracking gig at the Olympia, Dublin when they toured "Lifeblood".

Many had considered the album a subdued disappointment and weren't expecting much of a gig. They ended up playing a career spanning set including half a dozen tunes from Holy Bible.

At the end of the gig, James introduced each of the band including "finally, on rhythm guitar - Mr Richie Edwards".

It was a moving gesture of recognition.

[Wolfie]

How much of The Holy Bible did Richey write? I know Nicky Wire wrote 'This Is Yesterday' which is a fine song....

From Wikipedia, Pauro

Whereas lyric duties on the two previous albums were split fairly evenly between Edwards and the band's bass player Nicky Wire, Wire has said in interviews that Edwards wrote about 70-75% of the lyrics on The Holy Bible, which may explain why the lyrical themes on The Holy Bible were much darker than on the later Manic Street Preachers albums after Edwards' disappearance. On the Holy Bible DVD, Wire said he mainly wrote "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwould fallapart" and "This Is Yesterday".

The song lyrics consisted of many diary/journal entries made by Edwards, and were, in essence, his final writings before his mysterious disappearance on February 1, 1995. In Q magazine's January 2006 100 Greatest Albums Ever! list, where The Holy Bible came in at #69, it was said of the album: 'Graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head before his 1995 disappearance.'

Edwards' lyrics took on a poetic nature (Sylvia Plath was a big influence), and the melodies are highly unusual, perhaps due to the fact that James Dean Bradfield was adapting the poems that Edwards wrote and wrapping them around the songs. Single words are stretched to fill a whole line and some entire sentences are sung very quickly, rendering them barely intelligible even when read from the complete lyric booklet. Many of the songs contain obscure religious, political and literary references. The album embraced various philosophical mindsets including nihilism ("I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing") and misanthropy ("All I preach is extinction"). Edwards also wrote about weighty themes, such as the Holocaust, in an ambiguous style that borders on stream of consciousness.

All of the songs do have a meaning, but many lines appear to be unconnected slogans, proverbs and phrases as well as many highly poetic descriptions. An example of this is in the song "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwould fallapart" (itself a famous quote by Lenny Bruce), the lines "Vital stats, how white was their skin, unimportant just another inner city drive-by thing" are followed by "Morning, fine, serve your first coffee of the day, real privilege it will take your problems all away". On the surface these lines would appear to be unconnected, but in the wider context of the song it is an attack on the indifference of America's predominantly white middle classes to the poor living in urban slums. There are many more instances of this abstract and indirect approach to song-writing in many of the album's songs, making the lyrics a jigsaw puzzle for the reader/listener to decipher.

[Pauro 76]

From Wikipedia, Pauro

Whereas lyric duties on the two previous albums were split fairly evenly between Edwards and the band's bass player Nicky Wire, Wire has said in interviews that Edwards wrote about 70-75% of the lyrics on The Holy Bible, which may explain why the lyrical themes on The Holy Bible were much darker than on the later Manic Street Preachers albums after Edwards' disappearance. On the Holy Bible DVD, Wire said he mainly wrote "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwould fallapart" and "This Is Yesterday".

The song lyrics consisted of many diary/journal entries made by Edwards, and were, in essence, his final writings before his mysterious disappearance on February 1, 1995. In Q magazine's January 2006 100 Greatest Albums Ever! list, where The Holy Bible came in at #69, it was said of the album: 'Graphic, violent torrent of self-lacerating punk fury which infamously details the horrors in Richey Edwards' head before his 1995 disappearance.'

Edwards' lyrics took on a poetic nature (Sylvia Plath was a big influence), and the melodies are highly unusual, perhaps due to the fact that James Dean Bradfield was adapting the poems that Edwards wrote and wrapping them around the songs. Single words are stretched to fill a whole line and some entire sentences are sung very quickly, rendering them barely intelligible even when read from the complete lyric booklet. Many of the songs contain obscure religious, political and literary references. The album embraced various philosophical mindsets including nihilism ("I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing") and misanthropy ("All I preach is extinction"). Edwards also wrote about weighty themes, such as the Holocaust, in an ambiguous style that borders on stream of consciousness.

All of the songs do have a meaning, but many lines appear to be unconnected slogans, proverbs and phrases as well as many highly poetic descriptions. An example of this is in the song "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwould fallapart" (itself a famous quote by Lenny Bruce), the lines "Vital stats, how white was their skin, unimportant just another inner city drive-by thing" are followed by "Morning, fine, serve your first coffee of the day, real privilege it will take your problems all away". On the surface these lines would appear to be unconnected, but in the wider context of the song it is an attack on the indifference of America's predominantly white middle classes to the poor living in urban slums. There are many more instances of this abstract and indirect approach to song-writing in many of the album's songs, making the lyrics a jigsaw puzzle for the reader/listener to decipher.

Nice one mate! There's still the odd clunker of a lyric in the album, as amazing as it is. 'So wash your car in your X baseball shoes' for example....

[gustavo]

I always thought that X stood for Nike or Adidas but they just couldnt say it