Manic Street Preachers - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 14.09.1998
“Richey was such an amazing rock star, an intellectual, so erudite.”
On a clear day, on February 1, 1995, Richey James Edwards, rhythm guitarist of "Manic Street Preachers", left the hotel where he was staying, drove away in his car, and from that point on disappeared without a trace. In 2008 he was legally declared dead, although his body has never been found.
His close friend and bandmate Nicky Wire struggled to come to terms with the loss, and the band's next album, "Everything Must Go", was dedicated to Richey, with some of its songs featuring lyrics he had written.
During the work on that album, the sense of loss and the band's need to overcome it were still fresh, but time, as they say, heals wounds and eases pain. By the time they came to make their next record, James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore arrived focused and determined.
Time had also done its work musically. Grunge and the standard guitar-bass-drums rock format were beginning to absorb electronic elements. "Radiohead" were among the first to push electronic rock into the mainstream, and "Manic Street Preachers" did not stand still either, adding Mellotron and Wurlitzer electric piano to the instrumental palette of their fifth album, "This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours", released on September 14, 1998.
This was the album that turned the beloved Welsh rock band into a group heard in almost every second home in Israel, thanks to Nicky Wire's sharp and painfully honest writing. For the first time he wrote all of the album's lyrics, while James Dean Bradfield and his cousin, drummer Sean Moore, supplied the high-level compositional craft.
Although the album is highly melodic and seemingly light on the surface, the lyrics make it clear that Nicky Wire still had not recovered from the loss of his close friend and bandmate. Wire lays everything on the table and does not hesitate to criticize. Winston Churchill, Welsh soldiers and even the Yorkshire police all come under fire, and you can trust Nicky and the "Manics" that if someone enters their moral and critical radar, there is probably a good reason for it.
"The Everlasting" opens the album. Nicky borrowed the title from his brother, the poet Patrick Jones, and the song describes a man growing older and slowly forgetting the purpose he once set before himself when he was young.
The next song, also the album's first single, hits several targets at once. On one level it warns against fascism and hatred, drawing its inspiration from the Spanish Civil War and the idealism of the Welsh volunteers who joined the International Brigades to fight for the Republic against Franco's forces.
The title "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" comes from a Republican propaganda poster, and I will add that there is a well-known biblical line built around the same idea: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."
"You Stole the Sun from My Heart" hints at Nicky's dislike of touring, with its hotel life and constant longing for home. For the first time in "Manic Street Preachers" history, one of their songs was built largely around a loop from an electronic drum machine.
"Ready for Drowning" deals with the small Welsh village of Capel Celyn, which was flooded during the 1960s to create a reservoir supplying water to the city of Liverpool. It is a song that offers clear criticism of decision makers who once again gave the powerful what they needed at the expense of the weak and the small.
But almost no story can match the one behind "Tsunami". On the surface, it is a Japanese word meaning a great wave, but the song is not about the natural phenomenon. Instead, it tells the tragic story of the Silent Twins, June and Jennifer Gibbons, identical twins of Barbadian background who suffered racial abuse at school in Wales because of the color of their skin, until they withdrew into silence and communicated with each other in a private language that only they understood. Before long they became mirror images of one another and began writing, but later they became involved in criminal offences, and in 1982 were sent to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, where they remained for many years.
The tragic ending came when, according to June, the two believed that one of them had to die so the other could be freed from the silence they had imposed between themselves and the outside world. Jennifer died in 1993, at the age of 29, from acute myocarditis.
And speaking of the secret world shared by the Gibbons sisters, "My Little Empire" continues along that line, looking at the consequences and the descent into depression that isolation can create.
"I'm Not Working" also speaks from inside Nicky Wire's mind. He struggled to recover psychologically from the disappearance of his friend, and that condition is reflected in an inability to work.
"You're Tender and You're Tired" also picks at Nicky's wounds and sadness, as well as the distress and suicidal state of Richey James Edwards.
In "Born a Girl", Nicky admits that he felt he might have been better off had he been born a woman. This came from an artist who often appeared on stage in heavy makeup and at times wore women's clothes. James Dean Bradfield later admitted that he did not connect with the lyrics and found the song difficult to perform.
In "Be Natural", Wire reminds everyone hiding behind a costume that it is natural and right to be who you are, even if who you are does not go down easily with someone else.
In "Black Dog on My Shoulder", Wire returns to his depression. The black dog on his shoulder and the dryness in his mouth, a result of extensive use of antidepressants, hint at how difficult his condition had become.
The album moves toward its ending with "Nobody Loved You", in which Wire looks back on his friendship with Richey James Edwards. The song represents an emotional and musical release, and perhaps part of the psychological process of letting go that Wire so badly needed in order not to remain in his friend's shadow.
The song that closes the album, "S.Y.M.M.", is the most moving one for me personally. I was 14 when Liverpool reached the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest, managed by Brian Clough. The selected venue was Sheffield Wednesday's stadium, "Hillsborough". On the day of the match, the police opened an exit gate because of the pressure building outside, and a large number of people entered the Leppings Lane standing terrace at once, an area fenced at the front.
As the crowding intensified, supporters at the front began to be crushed against the fences. The police response was slow and indifferent, and the horrifying result was a disaster that ultimately claimed the lives of 97 supporters.
Wire and "Manic Street Preachers", who had performed at Anfield a year before the album as part of a concert in memory of the victims, were deeply affected by the story and wrote a song that is entirely critical of the police handling of the tragedy. Remember that this was 1998, a year in which the case had reached something of a dead end, and perhaps, just perhaps, Wire's song helped push the wheels of justice a little further toward the full vindication the supporters and the club would eventually receive.
The "Manics" took the album title, "This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours", from a speech by Welsh Labour politician Aneurin Bevan.
The album became the most successful of the "Manics" career, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart and later winning the BRIT Award for Best British Album.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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