Rock Manic Street Preachers - Journal For Plague Lovers

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The Manics posted the following message on their official website: "All 13 songs on the new record feature lyrics left to us by Richey. The brilliance and intelligence of the lyrics dictated that we had to finally use them. Topics include The Grande Odalisque by Ingres, Marlon Brando, Giant Haystacks, celebrity, consumerism and dysmorphia, all reiterating the genius and intellect of Richard James Edwards."

The lyrics are taken from a folder of songs, haikus, collages and drawings Edwards gave to bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire a few weeks before he disappeared. Edwards also gave photocopies of the folder to singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield and drummer Sean Moore. The band have described the Rymans folder as having a picture of Bugs Bunny drawn on the front emblazoned with the word ‘OPULENCE’. In promotional interviews for the album, Bradfield and Wire have revealed that the folder contains around 28 songs. Four of these appeared on the 1996 album Everything Must Go: "Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier", "Kevin Carter", "Removables" and "Small Black Flowers that Grow in the Sky". Of the rest of the folder, Wire stated: “There’s probably between eight and ten maybe that were too impossible. Some of them are little haikus, four lines. "Dolphin-Friendly Tuna Wars", that’s one, "Alien Orders/Invisible Armies", that’s one [the band have recorded an instrumental that takes its title from this lyric]. "Young Men", which is quite Joy Division. They just didn’t feel right. We’ll probably put them all out in a book one day. There’s not gonna be a Journal for Plague Lovers Two. The special version of the record does come with the original version of the tracks on there. So you can see the editing process, if there is any”.

Several tracks refer to Edwards' time in a couple of hospitals in 1994. Among them is "She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach," of which James Dean Bradfield said to the NME: "There're some people he met when he was in one of the two places having treatment and I think he just digested other people's stories and experiences." The final track, "William's Last Words", has been compared to a suicide note, and although Nicky Wire rejects this suggestion, Bradfield observes "you can draw some pretty obvious conclusions from the lyrics." Wire, who admitted finding the task of editing this song "pretty choking", eventually composed the music and sang lead vocals after Bradfield found himself unsuited to the task.

Anyone heard it? I'm really loving it.

[Tim Simmons]

Yeah. Its decent. Their best album in over a decade.