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Rating: Spring of 1996 - A sign announces: "MANIC STREET PREACHERS - EVERYTHING MUST GO" ("everything must go" note).
Below are three pictures resting on a shelf, showing the headshots of: Sean Moore, James Dean Bradfield, and Nicky Wire. The background is faded, dull purple. February 1st, 1995 - Richey James leaves the London hotel where he was staying and disappears. His body was never found, but his car was, at a certain place famous for suicides, on a very high bridge, to be precise.
Richey was the guitarist of the MSP, and probably his photo should have been on that shelf as well, but probably without his disappearance, this "Everything Must Go" would never have been born. But anyway, everything must go, with or without Richey. The Manics have gathered the last lyrics of the missing guitarist, added their stuff, and then gave the songs their usual imprint, adding however violins, harps, violas, and various strings, subtly approaching the Brit matrix and distancing from the early hard rock style. The album might make fans wrinkle their noses, but it represents, in my opinion, the beginning of the band's maturity.
It's not a masterpiece but it's a great album acceptable as it is, though it contains songs that could have been avoided. "Elvis impersonator: Blackpool pier" starts acoustic and then punches you in the gut, albeit softened by the use of the harp. "A design for life" is an example of how the Manics have steered towards a more listenable britrock, it's clear. With "Small black flowers that grow in the sky" there's a highlight on James's excellent lyrics and the excellent music written by the remaining Manics, acoustic music with just the guitar accompanied by a divinely played harp. "Removables" has a great classical guitar riff at the beginning but the song itself then gets lost after a few seconds. The chorus of "Further Away" stays quite a bit in your head and we just need to wait till the end to have the confirmation of the album's masterpiece "No surface all feeling". In my opinion declared the most beautiful of the album. The distorted guitar of the chorus becomes sweet when Bradfield starts singing the verses. Beautiful verses, beautiful words (this time written by Nicky Wire) and in the chorus you get lost in a blend of notes that the guitar emits. Then there are two other noteworthy songs like "Kevin Carter" and "Enola/Alone" and among the ones that could have been avoided are "Interiors" and the "title track" probably.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Elvis Impersonator: Blackpool Pier (03:29)
20Ft. high on Blackpool promenade
Fake royalty second hand sequin facade
Limited face paint and dyed black quiff
Overweight and out of date x2
Oh Well
American triolgy in lancashire pottery x2
Is so fucking funny. Don't you know x2
All American triolgy in used up cars and bottled beer
All American triolgy the futures dead, fundamentally
It's so fucking funny, it's absurd x2
20Ft high on Blackpool promenade
02 A Design for Life (04:16)
Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now for a shallow piece of dignity
I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my dirty face to wear the scars
To show from where I came
We don't talk about love we only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my pretty face to wear the scars
To show from where I came
We don't talk about love we only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
We don't talk about love we only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for...
03 Kevin Carter (03:24)
Hi Time magazine hi Pulitzer Prize
Tribal scars in Technicolor
Bang bang club AK 47 hour
Kevin Carter
Hi Time magazine hi Pulitzer Prize
Vulture stalked white piped lie forever
Wasted your life in black and white
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
The elephant is so ugly he sleeps his head
Machetes his bed Kevin Carter kaffir lover forever
Click click click click click
Click himself under
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter
05 Everything Must Go (03:41)
Shed some skin for the fear within
Is starting to hurt me with everything
Freed from the memory
Escape from our history, history
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation
Then everything must go
I look to the future it makes me cry
But it seems too real to tell you why
Freed from the century
With nothing but memory, memory
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation
Then everything must go
Freed us eventually just need to be happy, happy
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation
Then everything must go
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go
And if you need an explanation, -nation
Then everything must go
06 Small Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky (03:02)
You have your very own number
They dress your cage in it's nature
Once you roared now you just grunt lame
Pace around pathetic pound games
Wanna get out won't miss you sensaround
To carry your own dead to swing your tyre tricks
Wanna get out in here you're bred dead quick
For the outside
The small black flowers that grow in the sky
They drag sticks along your walls
Harvest your ovaries dead mother crawl
Here comes warden, christ, temple, elders
Environment not yours you see trough it all
Wanna get out won't miss you sensaround
To carry your own dead to swing your tyre tricks
Wanna get out in here you're bred dead quick
For the outside
The small black flowers that grow in the sky
Here chewing your tail is joy
08 Removables (03:31)
Conscience binds you in chains
Trail by stone hammer and nails
No- one made the holes but me
Misery mourns to be devoured
Killed God blood soiled unclean again
Killed God soiled skin dead again
Again everywhere again
All removables, all transitory
All removables, passing always
All removables, all transitory
All removables, passing always
Never grown preserved gently
A bronze moth dies easily
Unknown to others weak to me
Broken hands never ending
Aimless rut of my own perception
Numbly waiting for voices to tell me
For voices to tell me
All removables, all transitory
All removables, passing always
All removables, all transitory
All removables, passing always
All removables, all transitory
All removables, passing always
09 Australia (04:04)
I don't know if I'm tired and I don't know if I'm ill
My cheeks are turning yellow
I think I'll take another pill
Praying for the wave to come now
It must be for the fifteenth time
I've been here for much too long
This is the past that's mine
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia
Praying for the wave to come now
It must be for the very last time
It's twelve o'clock till midnight
There must be someone to blame
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia
Australia, in Australia
I want to fly and run till it hurts
Sleep for a while and speak no words in Australia
In Australia
In Australia
In Australia
11 Further Away (03:38)
The further away i get from you
The harder it gets for everyone else for everyone else
The happier i am when i'm with you
The harder it gets when i am alone, when i am alone
The harder i try to learn something from you
Further away
Further away feel it fade into your childhood further away
Further away feel dazed and misunderstood
Further away
The stiller the oxygen the harderyou breathe
The draining away just like an old mans dream
Just like an old mans dream
The simpler the answer the harder it can get
The circular landscape comes back only with regret
Only with regret
The more estranged i feel from my youth further away
Further away feel it fade into your childhood further away
Further away feel dazed and misunderstood
Further away
Further away feel it fade into your childhood further away
Further away feel dazed and misunderstood
Further away
12 No Surface All Feeling (04:14)
Embarrassed possessed and so uncivilised
Just take a look at the whites of my eyes
See me now and I will apologise
For me for you we knew they were lies
It makes me angry ashamed but really alive
It may have worked but at what price
What's the point in always looking back
When all you see is more and more junk
It was no surface but all feeling
Maybe at the time it felt like dreaming
Maybe richer maybe wiser
Seems so easy to not go too far
Beg me to stop hate my face I know
Tell me forever just to go
Just one thing before I get to sleep
Nothing here but the stains on my teeth
No not blood just liquid from you
I only wish it was the truth
Feel the guilt of a sinner
Feel the cold of a winter
It was no surface but all feeling
Maybe at the time it felt like dreaming
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