Richey James Edwards var mannen som sto bak det meste av Manic Street Preachers ideologi. Mannen har vært borte i over 10 år nå, siden han gikk ut av hotellet sitt den 1. februar 1995, og ingen vet hvor han ble av. Folk har påstått at de har sett ham i all verdens land, og enda har ikke de gamle bandmedlemmene og vennene hans gitt opp håpet. De har laget en konto hvor de har puttet royalties for alle sangene han skrev, i håp om at han en dag vil komme tilbake. Mannen var en av 90-tallets største diktere, spør du meg, og jeg vil gjerne minnes ham for alt det fantastiske han skrev.

Richey ble tidlig med i bandet som rytmegitarist og tekstforfatter. Han var en ufattelig lærd person for å være på hans alder, og mye av det som kjennetegner sangene hans er jo nettopp hans mange referanser til historiske hendelser og personer. I et par av sangene består vers og refreng av navnene til diktatore og massemordere, etterfulgt av små bemerkelser og tanker rundt dem. Da hinter jeg selvfølgelig til sangene "Revol" og "Archives of Pain" fra albumet "The Holy Bible".

En hendelse som sjokkerte hele verden, og som mange kanskje har hørt om, er Richeys selvskading under et intervju. Personen som intervjuet dem, kalte dem falske "posere" som ikke sto for noe av det de sang om. Det resulterte i at Richey tok et barberblad og skar "4 real" inn i armen. Dette var blant de første tegnene på at Richey kanskje slet en anelse med psykiske problemer. Men på mange måter var han også en veldig reflektert kar. Dette sitatet fant jeg nylig mens jeg lette etter et bilde av ham, som jeg bare følte jeg måtte ha med fordi jeg føler meg så igjen:

"You get respect in society if you are aggressive. If you fight then people respect you. If you fight back, people like you for that as well. When I’ve been beaten up, if I’ve been in a pub doing nothing wrong, the fact I chose not to fight back, that I would never throw a punch back, people say I’m weak. I don’t think that’s a weak thing at all. I think why should I descend to their level? If I’ve done nothing wrong, throwing a punch back makes me as bad and corrupt as them. As evil as them, as stupid as them."

Nå vil jeg ikke gå dypt inn på probleme Richey hadde, men heller ære ham for noe av det fantastiske poesien han skrev. Her er et par utdrag fra noen av sangene han skrev

"4st 7lb"
Days since I last pissed
Cheeks sunken and despaired
So gorgeous sunk to six stone
Lose my only remaining home

See my third rib appear
A week later all my flesh disappears
Stretching taut, cling-film on bone
I’m getting better

Karen says I’ve reached my target weight
Kate and Emma and Kristin know it’s fake
Problem is diet’s not a big enough word
I wanna be so skinny that I rot from view

I want to walk in the snow
And not leave a footprint
I want to walk in the snow
And not soil its purity

Stomach collapsed at five
Lift up my skirt my sex is gone
Naked and lovely and 5 stone 2
May I bud and never flower

My vision’s getting blurred
But I can see my ribs and I feel fine
My hands are trembling stalks
And I can feel my breasts are sinking

Mother tries to choke me with roast beef
And sits savouring her sole Ryvitta
That’s the way you’re built my father said
But I can change, my cocoon shedding

I want to walk in the snow
And not leave a footprint
I want to walk in the snow
And not soil its purity

Kate and Kristin and Kit Kat
All things I like looking at
Too weak to fuss, too weak to die
Choice is skeletal in everybody’s life

I choose my choice, I starve to frenzy
Hunger soon passes and sickness soon tires
Legs bend, stockinged I am Twiggy
And I don’t mind the horror that surrounds me

Self-worth scatters, self-esteem’s a bore
I long since moved to a higher plateau
This discipline’s so rare so please applaud
Just look at the fat scum who pamper me so

Yeah 4 stone 7, an epilogue of youth
Such beautiful dignity in self-abuse
I’ve finally come to understand life
Through staring blankly at my navel

"Faster"

I am an architect, they call me a butcher
I am a pioneer, they call me primitive
I am purity, they call me perverted
Holding you but I only miss these things when they leave

I am idiot drug hive, the virgin, the tattered and the torn
Life is for the cold made warm and they are just lizards
Self-disgust is self-obsession honey and I do as I please
A morality obedient only to the cleansed repented

I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes that learnt how to spell

The first time you see yourself naked you cry
Soft skin now acne, foul breath, so broken
He loves me truly this mute solitude I’m draining
I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing

Sleep can’t hide the thoughts splitting through my mind
Shadows aren’t clean, false mirrors, too many people awake
If you stand up like a nail then you will be knocked down
I’ve been too honest with myself
I should have lied like everybody else

I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes that learnt how to spell, learnt to spell

So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything

"Mausoleum"

Wherever you go I will be carcass
Whatever you see will be rotting flesh
Humanity recovered glittering etiquette
Answers her crime with mausoleum rent

Regained your self-control
And regained your self-esteem
And blind your success inspires
And analyse, despise and scrutinise
Never knowing what you hoped for
And safe and warm but life is so silent
For the victims who have no speech
In their shapeless guilty remorse
Obliterates your meaning
Obliterates your meaning
Obliterates your meaning
Your meaning, your meaning

No birds, no birds
The sky is swollen black
And no birds, no birds
Holy mass of dead insect

Come and walk down memory lane
No one sees a thing but they can pretend
Life eternal scorched, grass and trees
For your love nature has haemorrhaged

Regained your self-control
And regained your self-esteem
And blind your success inspires
And analyse, despise and scrutinise
Never knowing what you hoped for
And safe and warm but life is so silent
For the victims who have no speech
In their shapeless guilty remorse
Obliterates your meaning
Obliterates your meaning
Obliterates your meaning
Your meaning, your meaning

No birds, no birds
The sky is swollen black
And no birds, no birds
Holy mass of dead insect

I wanted to
Rub the human face in its own vomit
And force it to look in the mirror

And life can be as important as death
But so mediocre when there’s no air, no light and no hope
Prejudice burns brighter when it’s all we have to burn
The world lances youth’s lamb-like winter.

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Sangtekster har ihvertfall for meg en god del å si. Noen sanger har så nydelige tekster at de i høyeste grad kan sammenlignes med poesi. Jeg tenkte at jeg her skulle vise til noen av sangtekstene jeg liker mest. Og jeg advarer mot at enkelte av tekstene kan inneholde ord av grov natur.

Manic Street Preachers – "Faster"

I am an architect, they call me a butcher
I am a pioneer, they call me primitive
I am purity, they call me perverted
Holding you but I only miss these things when they leave

I am idiot drug hive, the virgin, the tattered and the torn
Life is for the cold made warm and they are just lizards
Self-disgust is self-obsession honey and I do as I please
A morality obedient only to the cleansed repented

I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes, that learnt how to spell

The first time you see yourself naked you cry
Soft skin now acne, foul breath, so broken
He loves me truly, this mute solitude I’m draining
I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing

Sleep can’t hide the thoughts splitting through my mind
Shadows aren’t clean, false mirrors, too many people awake
If you stand up like a nail then you will be knocked down
I’ve been too honest with myself
I should have lied like everybody else

I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer
I spat out Plath and Pinter
I am all the things that you regret
A truth that washes that learnt how to spell, learnt to spell

So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything
So damn easy to cave in, man kills everything

Manic Street Preachers – "Yes"

For sale
Dumb cunt’s same dumb questions
Oh virgins
Listen, all virgins are liars honey

And I don’t know what I’m scared of
Or what I even enjoy
Dulling, get money
But nothing turns out like you want it to

And in these plagued streets
Of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a god on video

He’s a boy
You want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him
Call him Rita if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash
And I can still say thank you
Puking, shaking, sinking
I still stand for old ladies
Can’t shout, can’t scream
Hurt myself to get pain out

I ‘T’ them, 24:7, all year long
Purgatory’s circle, drowning here
Someone will always say yes

Funny place for the social
For the insects to start caring
Just an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff

In these plagued streets
Of pity you can by anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a god on video

He’s a boy
You want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him
Call him Rita if you want, if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash
And I can still say thank you
Puking, shaking, sinking
I still stand for old ladies
Can’t shout, can’t scream
I hurt myself to get pain out

Power produces desire
The weak have none
There’s no lust in this coma
Even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude
The 11th commandment

The only certain thing
That is left about me
There’s no part of my body
That has not been used

Pity or pain
To show displeasure’s shame
Everyone I’ve loved or hated
Always seems to leave

And in these plagued streets
Of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a god on video

He’s a boy
You want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him
Call him Rita if you want, if you want

Power produces desire
The weak have none
There’s no lust in this coma
Even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude
The 11th commandment

Don’t hurt, just obey
Lie down, do as they say
May as well be heaven
This hell smells the same
These sunless afternoons
I can’t find myself

Manic Street Preachers – "PCP"

Teacher starve your child PC approved
As long as the right words are used
Systemised atrocity ignored
As long as bi-lingual signs on view

Ten foot sign in Oxford Street
Be pure, be vigilant, behave
Grey not neon, grey not real
Life bleeds, death is your birthright

PC she speaks impotent and sterile,
Naive, blind, atheist, sadist,
Stiff-upper lip, first principle of her silence,
Of her silence

PCP, a PC police victory
PCP, a PC pyrrhic victory
When I was young PC meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference

Liposuction for your bad mouth boy
Cut out your tongue, effigies are sold
Words discoloured, bow to the bland
Heal yourself with sinner’s salt

Doctors arrested for euthanasia
Kill smokers through blind vanity
If you’re fat don’t get ill
Europe’s gravestone carved in plastic

PC she says innoculate, hallucinate,
Beware Shakespeare, bring fresh air,
King cigarette snuffed out by her midgets,
By her midgets

PCP, a PC police victory
PCP, a PC pyrrhic victory
When I was young PC meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference

PC caresses bigots and big brother,
Read Liviticus, learnt censorship,
Pro-life equals anti-choice,
To be scared of, of feathers

PCP, a PC police victory
PCP, a PC pyrrhic victory
When I was young PC meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference

Lawyers before love, surrogate sex
This land bows down to
Yours, unconditional love and hate
Pass the prozac, designer amnesiac

Pink Floyd – "Dogs"

You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need.
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you’re on the street,
You gotta be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed.
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight,
You gotta strike when the moment is right without thinking.

Who was born in a house full of pain.
Who was trained not to spit in the fan.
Who was told what to do by the man.
Who was broken by trained personnel.
Who was fitted with collar and chain.
Who was given a pat on the back.
Who was breaking away from the pack.
Who was only a stranger at home.
Who was ground down in the end.
Who was found dead on the phone.
Who was dragged down by the stone.

Pink Floyd – "Echoes"

Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
An echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no one called us to the land
And no one knows the where’s or why’s.
Something stirs and something tries
Starts to climb toward the light.

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me.
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand
The best I can.

And no one called us to the land
And no one crosses there alive.
No one speaks and no one tries
No one flies around the sun….

Almost everyday you fall
Upon my waking eyes,
Inviting and inciting me
To rise.
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning.

And no one sings me lullabies
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky….

Pink Floyd – "Sorrow"

The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land
Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky:
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers,
But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking

One world, one soul
Time pass, the river rolls

And he talks to the river of lost love and dedication
And silent replies that swirl invitation
Flow dark and troubled to an oily sea
A grim intimation of what is to be

There’s an unceasing wind that blows through this night
And there’s dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight
And silence that speaks so much louder that words,
Of promises broken

Johnny Cash – "Man in Black"

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black

Led Zeppelin – "Stairway to Heaven"

Det er også så mange, mange andre som jeg gjerne ville tatt med, men dette ble langt nok som det er.

Har noen andre noen favoritt-tekster som virkelig betyr noe for dere?

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