Manic Street Preachers - Australia

This band is a good example of how much people can change looks wise when they get older.

As a young man I had a meager record collection that I couldn't play because I hadn't had the foresight or the funds to buy a record player for myself. Most weekends I would go over to my friend David's apartment to play Super Nintendo and his parent's had a record player, so it was always an extra perk that I could bring over my new vinyl and use it as the soundtrack of our Mario Kart romps. I had been going through the record store looking for something by Huey Lewis for one reason or another, and a powering rock song had come onto the speakers in the store. I had asked the manager what was playing and after shuffling through a couple boxes he handed me the record. It was Everything Must Go by the Manic Street Preachers and the song playing over the speakers was Australia. I plopped all my cash for it, and exact change. It was one of those perfect moments in life when the song ends right when you get out of the store and the universe feels like it aligned to give you a soundtrack to your life. I rushed over to David's and started to play the record. Thankfully his parents weren't home and we could play it without any inhibition. Australia came on again and I felt like I was hearing it for the first time, and I felt like that every single time I heard it again.

This was the first album that the band recorded and released after the mysterious disappearance of their troubled guitarist and vocalist Richey Edwards. The anthemic nature of the track is bolstered by its loud yet melodic guitar chords which I would even say border on catchy with a pop sensibility. The grandiose chorus ushers in a wave of perfect harmony and melody as Nicky Wire and James Bradfield sing angrily and confusedly about their paranoia and alienation from the world. The disappearance of their close friend and bandmate only serves to make this record more poignant, as the imagery of a barren wasteland that we can escape through by means of numbing ourselves from the world speaks to anyone who has ever dealt with the loss of another, or simply felt like they didn't know why or where they were going. Now this is quality Brit-rock. There's a tangible confidence in every word and every note. I especially like the 2nd verse coupled with the chorus, and it very well sums up the whole feeling of wanting to run away forever.

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
In Australia

This is what it's like to get old as hell. Kids, enjoy your youth.

When all was said and done, the Manic's would go down as British rock legends and find a ton of commercial success, but they never really caught on that much in the U.S. We got bands like Radiohead and Nirvana, but we also got bands like Sum 41 and Limp Bizkit for alternative rock, so maybe the Manic Street Preachers could have come in a filled that void. Who can really say these things anyway?

After I moved out of that apartment complex I never saw David again, and I had sold off most of my records because I never saw myself getting a record player, since CD's and then eventually internet formats would come in as the main means of media deliverance. I began to forget about, and even shun the music that I had listened to in my younger years in favor of the likes of My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park, in what we now call the dark days of music. As much as I liked the album at the time, I told David I wanted him to have it, and I came to learn later from my parents that him and his family went through a lot of crazy stuff about death and finding children they never knew they had or something strange of the sort. When I finally did speak to David again after many years, he told me that he was very glad that I had let him have that album, and that it came in handy in troubled times. He'd then say that in the end perspective, finding long-lost half siblings and experiencing tons of deaths didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and I'd agreed with him in that statement. He told me he'd always wanted to run away and after Australia reinforced that feeling, he finally realized he had to confront everything that was going on, which the record had also helped him realize. We shared our child hood memories and laughed together one last time, and then he thanked me for the memories. the record, and being a good friend. After we finished talking, I never heard from David again, but I like to think that sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and plays this song in the dark of his room, and feels like he can go to Australia any time he wants to. And whether that actually happens or not, it always makes me happy.

As always, please share, enjoy, and spread the love. Peace.