THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

901-Manic Street Preachers-The Everlasting.

1998-Number 11 single.

Best Bit-At 3.41. If all songs were as a easy to decipher as boy meets girl, boy and girl get married, boy and girl live happily ever after, then we wouldn’t have to engage our brains.

The Manic Street Preachers (see also best songs 248) were formed in Blackwood, Wales, in 1986, by James Dean Bradfield, (lead vocals, and lead guitar) his cousin Sean Moore, (drums) Nicky Wire, (bass, piano, and vocals) and Miles ‘Flicker’ Woodward (bass.) Woodward left in 1988 claiming he was unhappy that the band were moving away from their ‘Punk Rock’ roots. The classic line up was completed in 1989 when the ‘Manics’ former driver and roadie Richey Edwards became a full time band member. Edwards went missing on February 1st, 1995, and after 28 years, 2 months, and 12 days, on November 24th, 2008, he was ‘Declared dead in absentia.’

‘The Everlasting’ was the second single released from the Manic Street Preachers fifth studio Album ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours,’ from September 1998, the song was written by James Dean Bradfield, and Sean Moore, who wrote the music, and Nicky Wire, who provided the lyrics, the production was by Mike Hedges. The first three ‘Manics’ Albums had lyrics that had all been co-written by Wire and Richey Edwards, with the fourth ‘Everything Must Go’ (1996) using lyrics on five tracks that had been written by Edwards before his disappearance. ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours,’ was the first ‘Manics’ Album to only use just the lyrics of Nicky Wire. Dave Eringa who co-produced the Album, along with Mike Hedges, and has worked on 10 ‘Manics’ Albums in total has said,’You get midweek chart positions, and sales figures all week, and it was my first chance of a possible Number 1, which is such an exciting thing. Every day it was just getting worse and worse. I was becoming more and more psychotic. If it had been released the same week as a ‘Nirvana’ record or an ‘Oasis’ record, you’d just have to put your hands up and say ‘c’est la vie,’ but the horror of losing out to ‘Steps’ would have been unbelievable!’ Eringa could breathe a sigh of relief as the ‘Manics’ Album did go straight in at Number 1, while the debut Album from ‘Steps,’ called ‘Step One’ entered the chart at Number 2. ‘This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours,’ gave the ‘Manics’ their first UK Number 1 Album, and then in 2021, ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament,’ finally gave them their second chart topper.

Nicky Wire was born Nicholas Allen Jones, on January 20th, 1969, in Llanbadoc, Monmouthshire, Wales, he first met his fellow band mates at ‘ Oakdale Comprehensive School,’ in Caerphilly, Wales, where they all attended as students. He chose his stage name ‘Wire,’ because of his lanky ‘wiry’ frame, as he is 6 feet 3 inches tall. At school he was very athletic, and was the captain of the ‘Welsh national football schoolboys’ team, at the age of 14. He was also offered a trial at both Tottenham Hotspur, and Arsenal football clubs in England, but back and knee problems brought his football career to an end. Away from the ‘Manics,’ Wire has released one solo studio Album ‘I Killed the Zeitgeist,’ in 2006, and also four solo singles, issued between 2005-2006.

Nicky Wire was looking for a ‘grand’ title for a song. He was impressed by song titles such a ‘The Universal,’ by ‘Blur,’ and ‘The Eternal,’ by ‘Joy Division,’ and was looking for something similar. In the end he chose the title ‘The Everlasting,’ from a poem that had been written by his brother Patrick Jones. There are many ways of trying to interoperate the meaning of ‘The Everlasting,’ and what Wire is telling us, so I can only offer my interpretation. ‘The Everlasting’ is probably partly about how life can grind you down, as you grow from a carefree youth, into the dissolution of becoming an adult. At the start of the journey,’Our smiles were genuine,’ but as you grow older, you become exhausted. Nicky Wire has said,’I was tired. I’d got to my little house, I was reading R.S. Thomas, (Welsh poet-1913-2000) and thinking how comfortable things were, but how things might be getting too big.’

‘The gap that grows between our lives, the gap our parents never had. Stop those thoughts control your mind, replace the things that you despise. Oh you’re old I hear you say, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care. I don’t believe in it anymore, pathetic acts for a worthless cause.’