You’ve risen and there’s no way back
A Nicky Wire solo track hiding under the Manic Street Preachers moniker, quite literally: Wire’s musings on this song on the official website at the time of release described it as a track from the Secret Society, the name Wire had given to his backing band for the I Killed the Zeitgeist tour. Given it bears the same ramshackle indie sound he adopted for his debut solo album and it even opens up with a sampled quote like so many of the songs on that record, the impression is that this is an outtake from Wire’s solo album sessions, ran through with the full Manics posse for the purposes of this release (with James also contributing backing vocals).
Whatever your general take is on I Killed the Zeitgeist, it’s also going to determine whether “Lady Lazarus” is for you – the song is so close to its “parent” album stylistically that with a little additional rough around its edges this would’ve made a perfect fit on the album. That said, it’s also clear why it was never finalised during those sessions. If Send Away the Tigers represents the Manics as a whole at their most generic, then “Lady Lazarus” is the same for Zeitgeist: the truth is, “Lady Lazarus” sounds an awful lot like a lot of other songs from that album (“Bobby Untitled” in particular) but all those other tracks did this trick better. It’s an enjoyable romp and a nice little flashback to what I believe is a grossly underrated album, but including it as one of the “Indian Summer” b-sides does come across as everyone in the band emptying their pockets to make up the right amount of songs to back the single up.
It does however once again highlight just how well Wire and Bradfield’s voices work together, no matter who is backing who: they are so different that they actually end up being a great complementary pair.
[edited 23/10/22]
Leave a comment