I’ll bring the book and you’ll give it a title
The details are in my entry for “Underdogs” but when the Manics released the tenth anniversary edition of Send Away the Tigers, “Underdogs” was unceremoniously retconned off the tracklist and in its place inexplicably was “Welcome to the Dead Zone”. I say inexplicably because by that point, there had never been any indication that the band felt any regret about leaving this off the album: compare against “Prologue to History” where the band had often voiced their disappointment that they chose to relegate it as a b-side, and so when they retrospectively shoved it in This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours it didn’t come as a real surprise. If anything, you would have expected that perhaps “Love Letter to the Future” would have made the tampered tracklist given the Manics had singled it out as the last song left off the album. “Welcome to the Dead Zone”, though – nothing.
Aside from my general dislike of retrospective edit jobs, they made the best decision here though. “Welcome to the Dead Zone” is one of the best b-sides of this era and more than worthy of a spot on the album – though maybe not as track 2 where it completely murders the pace the album had set up.
Send Away the Tigers era was about streamlining, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing and we’ve got “Welcome to the Dead Zone” to show as a great example. It is in its core a simple song: an honest and straightforward torchlight anthem, the sort of song that gets played out to a dimmed out venue until the lights turn on during the launch of its last chorus. If it had a music video, it would definitely have slow motion singing. There’s something very classic about it, and even the additional arrangement details it has are an extension of its simple beauties – there’s a one-note piano glimmer right before the chorus that’s so little effort it must have been a spur-of-the-moment throw-it-in decision, but it bridges the song brilliantly towards the big karaoke chorus.
“Welcome to the Dead Zone” is nothing we haven’t heard before from the Manics but it’s executed excellently. The glistening guitar melody, James’ controlled vocal acrobatics, the immediate hit of the melody – all of it’s delightful. There’s a lushness to the song as it unfolds with a gentle pace to its understatedly epic form. Is it weird to say that a power ballad is delicate? But that’s the level of gentless and grace that this song operates on despite in practice being a big stadium moment.
Absolutely worthy of an album slot.
As an addendum, I have to give a quick shout-out to Sean Moore. Not only is he a great drummer who’s one of the best examples of how “drumming for the song” is a genuine compliment, but he’s also secretly a really good songwriter even though it’s usually kept behind the scenes. But “Welcome to the Dead Zone” was openly described by Nicky as Sean’s song at the time of release, and turns out he wrote one of the best songs of the era.
[edited 16/10/22]
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