(instrumental)
The city of Hughesovka (now Donetsk) in Ukraine is a place with a curious background. It was borne out of the Welsh industrial tycoon John Hughes being hired to set up a mine and foundry in the country, which bit by bit grew into a city organically as more and more workers and their families arrived, which resulted in more amenities and facilities appearing to support them. The Manics writing a song about the city isn’t surprising, given their later years have seen them investing more and more time and interest towards their Welsh heritage, and this comes with an additional European touch which is always cool in Nicky Wire’s books.
Why it’s the name of a sci-fi spy thriller theme, I have no idea.
Manics’ instrumentals have grown bolder and more ambitious the more the band have released them, moving from odd curios and stylistic experiments that simply happened to lack lyrics, to deftly arranged showpieces. “Dreaming a City” is the epitome of this, and by far the single greatest Manics instrumental that’s ever graced their records – and it’ll probably hold that title even in the future, even with the knowledge that these collected writings are already suffering from way too many outdated takes. And no blurb about the song can really talk about it for too long without mentioning that this thing is insane. Futurology as a whole is a wild, uncontrollable record that has no fear and all the ambition, and “Dreaming a City” is one of its greatest demonstrations. The soaring guitars that might as well be synths, the actual synths towering high and mighty, the in-your-face drums with their outrageous tom fills, the guitar licks towards the end – this doesn’t sound like the kind of po-faced Manics we’re used to? The collective consensus among Manics fans seems to consider this as akin to an adrenaline-pumping theme to a spy action film or a show, to the point that it would be absolutely incredible to know whether that was the real inspiration or if we’re all just having the same fever dream about it. A more coherent inspiration is that it’s an admitted homage to Simple Minds’ 1981 cut “Theme for Great Cities”, another instrumental piece with a similar futuristic, energetic angle (and also from an album that had a sibling album born from the same sessions).
But it’s masterful – and it’s hard to write why that is without just urging people to listen to it, because it’s so obviously so good. It’s the kind of song that you want to describe as kicking ass, without a hint of self-aware shame for using such rad lingo, because it’s exactly the kind of an anthem that you’d hear in a great action scene that gets you going. It’s also so very not Manics, as even at their most outrageous they’ve never gone into this kind of laser guns-blazing territory. But behind all that shock factor, it’s also just a little marvel of arrangement and melody: each of those details, every layer, both the central melody and the “chorus” progression, they’re all really expertly executed. It not only doesn’t need words, but you could never imagine what kind of words could even go with this.
The greatest of all Manics instrumentals.
More likely it isn’t named after a sci-fi thriller but named after a 2009 book by Colin Thomas about the region of Donekst: “Dreaming a City: From Wales to Ukraine”