I haven’t talked much about why I decided to step back from There Goes the Fear last year. Music writing, editing my writers’ work, the research, and all the admin of running a website, including its social media accounts and ad revenue, consumed all my free time for 10 years. I don’t think most people realized that. A lot of people I encountered through my travels assumed from the amount of content I wrote, how much and where I traveled, and how little sleep I got at times, TGTF was my full-time and only job. I had a separate 9-5, Monday-Friday career in nonprofit that paid the bills and made traveling abroad to shows and festivals and experiencing the world possible. I was burning the candle at both ends, my body was suffering, and no one was advising me to back off of one or the other.
Working very hard like this is not at all uncommon for people in the music business. Most of my friends who work in it are, by nature of the industry, hustlers who work multiple jobs and long hours, often in difficult, unstable circumstances, because of how passionate they are about their role in this business. The big-name bands you know and love may have villas in the south of France and their own private jet, but indie artists these days and anyone who works behind the scenes aren’t that rich or anywhere near that flashy.
I had entertained moving abroad for a long time and wanted to figure out how to do that. I left a conference in February in Belfast with friends’ full support and thinking this was going to be the year I’d finally do it. But like so many things for so many people this year, I had to scrap the plan due to the coronavirus. I’m really not happy about it, sure, but I’m going to be okay pushing my plan off for later. I’m not so sure about my friends and their livelihoods. I can’t think of too many people who have welcomed the pandemic. Uh, Jeff Bezos? He isn’t thought of too highly in the DC area after he bought The Washington Post…
I chose today’s song for an unusual reason: my original interpretation wasn’t on the mark at all. Keep reading to see how I tie the band’s explanation for the meaning of the song to the title of this post.
Title: ‘Anthem for a Lost Cause’
Where to find it: ‘Rewind the Film’ and ‘Anthem for a Lost Cause’ single (2013, Columbia)
Performed by: Manic Street Preachers
Words: James Dean Bradfield
Verse 1
It’s a cold and lonely message
At the end of a song
It invaded hearts and minds
But they couldn’t get along
It can ask you to remember
It can ask you for a dance
So it seems that every song
Now is just one last chance
Chorus
Take this, it’s yours
An anthem for a lost cause
Now ashes, bone, and splinter
What once was a glittering prize
The composition rites
Verse 2
Oh redemption, love, and departure
I think your work is done
Paris, St. Petersburg don’t need a tower of song
Escape’s not worth the capture
So walk that lonesome road
No joy or earthly rapture
Nothing to take the load
Chorus X 2
Take this, it’s yours
An anthem for a lost cause
Now ashes, bone, and splinter
What once was a glittering prize
The composition rites
Take this, it’s yours
An anthem for a lost cause
Now ashes, bone, and splinter
What once was a glittering prize
The composition rites
Bridge
…Yours…
…Cause…
Chorus
Take this, it’s yours
An anthem for a lost cause
Now ashes, bone, and splinter
What once was a glittering prize
The composition rites
Manic Street Preachers, with or without Richey Edwards, have been known for more politically aware and socially biting lyrics than those found on ‘Anthem for a Lost Cause’. This is a schmaltzy, waltzy moment, with an old-fashioned ‘60s feel that Nicky Wire described in the Quietus was intentional: “The brass arrangements took ages, we were really trying to get the feel of Sam Cooke or something.” They decided to give the promo video a Welsh political bent instead, reminding us all through an emotional, heart-tugging story set during the South Wales miners’ strike of 1984-1985 mounted in opposition of then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I have quite a few friends from Yorkshire and the North East. Let’s just say that from what I have heard and learned, her legacy is not a positive one, either there or pretty much anywhere in the North.
I usually don’t stick the video or stream this early in the post, but I’m breaking all kinds of rules lately.
If I read a book before I see its film, I usually find the film is ruined for me. I had the reverse happen when I watched the promo video, got all teary eyed and upset for the woman and the miners, and then went back to the lyrics and felt disenchanted. I seem to remember I was too busy doing stuff for TGTF, so it took me ages for me to finally find the lyrics online. Up to that point, I was going off what I heard. Before I did any other digging, I interpreted the song as a man singing sweetly to a woman while they were slow dancing that he was in fact saying goodbye. “Lonely” and “lonesome road” come up in the lyrics, suggesting a disappointing but inevitable outcome. I interpreted the man as the “lost cause”, the guy who accepts that he can’t settle down, but he wants the woman to remember for who he was when they were together.
Nicky Wire said that James Dean Bradfield wrote this about “composition rites”, a phrase that confused me and that Wire misheard as “composition rights,” as in music composition copyright. (I am not an expert in music copyright, whether in composition or sound recording, so consult your friendly music lawyer if you want to know more about this.) The difference between “rites” and “rights” is apparently the key to this song. An uncited sentence on the song’s Wikipedia page is credited to Bradfield’s further explanation: “In an interview, Bradfield stated that the song was about the question of if lyrics today are as important as they were before.” With all the lyrics taken together, the song as a whole makes so much more sense.
I wanted to write about this song now because of what we’re seeing happening to the music business, and I want anyone who is unaware to wake up to the reality. I’m having a hard time looking to a future when live shows and festivals will be looking like they used to, full of happy people, crammed in, experiencing live performance. I’m wondering when the business that I knew will bounce back, if ever. I have lived and breathed the music life for so many years, this truth was obvious to me, but louder for the oblivious ones in the back: the primary source of reliable income for most musicians and bands, performing live, is no longer a revenue stream. This is catastrophic.
This is a disastrous time for anyone who makes a living through the music business because there are no shows going on: that means besides the people you watched on the stage, almost everyone who works in a behind the scenes role to live shows and festivals – of which there are a lot – now find themselves unemployed and scrambling to find alternate employment. If an artist or band can’t make money, anyone who works for them won’t make any money either. Live music venues are closing. In short, this is really bad for all parts of the music industry ecosystem.
Bradfield’s sadness on ‘Anthem for a Lost Cause’ is legitimate. He’s singing about the lack of interest and respect in music lyrics in popular music today, which should be extended to full songs themselves. The average music listener can go on YouTube (free) or a music streaming service like Spotify, Deezer, etc. (free or paying a small fee) and not appreciate that you’re getting to listen to someone’s art for an infinitesimally small fee, art that was made through many people’s talent, hard work, and time. In turn, the artist or band who made it are getting a criminally small return on all that talent, hard work, and time from the streaming service. If you would like a story that explains the heinous nature of music streaming royalties, read this. If you’re a numbers kind of person, this will do.
The music business has been like this for a long while. I saw how it was becoming increasingly difficult to make a living by being a musician or being in a band. It’s one of the reasons I worked so hard with TGTF. It upset me deeply seeing my friends and young kids coming up struggle. Being able to tour or appear at a festival had become an artist’s bread and butter. My friends who are in bands like playing to crowds and getting that genuine audience reaction. However, I am sure that many of them would not have toured as extensively and spent that much time away from home and their loved ones as they did if the actual singles and albums they made and released resulted in more profit for them.
If there are any silver linings to the economic fallout to COVID-19, I hope that there will be serious changes to the way the state and the music fans themselves appreciate, respect, and support artists. If they are not supported financially going forward, less and less people will be making music. We’re going to lose all that richness of art that comes through popular music.
If you value any piece of music you have listened to in your life, you need to do something now. Support your favorite artists by buying music and merchandise from them. Support your local venues however you can. However small the contribution, make a difference. If you don’t know where to start, this is a good starting point.
*Photo at the top is of Irish band whenyoung, the last band I saw at SXSW 2019.