This Sullen Welsh Heart

Album: Rewind The Film (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the opening track to Rewind The Film, the eleventh studio album by the Welsh Alternative Rock band Manic Street Preachers. The song opens with the line: "I don't want my children to grow up like me, it's too soul destroying, it's a mocking disease." Bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire told The Quietus it sets the tone that runs through the LP of dealing with the sadness of growing old." He explained "It's about looking in the mirror and realizing we're all 44, and while we're still deeply enthralled and still in love with the delusion of being in a band and playing to people, and all those brilliant rock clichés, which we've always specialized in - we probably can't do it any more. That line, 'I can't fight this war anymore, time to surrender, time to move on', I don't want to be like that but I think… it's better if we are. It's The Holy Bible for middle aged men - the horror of realizing you're in charge, you're the grown up. I think our generation hangs on to being young more than any there's ever been, but it's f--king hard."
  • The song features guest vocals by Indie-Folk singer-songwriter Lucy Rose, who is a frequent contributor to Bombay Bicycle Club's records. Nicky Wire told NME: "Lucy Rose has a really beautiful, cracked vocal. It's like a Leonard Cohen duet from the '70s."

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