Music / Songs
You Need to Listen to This Song Right Now #42
Heavy Rotation — The Secret He Had Missed, Manic Street Preachers (The Ultra Vivid Lament, 2021)
Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that, one way or another, got incessant airplay. It referred to the large number of rotations that a particular record was given on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.
Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, just in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.
For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song you come back to occasionally and still feels just as good.
This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.
Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, where the song fits into its history, and where it fits into what was happening in music at that time.
Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at, and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?
I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read this than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.
What song is in your head right now? Here’s the one that won’t leave mine today:
#42 — The Secret He Had Missed, Manic Street Preachers (The Ultra Vivid Lament, 2021)
The Manic Street Preachers have been around for a long time, upwards of thirty years. They’ve flirted with inclusion in my all-time Top 5 from time to time, but they do have a permanent residency in my Top 10.
As a result, this is not the first time I’m writing about this rock and roll juggernaut from Wales. I featured them in an earlier installment of this series, a song from the beginning of their library that is still considered a standout across 14 albums and a staple of their live shows.
I’ve seen them live a few times, the first at the unforgettable Sziget Festival in Budapest in 2009 and the next in Vancouver in 2012.
Just recently, I saw them again in Vancouver and wrote about it here:
I came into possession of a turntable a few weeks ago and so have turned my attention to seeking out records to play on it. Naturally, it’s to my favourite bands that I am drawn to first in my purchases: Depeche Mode (Violator), the Cult (Love), and the Charlatans (the Charlatans) are some of them that I’ve found so far and given them the front to back full sounding that they deserve.
Putting the needle down and letting them go is nothing short of a joy. For someone really into music, there is no comparison between listening to albums on a record player and the various other technologies provided to us.
The first Manics album I found on vinyl is their latest, “The Ultra Vivid Lament,” from 2021. I put it on as soon as I got home, and from the minute it began, I could have sworn that I had heard it before. And indeed, maybe I had — my memory might not be what it once was. But it all sounded so familiar, like a band whose signature sound of big guitar chords, soaring chorus melodies, and lyrics that actually meant something, that was still going strong — very strong — after nearly three decades.
There’s a thing that this band does that fans will instantly recognize, and they do it again here. On each album, there are one, maybe two, songs that grab the throat, brain, and heart all at the same time. The particular song this time was the third track and second single, The Secret He Had Missed.
The song's lyrics examine the “inner dynamics in family relationships” and how opposite the lives of a brother and a sister within the same family can be or become. Specifically, the muses here are the well-known 20th-century Welsh painters Augustus John and Gwen John. The former lived a bohemian and reckless existence, and the latter led a nunnish life directed at the interior world.
Don’t worry, I had never heard of them either.
To Manics fans, the introduction to the song won’t be unfamiliar and may take them back to the sound of the “Lifeblood” album from 2004. Straight-ahead drums from Sean Moore and bouncy bass courtesy of Nicky Wire. James Dean Bradfield’s guitar has a signature sound, as does his voice. But what shines out here, almost immediately, are the Abba-inspired piano chords.
It’s almost like Benny Andersson should be given songwriting credit for that.
The vocal begins at 00:11. Bradfield has the first part of the first verse, “The sea, your room, your God / The interior, world you loved.” That’ll be about the sister, then.
But at 00:21, another wrinkle (although not for the first time in Manics history), a female voice in the form of Julia Cumming, “You turned faces into icons / But the mirror killed all your freedom.” A sibling conversation, perhaps late in life, is taking shape.
The bridge to the chorus at 00:44 has Augustus lamenting, “I’ll be remembered as your brother / All my work adds up to nothing.” But is he truly regretful about this, or has he just made his peace that this has been the cost of the life that he apparently fully lived? He lauds his sister for “ignoring the revolutions / they just lead you nowhere”.
It’s at 00:57 and the first chorus, the Manics do what the Manics do best…soar. “The secret he had missed / Was lying at his fingertips.” He had it all before him but was so easily distracted by a wild life that he never reached it.
But back to the sisterly hand wringing, albeit sung by the male voice, “Lost your heart and soul in France / Prayed so hard that love would last.” Comes the female voice, “Bohemian with no control / If only you had your sister’s soul.”
The next chorus is separated by an exquisite drum fill by Sean Moore at 1:24, and then comes the key line of the song and one that perhaps many brother/sister duos can relate to, especially later in life, “Never had the chance to reconcile / Living separate and lonely lives / If only we could meet again / We could find a different end.”
The bridge and chorus are now familiar and build up to soar again and keep us there, into the guitar solo, beginning at 2:22. For half a glorious minute, we are treated to the interplay of Bradfield’s guitar, the cascading piano chords and the call and answer of the male and female vocal sound.
The full crescendo comes at 2:52 and blazes through the chorus again. Epic, cinematic, and soaring, just as always with this band.
Here they are, live in 2021, still at the height of their powers. A lovely moment of interaction between Bradfield and Cat Southall at 2:48.
If you have made it this far, it will occur to you that if this is #42 in this series, then there must be 41 previous ones. This is a correct assumption, and here I will link #41. At the bottom of it, you will find a link to #40, and at the bottom of that, you can — if you so choose — be taken to #39. This ingenious system that I thought up all by myself continues all the way to #1.
I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month and if you use the link below, then I get a slice of that. I’ll have to see about getting more of these guys on vinyl.
