Life, it’s a series of compromises

According to Wikipedia, Mansun were an indie band that formed in 1995 that “liberally [mixed] beatrock, prog, psychedelia, pop, and 80s noir influences—along with having a fearsome live act who drastically rearranged their songs for the stage”.

I think that Paul Draper (vocalist, rhythm guitarist) would take exception to that. It wasn’t indie, it was rock and roll.
It is the 10th anniversary of the band’s album Six, and Paul has written an extensive, revealing and (at times) downright bizarre two-part blog about the album, it’s meanings, inspirations, the trials and tribulations of putting it together, and everything in between.

To me, Mansun were - and still are - much more than just a band that did some off-the-wall shit and tried to challenge preconceptions and genres, getting critically slaughtered whilst doing it.

Mansun were the first band I ever saw live, during their Six tour back in late 1998. I would have been almost 14 then, living in Mid-Cheshire and just finding my way through the social minefield that was High School, being a teenager, and all that other crap we all have to go through before we find an even keel to guide us through this crazy world. I can still remember queueing up outside the Chester Leisure Centre (it was a big place!) at night with my friends, sheltered from the winter weather by ridiculous black puffa jackets. Yeah, we sure were cool back then.

It seemed like an age before the band came on stage, and we were so short we could barely see anything anyway. Along with the ridiculous jackets (which were so hot we risked passing out from heat exhaustion), it all got considerably uncomfortable. We left the crowd and ended up walking around the upper floors of the Centre, whilst Mansun’s sound perforated every wall and surface, echoing down corridors so that wherever we went, it would find us.
We went back in at the end, standing near the side with the people in wheelchairs, in time for their final song. I can’t even remember what it was, but to this day I still remember the experience, so it must’ve meant something to me.

The album Six, however, meant and means a whole lot more. Mainly because I can listen to it without standing behind unfeasably tall men whilst my internal organs boil out of my ears perhaps. 2008 is, as I’ve already said, the 10th anniversary of an album which is as musically complex and fascinating as anything else I’ve known. And I’m going to talk more about it. Click ‘More’ if you’re bored, and maybe want to get an inner glimpse at my internal locus.So, here you are. Well done.

Reading the blogs that Paul has written will give you a much better understanding of Six and perhaps the band as a whole, but I don’t know that it will make a whole lot of sense unless you’re familiar with the album beforehand.
If just this much has gotten you curious, hit up these links where you can hear tracks legally. Or just buy the album, it’s probably only a couple of quid by now. (Hmm, the second link currently has demos that are referred to in the blogs, but the videos down the left have the album tracks)
Most people I mention Mansun to have never heard of them, or assume that I’m talking about Marilyn Manson. Nobody has yet assumed I’m going on about Charlie Manson, thank god.

Musically, Mansun are incredibly interesting to listen to. Reading the blogs, it becomes clear just what insane lengths they went to in order to create the sound they did. The accepted standard of song structures was tossed out of the window, along with most other accepted conventions at the time, in order to make something that was specifically different and, I guess, a “fuck you” to the music scene of the day. They were, of course, widely slated by critics of the time, when everybody and everything had to be pigeonholed into one genre or the other, or else people just wouldn’t “get it”.

Now, I think, the album is critically acclaimed. Funny how things change, isn’t it?

Whilst the music, especially the crazy, wailing guitars, were impressive to me (strange how my current love of good electronic music is partly to do with the insane production and layering of sounds that goes on, which is exactly the sort of thing that Mansun implemented in their music), the lyrics meant so much more.

The overwhelming feeling of Six - to me at least - is of quite a chaotic, dark, tortured mind. It turns out, reading the blogs, that in a lot of cases, Paul and the band were plainly taking the piss

As a kid, I was a bit … misplaced. I moved from my childhood friends and relationships in South Wales to the North West, just in time for High School. Using my tried-and-tested combination of affability (is that a word?), gentle self depracation and a knack for avoiding anything that would seriously embarrass myself (for example, anything sport-related) I got in with a fairly close-knit group of friends and things were alright.
But it was a big, scary world, and I had my own demons to deal with. Maybe I didn’t even know it at the time, but once I found Mansun and Six, I started feeling like I had something with which I could associate with my innermost thoughts.

Even if that something was just a Compact Disc.

The family moved again, a year or two later, back to where we came from. A blessing and a curse, because although I knew far more people, they had all changed - hell, I had changed. Again, the intricate, dark lyrics of Six came back into play. I remember having bad days, getting on the bus home and plugging that into my ears, and just feeling somehow better by the time I got home.

To me, Six was very much about being different, being an outcast, not truly belonging to one place or another, even if that was all inside and nobody really knew about it. To this day, if I really strip myself down to the basics, that’s how I feel.
It makes life one helluva lot easier to be affable and nice to everyone, and it feels good. But by not going to one extreme or another in anything that you do, you end up not really belonging to anything or anyone. I still dress like people I’d be out of my depth with to socialise with people I love to be with but will never fit into the ‘culture’ that they are a part of.
It’s something that I’ve done for so long that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to change, or if I want to. It’s all a bit strange, really.

But I digress.

Back in the Young Ed days, I took the words of the songs as literally as I could. I’ve never been a great philosopher and, as such, all the Taoist, religious stuff threaded in and out of songs was a bit beyond me. So I took what I could understand and tried to make it relevant to my life.

The second track on the album, Negative, has such nuggets as

Stop, you’re looking miserable / Can’t be bothered getting up today / My future’s looking positive / No one even picked on me today

Turns out this song is all about getting a mortgage application approved, and is actually a really positive song!! But as I say, at the time it was all about what it meant to me. There were some people who made my life needlessly negative for their own personal enjoyment, and this song worked well with it.

Inverse Midas is a wonderful track. Very short, with just a simple message:

Everybody helps me make my own mistakes
If i’m left alone i’d make them anyway

It was a song intended to outline how we all blame outside influences for our mistakes to make ourselves feel better but, if we look at it objectively, it’s all on us. As relevant today as it ever was, if you ask me. I think that plenty of us are guilty of making ourselves feel good by blaming other people needlessly. There was a lot in my life I had control over and never exercised that control to make things better. It’s a personal failing of mine, one which continues to this day.

Anti Everything is a song about homeless people. Specifically, the grief that Paul Draper got off a homeless person in London. I like the song, and thankfully its words mean nothing to me. But the title always struck a chord with me, despite my considerably conformist attitud to life, the universe and everything.
I guess we all have a little anarchist in us just waiting to come out

Cancer, a 9min32sec collosus of a song, struck a chord on a few levels. For a start it contains the repeated lyric

I’m emotionally raped by Jesus

This, as a member of a catholic school whilst not entirely agreeing with catholicism (nor any sort of organised religion) provided me with great entertainment. I think I always fancied that one day I’d whack this track on in the middle of Religious Education. I’d probably have been burnt as a heretic, but the little anarchist in me obviously isn’t too fond of fire so it never happened.

I’m emotional and sensitive and frail
In need of some love

Yeah, you can laugh. But everyone needs love, and that includes me. I’m still emotional and sensitive. I’ll break your teeth if you try and test out the frail bit though. Be warned.

Special/Blown It (Delete as Appropriate) is a brilliant song, musically speaking. Lyrically this might be the one that I identified with most, depending on where my mood was swinging on the crazy pendulum of life.
The track is quite personal to Paul Draper, envisaging himself in the future after Six, what he may have become, depending on how things all go.
For me - at times feeling like I was stuck on a tireless treadmill going nowhere, achieving nothing, feeling like I would never achieve anything worthwhile, the words were like a warm blanket to cling to. Sounds perverse, but when you can’t vocalise your thoughts and feelings that are nagging at the back of your skull, having a song do it all for you is quite comforting.
Sometimes the urge to just turn away from it all, forsake everyone and everything and disappear to another life was tempting. I never had the balls to do it though.

It’s still a song that came to my head whenever I failed at something where others succeeded. I beat myself up pretty badly over stuff, perhaps sometimes to the point of obsession. I’m not so bad at that now, probably because I don’t fail much anymore

You should really listen to this, but fuck it, here’s the lyrics all anyway.

I’ve blown it in every single way
Screwed every single chance that came
You’re a super star in waiting for the silver screen
Then the pressure came
Swept away in a tidal wave
Could be all of you, still awake at noon
Blew my chances in a tragic flurry, sweeping apathy
Buy all my food from the B.P. store when the night kicks in
I’m turning my back on everyone
I’ve blown everything i’ve ever done

I’ve fucked it up, shot my load
Spewed onto the motorway shoulder
I could have been somebody special

I’m not such a tragic waste of space
I could bring happiness to people
Just one more greatest hits tour for the devotees
The same old faces came
They love their summer spectaculars
By the grace of god could be up by noon
And not a tragic waster but i can’t stay focused for my apathy
They could have bought me a brand new car and a house in france
I’ve really blown it now
Blew it all away on a whim

Sat on my own for far too long
Things could have been so different now
Life looks so confusing through my window bay
Just to see a face, i’m really pleased when the gas man comes
Could be all of you still awake at noon
Blew my chances in a tragic flurry of apathy
All my food from a B.P. store when the night kicks in
I’ve really blown it now
Blew it all away on a whim

But i fucked it up, shot my load
Spewed onto the motorway shoulder
I could have been somebody special

Legacy was and is an amazing track. The vocals are just so hauntingly beautiful. Got to hand it to Paul, he has a fantastic voice. I think this one has had a specific relevance throughout life, maybe still now. I think Paul explains it best, as it’s also how I see the song:

… looking back at the sacrifice of your emotional happiness for material gain has had on your life and where it’s got you. Trying to justify to yourself it’s been the right path to take in your life by lessening the importance of relationships and justifying it by looking at the damage personal relationships can do in your life.
The second half of the second verse asks what’s the root of ambition, what character defect drives you? The line: “I wouldn’t care if I was washed up tomorrow” is false bravado, a self-defence mechanism to hide the fear of failure from your ambition. It’s just raising some questions about ambition and the futility of it because in the end. The price. The cost. What’s left at the end of the day when ambition’s drained the last drop out of you? Well I just pictured the view from the stage during a gig. The sea of faces looking back at you, that’s what your doing it all for, just them people, and at the end of the day, after you’ve given everything, well nobody really cares when you’re gone, do they?

Talking to someone the other night, I realised that material gain is all I’m gunning for in life right now. It’s short term happiness, the absolute worst kind you can get. When I look back at my life, am I going to regret all of that? I’m fairly determined that’s not going to happen. Changes are afoot, or nearly are anyway. I don’t want my Legacy to be devoid of meaning, with nobody caring when I’m gone.

The last song on the album, Being a Girl is not, as some short-sighted morons might think, about wanting a sex change. It’s an allegory for being unhappy with your situation. As you’ve probably guessed by now, this was yet another poignant track.

Lyrics like

I’m so boring, my clothes wanna keep
Someone else warm, someone cooler

and

My deodorant hides the real me
These things elevate me above animals

occasionally come back to nag at me. It’s the age old questions we all face - who am I? Why am I? What am I doing with my life? What makes me special?
You can kind of see why Sylar got all crazy and homicidal once he started getting powers. Yay for Heroes reference.

Christ on a cracker, this has gone on a long while. I think I’ve been writing/listening for about an hour. I need to get out more. Oh wait, it’s dark and Monday. Whatever.

I specifically didn’t mention the title track and first track of the album, Six. Mainly because this contains the most currently topical (in reference to me) lyrics of them all, and partly because it makes me look mildly clever by linking the end of the post into the post title.

And you see, i kind of shivered to conformity
Did you see the way I cowered to authority
You see, my life, it’s a series of compromises anyway
It’s a sham, and i’m conditioned to accept it all

I don’t like making compromises. I want the best that I can get, at all times. I don’t think that that’s a bad way to be. It’s a miracle that we’re all here on this planet - regardless of what religion you do or do not believe in - and it’s my personal belief that we owe it to whatever power that got us here to be the best that we can be in at least one way in our lives.

I also use that as a reason not to do things. I work one side of the country, live the other. Either I stay here, take a different job that won’t pay as well and try and get a life, or I go live over there, get paid just as well but live somewhere not so nice.

The payoff of either is that I finally get a life back, meet new people and finally strike up a relationship again with some attractive young lady.

The other night I got some good advice. It wasn’t ground-breaking stuff, in fact it was exactly what I’ve been telling myself for a long time. I think I just needed to hear it from somebody else, someone who realistically doesn’t have any kind of vested interest in whatever I choose to do - or not do.

So yeah. Life is a series of compromises. Sometimes you just have to, in order to make yourself better than if you’d stuck to your principles and not bothered.

Mansun’s Six is a triumph of musical and lyrical talent.

And I was all Intel, Emo-Inside as a teenager, without having to wear ANY fucking mascara or faux-goth clothing to get attention and feel special.

Who knew?

Tagged as: Fucked Up Shit, Mansun, Six