A lot of younger fans don't realize how much the Manics changed after Ritchie's death.
Their musical style, lyrics, attitude, public personas all changed, remarkably.
The Ritchie era Manics played very dark, arty, disturbing, punk music, with extremely poetic, complicated lyrics.
And they sold themselves as almost doom-rock, EMO, anarchists.
After he died, they changed to a much more melodic, anthetic, positive band, with much simpler and easier-to-understand lyrics. And they had great success.
So much of this song is about that change, and the feelings of guilt that are associated with it. Abandoning Ritchie's vision of the band, essentially . Because they simply couldn't do it without him. He was the driving force of that era, both in the songs, and on the stage, and in the media.
So the song is saying:
"We're sorry we can't continue as we were, but it's impossible. We have to try something new."
A lot of younger fans don't realize how much the Manics changed after Ritchie's death.
Their musical style, lyrics, attitude, public personas all changed, remarkably.
The Ritchie era Manics played very dark, arty, disturbing, punk music, with extremely poetic, complicated lyrics.
And they sold themselves as almost doom-rock, EMO, anarchists.
After he died, they changed to a much more melodic, anthetic, positive band, with much simpler and easier-to-understand lyrics. And they had great success.
So much of this song is about that change, and the feelings of guilt that are associated with it. Abandoning Ritchie's vision of the band, essentially . Because they simply couldn't do it without him. He was the driving force of that era, both in the songs, and on the stage, and in the media.
So the song is saying:
"We're sorry we can't continue as we were, but it's impossible. We have to try something new."