And that’s apparently indirectly the reason why it took until 2022 for “Rosebud” to be released: per the Manics’ court producer and “fifth Beatle” Dave Eringa, Wire had mistakenly assumed they had already released it as a b-side until they started pulling together the material for the re-release. The arrival of two brand new songs from the vault with the Know Your Enemy reissue was a surprising sight: after all, the Manics’ b-side folders were always so bountiful that you had come to expect that any leftover material from the albums would have always seen the light of day. It’s a neat snapshot of the era, at the least. While not a single, the song did receive a video which consists of various backstage footage of the KYE recording sessions and the Cuba gig. At least it’s out now though – the chorus is enough to justify its resurrection and it’s a piece of Manics vault material that in the end deserved to be brought into the sunlight. But if this had been releases as one of the b-sides at the time, it would’ve made perfect sense.
Solidarity overall is a bit of a mess the way the band have compiled it on the reissue and adding an obvious outtake like this doesn’t do either the song or the newly reforged album justice. In Solidarity though, its somewhat unfinished nature becomes apparent when sandwiched between the heavily remixed “My Guernica” and the boosted “Dead Martyrs”, both coming from the same place of origin in sound and tone but with a fuller, more realised execution. I’ve hit repeat on this song a lot and that’s just so I can get to the chorus again. I’ve always been a great fan of both of the band’s official vocalists coming together in a song because their wildly different approaches complement each other so perfectly, and that simple little vocal duet in this simple little chorus elevates it into something I keep coming back to over and over again. All the swagger, the attitude, the power that the verses hint come realised in the chorus, and the shared vocals between James and Wire are superb, passing off the baton from one another to create an effect far better than if it was just James singing the lines all by himself. And if it was left at that it’d be a minor footnote in the band’s discography and the obvious runt of the litter of this period, but then you’ve got the chorus that sounds like the real stroke of genius that the band came up with, and hastily scribbled the rest of the song around it. The verses for example are so barebones that it’s obvious it was a one-take, one-guitar affair played in the practice sessions, but you can imagine that with just a little more stuffing around it they could easily be the kind of muscular post-punk menace you can hear being hinted at. The heavily repetitive structure, minimal lyrics that rely on said repetition a lot and the general lack of any meat around its bones indicate that it’s a song the band didn’t really spend too much time on to begin with and it likely would have made a comfortable b-side for the period.īut Know Your Enemy b-sides are great, so it’s in good company! “Studies in Paralysis” has a solid groove to it which gives it a strong foundation to build on, it’s just the rest of the construction never quite started. Casting aside the general suspicion around how this was shelved so hard that it fell off the shelf completely and gathered dust underneath while no one noticed it was gone to begin with, even under the anything-goes mentality of these sessions “Studies in Paralysis” just doesn’t sound as polished – or finished – as the other album material. The claims that the Solidarity/ Door to the River split on the remastered Know Your Enemy is exactly like the band intended back in the day get thrown right out with the inclusion of “Studies in Paralysis”, the other previously unreleased and recently unearthed song from the vaults that now has a spot in the middle of the rockier/more unhinged Solidarity. Hope springs eternal that I will learn some lessons
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