I say this on here quite often, but this is a pretty significant record for me. The very first cd in my collection was Urban Hymns by The Verve and the second was This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours by the Manic Street Preachers. On my fourteenth birthday I received a copy as a gift from my parents. The album hadn't long been out and they'd noticed me enjoying If You Tolerate This... when it came on TV or the radio. Also, my mum had seen a documentary about the band, which had captured her attention more than a documentary about a rock band normally would because of Richey Edward's disappearance. It was an unexpected gift, but one I very much came to appreciate.
Of course, at that age, a lot of the lyrics and ideas went over my head - I had no idea what a "facist" was, I'd never heard the word "tsunami" before and I was pretty shocked by the closer, S.Y.M.M.. The strangest thing about that song, whilst we're on the topic, is that despite having had this album for 15 and a half years I've only just discovered the mass-murder the song speaks of. And by "just", I mean in the time between those two sentences when I finally decided to Google it. In 1998 we didn't have the internet and I don't think it would have even crossed my mind to search for what the song was about (was Google even a thing?). I had absolutely no idea until this evening that S.Y.M.M. was about the Hillsborough disaster. It's incredible that one song can continue to shock and surprise me after so long. Listening to it now, those lyrics are taking on new meanings.
I've never considered This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours to be my favourite Manics album but there's no denying that it is an incredible album. Somehow the others had more to offer me over the years - Generation Terrorists had it's youthful punk, The Holy Bible was dark and intentionally difficult, Everything Must Go was just a great indie album with some incredible songs and I even eventually found myself loving Gold Against the Soul. TIMTTMY felt more polished and grand but the songs were still uniquely Manic Street Preachers. The singles were instantly familiar and played repeatedly on the radio, but there were other highlights too; Ready For Drowning, My Little Empire, Nobody Loved You. It's hard to believe that a song like Born a Girl wasn't penned by Richey.
Four and half years after I first heard this album I was in Lancaster for an open day at the university and found this copy of the LP in a second hand stall in the market. This would be my fourth copy of the album (long story, but I also have the embossed-case cd and a bootleg Spanish picture-disc as well as the regular cd that I got for my birthday) but I was still thinking I might be able to collect everything they'd ever put out, so it was vital to the collection.
I've written at length about how important the Manics were to me when I was a teenager and how my love of vinyl can basically be traced back to buying a copy of Motorcycle Emptiness on 7", so I shan't bore you with that story again. However, it's worth noting that all of that probably traces back to me receiving a copy of this album for my birthday. I might have ended up in a similar place had they bought me any other cd, but you never know.
I'm still amazed that I had no idea what S.Y.M.M. was about until tonight, but I love that this album can still surprise me.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £8.50 second hand
Bought: Lancaster Market record stall
When: 19/02/03
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
