Manic Street Preachers "you can draw some pretty obvious conclusions from the lyrics." Wire, who admitted finding the task of editing this song "pretty choking", eventually composed the music and sang lead vocals after Bradfield found himself unsuited to the task. Bradfield commented that "Journal for Plague Lovers" was an attempt to finally secure the legacy of their former member Richey Edwards and the result was that, during the recording process, it was as close to feeling his presence since his disappearance: "There was a sense of responsibility to do his words justice. That was part of the whole thing of letting enough
Manic Street Preachers as the opening track on "Forever Delayed", the band's greatest hits album released in November 2002. Much later on, interviewed in 2014 by "NME" for their "Song Stories" video series, singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield recalled that the lyric had been a fusion of two sets of lyrics-"Design for Life" and "Pure Motive"-sent to him from Wales by bassist Nicky Wire, while he was living in Shepherd's Bush. The music was written "in about ten minutes" and Bradfield felt a sense of euphoria with the result. The song was credited with having "rescued the band" from the despair felt after the