Trash owner Shirley Manson has been jailed twice in the past two years. First, she underwent a hip replacement surgery to repair the injuries she suffered from a 2016 fall. Then, last year, her other hip ruptured and she had surgery and recovery again.
Today, she recovered and her band has a great new album, Everything we imagine is lightgo out this week and tour in the summer. "I'm still alive, kicked-if not that high," Manson sounded particularly cheerful from Scotland's amplifier in late April.
"I'm recovering and I'm really grateful," the 58-year-old singer said in her gorgeous Edinburgh Burr. "People are going through incredible shit, so I really don't feel like I have any complaints. It's enough to say it's a challenge. It's not charming, sometimes frustrating. But I'm here, I'm in the woods."
She might be clear, but because she wrote the lyrics of the album while she was recovering, she would live for a while. On Sisyphus, a quiet, breathing meditation sounds literally ethereal (as etheric inspiration), she sings: “This little body of mine will make things right” and, on “Love to People,” the same soft pop-rock numbers, she opines opines opines of the Bection nothing your noth your nork your nork your norky your norky nest your norky norky nest your norky nest your nesook’’’’’’’’’’’’’. The most convincing track on the album, though, is its close-up “The Days of Meet God,” a slow narrative about her life that sometimes sounds horrible and sometimes becomes beautiful as she grows up (with the help of some kind of painkiller).
Manson's poetic pain, and the creativity of Alt-Rock songs by her band members, led to a engaging, memorable album, their best work from the 90s. Plus, this gives them a good excuse to get back on the way. “Being able to title your show as Special for the first time in nearly a decade,” Manson said. “Because we’re older, every time we go out for a long tour, it feels like a huge privilege because you just never know when it will be back again.”
The harm can be frustrating. What made you go through the worst?
Have you ever met my father? I grew up from an absolute beast. He is 87 years old and is still in the competition. He basically said, “You have to grind your teeth and keep going.” So I did.
Will lyrics like “This little corpse of mine makes things right” on your spell “Sisyphus” be healed?
In between the two surgeries, everything was written during recovery. Scattered into my writing. Finding myself more or less strong at the head of the bed is a very new, strange experience for me.
I encourage the band to write without me because I don’t want them to wait. I know that if we wait, we will never be able to finish the record. So they would email me these music ideas and I would write to what they sent me. It's a weird way for us. It turns out that this is a real blessing. Whenever they send me a musical piece, I discover it for the first time like the listener does.
You were taking some heavy medications at the time. Will this affect the music’s voice on you?
No, but I was surprised by what they sent me. This is much more than I expected. I was like, “Oh, these sound like little movie soundtracks.” Many guitars were added for a long time.
Regarding the subject of music, in another interview, you said that the radio became more conservative and less open to the post-9/11 garbage bands. So how about it?
Well, that's just a fact. They started throwing women out of the radio, and we were told, “Yes, they were no longer playing you because they had a female voice on the radio, so there was no space in modern radio.” Then any form of alternative female perspective was completely removed.
We have basically had 20 years of pop music since September 11. This is not even my opinion; it is just a fact. We are still really going to divorce this. Pop is easy to play, but anything even challenging - at least in alternative rock - doesn't really (play on). Now changing. I've noticed over the past two or three years that we've seen the culture change, and it's so nice.
Back to your new record, how does the band feel to you fit your feelings?
Anyone who is shaking will tell you that it's crazy. After a while, you feel like chewing on the carpet. It’s very difficult to get stuck in your brain and prevent negative emotions from destroying you. So, I'm grateful for something that requires a slightly different discipline to me. It brought my stuff out, maybe not, especially "the day I met God."
The song is incredibly shaken because of how you sing, finding God in “Everyone I Have Loved.”
I listen to musical instruments on the treadmill. When I got out, I told my husband (record producer Billy Bush) that I wanted to record something and I was just sitting by the bed. I was wearing pajamas. I'm in a mess. I'm just an invalid one. Then I sing (lyrics) into a handheld microphone. Everything came out within an hour. What you hear is my writing demo. It has not been revised except for some of the support vocals I threw at the end. You can really hear its vulnerability.
What state are you in when you sing?
I'm in a terrible place. I feel really vulnerable, frustrated and scared. I needed to make some connection with the outside world and stumbled upon the chorus. I realized that was something really grand.
As someone who doesn’t attend any organized religious or practical gatherings, I suddenly realized that my belief in myself found me. It was a huge moment for me during that horrible moment, “Oh, that makes sense to me, that’s what God aims for me.” But, of course, at the end of the kiss, you realize you’re being smashed to death by the gourd.
Yes, you sing and say you found God in Tramado.
I like the humor. This awareness, maybe I'm not as smart as I thought, maybe I'm just tall, which disturbs it. So fighting yourself and your faith is a little bit of an inner dialogue.
Well, I'm glad Tramadol provides you with this.
I am me too. I'm very grateful.
When is the title Everything we imagine is light Come to find you?
I have no idea. I'm sure it was inspired by the movie (All we imagine). I haven't even seen this movie, but that title is in my head. While we were doing (“radical”), I had already sung “All you do is save lives” and then I started singing “Let everyone we imagine be light” in the second half of the chorus. It fits perfectly into the music. This seemed to be the perfect encapsulation of my thoughts at the time.
When the first single of the junk releases the album, “No Optimistic Future,” you released A statement Quote George Floyd's killing. How did his death change you?
When I listened to the tracks sent to me by the band, I immediately thought of George Floyd’s murder and the way that changed me and the way I learned about the world. The Black Lives Matter protests in Hollywood are not far from my home. So the lyrics of this song are retelling what I was doing in Hollywood at the time.
Covid is happening and I can't get home. I was trapped in the United States and I was unable to visit my family for the first time in my life. So I felt trapped. I looked at George Floyd's murder, like many of us did on the phone. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I've never seen anyone murdered on my phone. I've never seen anyone murdered and give it all. It shocked me so deeply and changed me so deeply.
I started reading more about the Black Lives Movement, racism, colonialism, about white supremacy…this list is endless, right? I've just started trying to read as much background as possible about what's going on outside my home. There are these huge protests. 24 hours a day, there are 15 helicopters around our house. Like a police district. I found this really disturbing.
I woke up one night and the house was shaking. It was an earthquake. I sat upright with the bolts and my husband and I held hands. We remain silent and I screamed at the top of the voice, “I need to figure this out.” I feel angry. So, this song is a retelling of the story and realizing that we have to somehow get ourselves out of our nightmare for me.
However, the way you sing is a bit optimistic.
If you can’t find a way out of your situation, think about your close-up situation and you’ll get angry. So, it's an interesting but anti-violent way of Bonnie and Clyde's love story. I think if you can't find a way to ignite your hope, you'll be trapped in a pit of despair and despair that you won't work for anyone.
After all the other things that have happened in the past five years, how close is it to simply give up on the United States?
no way. I will never give up on America. I will never give up on anyone. This is not my style.
Actually, it annoyed me when I hear Americans say things like “We’re going to run away and settle somewhere else.” It seems to me that I'm going to say, "Stand in this glorious country, stupid unts struggle." You won't fuck it all without fighting for it, everyone will fold their wings and roll away. Is this how you want to have a little bump on the road? I was surprised by this.
I was surprised by the willingness to turn around immediately because things weren't as you would have hoped they would go. If you want freedom, freedom and this glorious geographical location, you need to work as a citizen.
You will definitely find yourself having problems in every fucking country. This is a given one. And if there are currently some happy countries somewhere in the world that have not solved some very serious problems, then you can be sure it will drop the Parker.