Just talking

 Manic Street Preachers - La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh), what is the song about ,

"La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh)" is one of the most poignant songs by Manic Street Preachers. Although the title comes from the reported last words of Vincent van Gogh, meaning"the sadness will last forever", the song itself is not about Van Gogh. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

The lyrics are written from the perspective of an elderly war veteran who feels forgotten by society. He is "wheeled out once a year" for remembrance ceremonies, applauded and honoured publicly, but then ignored for the rest of the year. The song criticises the way society can celebrate veterans symbolically while neglecting their real struggles and loneliness. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

Some key themes are:

• Disillusionment with life: The veteran feels that life promised much but delivered disappointment. [genius.com], [musicianwages.com]
• Being used as a symbol: He feels like a "cenotaph souvenir" rather than a person. [en.wikipedia.org], [musicianwages.com]
• The lasting effects of trauma and sadness: The repeated phrase"La tristesse durera" suggests that some emotional wounds never fully heal. [en.wikipedia.org], [musicianwages.com]
• Commercialisation of sacrifice: The line about selling his medal and it ending up in market stalls or on Milan catwalks suggests that even honour and sacrifice can become commodities. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

Richey Edwards explained that he was moved by the sight of veterans at the Cenotaph and felt society only briefly paid attention to them before forgetting them again. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

So, at its heart, the song is about forgotten heroes, ageing, dignity, and the sadness that can remain long after the world has moved on. It's one of the band's most sympathetic and human songs from their early years. 🎵

Do we as a society forget the people who pay the price we hate too easy, and learn too slow, and others pay the price , but overcoming this is not more hate, but learning why ?

I think that's very close to what the song is getting at.

The Manics weren't glorifying war. Quite the opposite. The veteran in"La Tristesse Durera" is someone who has already paid the price. Society applauds him on remembrance days, but largely ignores the reality of what he carries afterwards. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

Your point touches on a broader truth. When people suffer, whether soldiers, civilians, workers, or entire communities, there can be a temptation to respond with anger and look for someone to blame. But history often shows that if all we learn is hatred, the cycle repeats and new people end up paying the price.

Understanding is harder than anger. It means asking:

• Why did this happen?
• What pressures, fears, or mistakes led to it?
• How do we stop it happening again?

That does not mean excusing harmful actions. It means understanding causes so that we can prevent future harm.

In a way, the title"The sadness will last forever" is not just about one veteran's grief. It can also be read as a warning that the consequences of conflict and human mistakes often persist long after the headlines and ceremonies have faded. [en.wikipedia.org]

Your phrase "overcoming this is not more hate, but learning why" reminds me of the old idea that remembrance should have two purposes: honouring those who suffered, and learning enough from their suffering that fewer people have to suffer in the future. That is a difficult lesson, and societies often learn it more slowly than they should.

I feel hate, hate is not the reason , but it can fuel my actions, and mistakes ?

What you've written makes sense to me.

"I feel hate. Hate is not the reason, but it can fuel my actions and mistakes."

That's a thoughtful distinction. You're not saying hate is the root cause of everything you do. You're saying it can become an emotional energy source that pushes you towards certain actions, including ones you later regret.

Many people experience something similar:

• The reason might be hurt, disappointment, rejection, unfairness, or frustration.
• The hate develops afterwards and provides motivation or momentum.
• Acting while fuelled by hate can sometimes lead to decisions that don't reflect a person's deeper values.

In that sense, hate can be like petrol in an engine. It can make you move, but it doesn't necessarily tell you where to go.

Your phrase also reminds me of themes in Richey Edwards' writing for Manic Street Preachers, where emotions such as anger, resentment, sadness and despair are often treated not as explanations in themselves, but as forces that can shape behaviour. In La Tristesse Durera, the deeper feeling is sadness and neglect rather than simple anger. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

If you're trying to express the thought more clearly, you could write:

"I feel hate, but hate is not the reason. It is the fuel that sometimes drives my actions and my mistakes."

Or:

"The cause is deeper than hate. Hate is only the energy that turns pain into action, sometimes for the worse."

There's quite a bit of self-awareness in recognising the difference between a feeling and the underlying cause behind it.

I wish I could ask to make it sound poetic, but hate is , the fear we feel, it is nasty , it is ugly, and make us feel that pain, to make it more easy, is to fuel our own pain, and give us reason to share that pain to others

That's already quite poetic, Michael. What you're describing is that hate is not a source of strength at all, but a way of carrying pain and passing it on.

Here's one way to shape it:

Hate is fear wearing a harder face.
It is ugly, sharp, and eager to be fed.
It promises relief from pain, yet feeds upon the wound that birthed it.
We cling to it because it gives shape to our suffering,
and in sharing it with others, we mistake the spreading of pain for the easing of it.
But pain divided is not pain diminished.
It only finds a new home.

Or more simply:

Hate is not the reason.
It is the fuel.
Born from fear, fed by hurt, it burns within us until we believe the fire belongs elsewhere.
We hand our pain to others, hoping to feel lighter,
yet the weight remains.
The wound stays.
The sadness endures.

That last line has a little of the spirit of La Tristesse Durera without copying it. It suggests that beneath anger and hatred there is often an older sadness that never quite went away.

I love your words, and hate them too, it is perfect and hard to accept, pain is always hard to

That's a very human response.

Sometimes the words that ring most true are the ones we resist the most.

You wrote:

"I love your words, and hate them too."

There's a quiet wisdom in that. We often love an idea because it explains us, and hate it because it leaves us nowhere to hide.

Perhaps it could become:

I love these words, and I hate them too.
They fit too well.
Truth rarely comforts.
It sits beside us like an old wound, asking not to be ignored.
Pain is always hard to accept.
We would rather make an enemy of the world than admit how deeply we have been hurt.
Hate offers armour.
Pain asks for honesty.

Or even:

Pain is always hard to accept.
Hate is easier.
Hate gives us direction, a target, a purpose.
Pain only asks to be felt.
So we sharpen our suffering into anger,
and call it strength.

What strikes me about your thoughts is that they aren't glorifying hate. You're looking underneath it. You're treating hate as a symptom rather than an identity. That takes courage, because it's much easier to stay angry than to ask why the anger is there.

And perhaps that's why the phrase "the sadness will last" is so powerful. Not because sadness lasts forever, but because acknowledging it is often the hardest part. Once we stop running from it, it becomes something we can carry rather than something that carries us.

We all got pain, we can feel hate, but that do not give us reason, we need more understanding of each other, and more

I think you're expressing something quite profound.

We all carry pain of some kind. Pain can easily become anger, and anger can become hate. But pain by itself does not tell us what is true, nor does it automatically tell us who is right.

Understanding takes more effort. It means recognising that other people often have fears, losses, disappointments and hopes that we cannot immediately see. It means listening before judging, even when we disagree.

In a way, that's connected to what you were saying about La Tristesse Durera. The veteran's sadness isn't healed by more bitterness. What the song seems to long for is recognition, dignity and genuine human understanding, rather than being used as a symbol and then forgotten. [en.wikipedia.org], [genius.com]

You could almost put it like this:

We all know pain.
We all feel anger at times.
But if we answer pain only with hate, we pass the wound to someone else.
Understanding does not erase suffering, but it gives us a chance to break the cycle.

That is often the hardest lesson, both for individuals and for societies: not to forget suffering, but to learn from it with compassion rather than resentment.