"Break My Heart Slowly" is the debut single by Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh alternative rock band, formed in 1986. They are James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and Sean Moore. The band are part of the Cardiff music scene, and were at their most prominent during the 1990s...

 bassist/lyricist Nicky Wire

Nicky Wire

Nicholas Allen Jones, known as Nicky Wire, is the lyricist, bassist and occasional vocalist with the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers.-Early life:...

, released on September 18, 2006 on Red Ink Records. The song premiered on Phil Jupitus' show on 6music in early May. The lyrics reference Dora Maar

Dora Maar

Dora Maar was a French photographer, poet and painter, best known for being a lover and muse of Pablo Picasso.-Life:...

, a French photographer and one-time lover of Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

. The sample at the beginning of the song is from an interview with film director Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...

's wife about the making of Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...

. Derek Jarman

Derek Jarman

Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...

, as referred to in the B-side 'Derek Jarman's Garden', was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 film director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, stage designer, artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

, and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

. A book called Derek Jarman's Garden was published in 2005.