She Is Suffering

I’ve always felt this to be the weakest song on The Holy Bible – too dreary and too distant from the more severe emotions which run through the rest of the album. This is unusual because it retains the quintessential Holy Bible atmosphere and obviously the Production ensures that there isn’t any other album it would work on. Maybe it’s the pacing -it meanders and plods and remains on a single level. It’s the weakest song, but it’s the weakest song on as perfect and harrowing an album as you’ll ever hear.

It does unsurprisingly have a superb lyric, and taken as a standalone song the melodies and tone work much better versus listening to it on an album run through. The US mix adds more depth and warmth and becomes the more interesting version musically, but it still lacks something which makes me love it as much as the rest of the album. It does have a blistering, basic guitar solo though, always a bonus.

The song was a single, reaching number 25, and accompanied by a truly unnerving and creepy video involving mannequins. It’s not very good, but it leaves an impact which is more than can be said for most Manics videos which are simply not very good.

She Is Suffering: 3/Good

The Story Of The Song: Like much of the album, this song is definitely about something but unlike the more overt political statements or concrete glimpses into Richey’s state of mind, She Is Suffering is more obtuse and open for interpretation. Logic dictates that the key to unlocking the song is deciding who, or what ‘she’ is and why or how she is suffering. Some have tried to identify a real life person, some have said it’s Richey and Nicky equating themselves to femininity, others that it’s the dichotomy between the pointlessness of and need for sex (stretching the narrative to being about a real life story of cheating or betrayal) but the most common interpretation is that ‘she’ is simply the personification of ‘beauty’. Beauty means suffering. Going directly to the source, Richey himself described the song as detailing the horrors of desire and the need to rid yourself of all want to become pure.

Misheard Lyrics: She is suffering upon her death.

2. Beauty she is God

3. It’s not an insult/it’s a body’s soul/into my own soul

4. Carry on

5. Unfair for all

6. The less she can stammer

Actual Lyrics: She is suffering yet more than death.

2. Beauty she is scarred

3. Into man’s soul

4. Carrion

5. Unfaithful all

6. The less she gives the more

Let us know in the comments what you think of She Is Suffering!

Revol

Revol: 3/Good 

(US Version)

The one song from The Holy Bible (aside from Faster) that always seems to get a run out during live performances – strange because the band, and James in particular, are always saying how much they hate it. If you absolutely must play something from The Holy Bible during live gigs, then there are plenty of others to choose from. Moaning aside, it is still a good song. Admittedly,  it’s one of my least favourite from the album but it still packs a punch, and does have that exquisite middle section which I believe to be one of the best things the band has ever written. Make of the lyrics what you will – a series of loose epithets or descriptions of political figures opposite sexual acts or deficiencies for the verses, followed by multi-lingual screams for the chorus. No-one writes songs like this, and no-one has the balls to make a single out of it. It almost feels like a light-hearted moment amidst the darkness of The Holy Bible and it certainly does break up the relentless gloom with a bout of much needed, questionable humour.

Misheard Lyrics: Missed a letter, oh, waken the boy!

2. Mr Stalin, buy sexually back/Mr Stalin, buy sexual a pack

3. Pushed chest, self love in his mirrors

4. Raging, very into group sex.

5. Get a job, sell myself self importance/Got a chop, sell a bit of his content

6. Yes sir, player, with his self importance/ Yeltsin playing with his own importance.

7. River! River!/Reaver! Reaver!

8: Life’s a cloud/Like a clown

9: Comfort comes (!)

10. Ross Ross!/Rush Rush!

11. Feel her feel her!/Feed her feed her!/ Fear fear!/ Fear Fuhrer!

12. Napoleon challenge wee hats

13. Jane Berlin (?) you see good in you

14. Trotsky honey won’t serenade the naked.

15. Shake her valley, your wrong target now.

16. American alimony alimony.

Actual Lyrics: Mr Lenin, awaken the boy

2. Mr Stalin, bi-sexual epoch

3. Kruschev, self love in his mirrors.

4. Brehnev, married into group sex

5. Gorbachev, celibate self importance

6. Yeltsin, failure is his own impotence. 

7: Revol! Revol!

8: Lebensraum

9: Kulturkampf.

10. Raus Raus!

11. Fila fila!

12. Napoleon childhood sweethearts

13. Chamberlain you see God in you

14. Trotsky honeymoon serenade the naked.

15. Che Guevara, you’re all target now.

16. Farrakhan alimony alimony. 

The Story Behind The Song: Does anybody know? ‘Revol’ is ‘Lover’ spelled backwards, and we know Richey had issues with ideas of love, relationships, sex – some of the lyrics are sexual in nature, others are political insults. The first verse lists 20th Century Russian leaders in order (skipping some) as if equating their rules to to their sexual or emotional maturity. Second verse it dances around Europe, South America, everywhere following a similar format. The chorus is chanting of German words used in Concentration Camps. The word ‘revol’… sounds a bit like revolt, or revolution. Yeah, I’m as clueless as everyone else.

The Intense Humming Of All Evil

The Intense Humming Of Evil: 4/Great

US Version

One of the most intense, bleak, terrifying songs ever recorded – it’s difficult to say whether I prefer the original or the US version, one feels more barren and hopeless, the other feels more sinister with its creeping undercurrent of godless whispers. Whichever you choose to listen to, you’ll be subjecting yourself to abject horror as we take an appropriately stark look at the Holocaust, replete with Darth Vader gas mask breathing to supplement the death march beat, hellish vocals, and guitars which range from creeping damned rattles and spectral, ear-piercing shrieks. From the stark, long, quotation opening to the sputtering ending where the beat becomes slower and more faint like a life disappearing, it is a harrowing experience. Yes it is angry, overflowing with guilt and rage almost intangibly so, but it is the horror, the desolate, entirely inhuman nature of it all which will stay with you like watching newsreel footage of an extermination camp or seeing the crushed remains of a person still splayed under the wheels of a car.

Misheard Lyrics: The entire intro

2. I’m not afraid

3. Harvey Casey breathes us sir (?)

4. Pot luck trees

5. Dignity girl

6. Never combat

Actual Lyrics: No, I’m not pasting it here

2. Arbeit Macht Frei

3. Hartheim Castle breathes us in

4. Poplar trees

5. Dignity gone

6. Never counted

Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart

Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart: 4/great

It’s always been a mystery to me why the band never quite hit it off in America, at least from a purely musical perspective. The band released their first albums at the height of grunge and shared many similarities with the leading US guitar bands of the period. They were angry, introspective, sensitive, knew how to shred, and had a political and moral stance. Of course much of their politics was anti-american in some ways, or even (horror or horrors) Communist leaning. When you look back at what bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine were saying at their peak – they too were rallying against the right leaning US policies of the time, and their fans were loyal to the cause – all the more reason for a band like the Manics to be popular. But no singles were released, they rarely toured, and received little to no exposure. This second track from The Holy Bible is a lyrical mass of politics and morality, a literal barrage of words and references and name-checking that even the most ardent student will struggle to keep up with. Musically it has the militaristic core that runs through The Holy Bible, with machine gun drumming, off centre robotic guitars, vocals that sound like they’re screamed through a megaphone, and a shifting structure that feels like a chaotic, absurd blend of blues rock riffage and heavy metal thrashing.

Misheard Lyrics: 1. A messenger from Santander and napalm.

2. Grenade, a heetee (?), pole in Nick a rock you are!

3. Big Mac, smack, fix our knees

4. Killer Mexico

5. Yeah I do speak so much of the abyss

6. Come down Harlem

7. Morning fine groovy first coffee of the day

Actual Lyrics: 1.Images of perfection, suntan, and napalm

2. Grenada, Haiti, Poland, Nicuragua

3. Big Mac, Smack, Phoenix R

4. Cuba Mexica

5. Your idols speak so much of the abyss

6. Compton Harlem

7. Morning fine serve your first coffee of the day

Ranking The Manics Songs – The Holy Bible

Well now, what the balls am I meant to do with this. It would be like trying to rank the songs of… no, there is no comparison – this is the greatest album of all time, ranking is futile. There’s really only one song I don’t think is on par with the rest, but it has the quintessential sound and tone of the album so it’s not one I can really drop. I’m going to do that in my own version of how the album should look, but I don’t expect anyone to agree with me. Here is the album ranked in terms of my personal favourites – at least 7 of these could be my number 1 on a different day, three others aren’t far behind, and the last three are still better than anything most bands could dream up:

1. Faster
2. PCP
3. 4st 7lbs
4. This Is Yesterday
5. Archives Of Pain
6. Mausoleum
7. Yes
8. Die In The Summertime
9. Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart
10. The Intense Humming Of Evil
11. Of Walking Abortion
12. Revol
13. She Is Suffering

As I said above replacing any of these is pointless, and no other songs from the era really fit musically. However, I think they could replace She Is Suffering with Too Cold Here – a version specifically recorded for the album (I don’t believe any such version exists) as it is a much stronger song. Judge Yrself could work better musically, though it’s not great lyrically, some might opt for Sculpture Of Man. I’d nominate Love Torn Us Under over those two, but under Too Cold Here. In any case, it’s perfect as it is.

Let us know your ranking in the comments!

Mausoleum

Generic Ratings: 1: Crap. 2: Okay. 3: Good. 4: Great

Continuing throughout the caustic middle berth of The Holy Bible, this is one of the heaviest and most violent songs, and is certainly the most dense when the lyrics and music are bunched together. The structure isn’t complex, but it definitely appears that way given how breathlessly, impossibly the lyrics are spat out. There’s a creepy, incessant throng of insidious malevolence, the chorus is a guttural expulsion of anguish and disgust, the whole song feels like an exorcism, a cleansing of the blackest oil, but the sudden end suggests that nothing is resolved, nothing is better, and no amount of primal rage will diffuse the malignant vileness brooding inside.

Mausoleum – 4/Great

Misheard Lyrics: 1. Your mother’s tea is rotten/Humanity’s another

2. Answers her cries

3. Life bleeds the signs of all the victims

Actual Lyrics: 1. Humanity’s recovered

2. Answers her crimes

3. Life is so silent for the victims

Archives Of Pain

Generic Ratings: 1. Crap. 2: Ok. 3: Good. 4: Great

A truly brutal, horrific song which causes revulsion and has an atmosphere which any number of metal bands try their entire careers to generate and almost always fail. We know the state of Richey’s mind at this point, but the band’s creative powers were at their peak so the blending of music, lyrics, visuals, and atmosphere all comes together to make something charred and ugly, and yet, absolutely flawless. The guitars are particularly crushing, Bradfield’s vocals are those of a hundred widows, while Wire’s bass line may be the most sinister ever committed to tape. Lyrically it’s as you would expect – in that it’s nothing like you would ever expect, the chorus simply a cascading list of the names of serial killers. It also closes with one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.

Misheard Lyrics: 1. Kill Yeltsin, Hussain.

2. Not punish us with champagne.

Actual Lyrics: 1. Kill Yeltsin, who’s saying?

2. Not punish less, rise the pain.

Archives Of Pain: 4/Great