Holy Bible, The - Manic Street Preachers > Reviews > Do Not Listen To A Word I Say

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	The best album of all time
Disadvantages:	But only in my opinion

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Holy Bible is possibly the darkest LP you’ll ever hear if you ever listen to it (unless you’re a goth or something and then it’s the happiest CD you’ll ever hear). It was released in 1994, the same year that Take That were at their peak and Blur released the catalyst for Britpop, Parklife, but it’s safe to say that this is far removed from the sound of the charts.

Richey Edwards, the band’s enigmatic “poet who can’t play guitar” wrote the lyrics to this album in the deepest, darkest depression, weighed down by the world’s problems. His lyrical cohort Nicky Wire had little input into the lyrics in what is in my opinion the greatest lyrical work of all time. But as this album came just before Richey’s subsequent disappearance so much attention has been put onto the words of this album that the superb soundtrack, by James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore has been largely forgotten.

It begins with Yes a song with a driving bassline and muted guitars. This is the anit-capitalism of the Manics (who are on Sony Records!) at their sloganeering best. “All virgins are liars” “Power produces desire”. This is typical Manics, but for insight into Richey’s mindset we need look no further than “I hurt myself to get pain out”. The anger of this song is echoed throughout the album, but it marks a powerful opener.

Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit’sworldwouldfallapart is a song with a very catchy title. Those with an eye for grammar may spot that the Manics maybe aren’t as smart they think, judging by a discrepancy in the title (no, not the lack of spacing). This song goes some way to explaining why the band have never succeeded in breaking the US market.

Of Walking Abortion has a thudding bassline and eighties guitar and a generous of curse words. Again the sloganeering is back with the chorus chant “We are all of walking abortions / Shalom, shalom / We all love our children”. The scraping guitars from Bradfield really enhance the darkness of Richey’s words and the military style drums are superb.

She Is Suffering is possibly the most accessible song on the album, but it is probably the bleakest single ever released into the charts. It doesn’t sound dissimilar to Every Breath You Take by The Police. Again the lyrics are sublime, who else could conjure something like “Beauty, she poisons unfaithful all / Stifled, her touch is leprous and pale”. But it’s easy to forget that the lyrics would be nothing without the music to accompany it.

This album contains quite a lot of recordings of voices and Archives Of Pain has a very dark soundclip says “I think you are the devil itself”. This song is extremely dark with some of the finest lyrics Richey ever wrote. I could quote the entire song, but I can only pick out a few words such as “If hospitals cure / Then prisons must bring their pain” and “Sterilise rapists / All I preach is extinction”. Like other songs on the album, the chorus name-checks many famous figures, in this song it is a list of mass murderers and fascists such as Brady and Le Penn. Again the music enhances the theme greatly, with Bradfield’s screeching guitars. The outro of this song is also fantastic from a musical perspective as it mutates into what must have been superb to listen to live (they had dropped most of the Holy Bible songs from their set when I went to see them).

The band and most others regard Revol as the worst on the album. You might note that it spells lover backwards, but it is obscure in the extreme as far as theme goes. It seems to be about Homo-erotic fantasies and dictators, but after that I’m baffled. It’s the closest the band get to in terms of their earliest sound on the album, but the lyrics were probably impossible to accompany.

4st 7lb is as graphic and bleak as you get in the narrow medium of song. The way it deals with anorexia (an affliction Richey had) is extremely frank and quite disturbing and it’s possible to tell why this album and Richey himself attracted so many lost souls. An example of this can be culled from the words such as “I want to be so skinny / That I rot from view / I want to walk in the snow / And not leave a footprint”. That Richey could find something pure and seemingly beautiful in this disease says a lot about his mindset.

Mausleum is a thumping, driving song in which Richey seems to be contemplating the evil of what Lenin and Stalin did in Russia. The words are used to create very bleak images, for example “No birds / No birds / The sky is swollen black”.

“I hate purity / I hate goodness / I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere / I want the whole world corrupt”. This is the sound clip that opens Faster, a song that is still a live favourite. It is a fast paced, punky track full of vibrant energy in which Richey seems to have been contemplating his own literary brilliance. “I am stronger than Mensa, Miller and Mailer”. Judging by the words, I guess that Nicky must have a had a good input into this track as it is far lighter (in relative terms) to the rest of the album.

This Is Yesterday is a song soaked in melancholy and is a touchingly beautiful track. It’s possible to get a look into Richey’s mind with this song. The lyrics tell us “Do not listen to a word I say / Just listen to what I can keep silent / The only way to gain approval / Is by exploiting the very thing that cheapens”. It seems that he was the only one conscious and embarrassed by the fact that selling his art was doing his integrity harm, unlike the other three who seem blissfully aware off this contradiction. The music is wonderful though with a beautiful guitar solo.

Die In The Summertime is darker than night in many respects. The opening lines remind us of Richey’s infamous ‘4 Real’ stunt when James sings “Scratch my leg with a rusty nail / Sadly it heals”. “I have crawled so far sideways / I recognise dim traces of creation / I want to die…” Does the chorus confirm that Richey took his own life?

The award for darkest song on the album (no mean feat, I can tell you) must go to The Intense Humming Of Evil. This song, accompanied by a picture of the gate of Austwitz on the sleeve is just as disturbing as pictures of the bodies of holocaust victims that we have seen on TV such is the intensity of the lyrics. The sound-clip at the beginning fades into a de-tuned bass and military style drums. The idea of “Six million screaming souls” is one that should never be forgotten by humanity, but the final line as a testament to Richey’s perception of the world as he proclaims “Churchill no different / Wished the workers bled to a machine”.

After this track, PCP is almost like an after-though or an encore, but the punk vibrance of this track is fantastic and is a good failsafe to make sure that the listener doesn’t leave their stereo in dire need to take their own life. The track rips though the absurd idea of political correctness. Sean Moore shows how damn good a drummer he is in this track too and the guitar solo is wild without being over the top. The slogans return too with lines like “Pro life equals anti-choice” and “PCP – a PC pyrrhic victory.

In my view this is the finest LP of all time. It has the greatest collection of lyrics, excellent song-writing, superb musicianship and great production. But it is by no means an album for the masses, it is intellectual without being pretentious (unlike just about every other Manics release) and a lot of what is said still flies over my head. The music is just as dark at times too. What I would suggest is that you log onto a website and read the lyrics in full. The words don’t have the construct of poetry, but are as complex as Plath and the rest. It is a tiny look into a great mind, a mind we will never see into again.