The Manics released their debut album Generation Terrorists in 1992. Their combination of androgynous glam punk imagery, outspoken invective and songs about "culture, alienation, boredom and despair" soon gained them a loyal following and cult status. The band's later albums retained a politicized and intellectual lyrical style, while adopting a broader alternative rock sound. Enigmatic lyricist Richey Edwards gained early notoriety by carving the words "4 REAL" into his arm with a razor blade (narrowly missing an artery and requiring seventeen stitches) in response to the suggestion that the band were less than authentic. The dark nature of 1994's The Holy Bible reflected the culmination of Edwards' instability.
Following Edwards' disappearance, Bradfield, Moore, and Wire persisted with the Manic Street Preachers and went on to gain critical and commercial success, becoming one of Britain's premier rock bands. They have had eight top ten albums and fifteen top ten singles. They have reached number one three times, with their 1998 album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and the singles "If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" (1998) and "The Masses Against The Classes" (2000). The Masses Against The Classes Songfacts reports that the latter was the first UK #1 of 2000. They have also won the Best British Album and Best British Group accolades at the BRIT Awards in 1997 and 1999, and were lauded by the NME for their lifetime achievements in 2008. Their ninth studio album, Journal For Plague Lovers, was released on 18th May 2009 and features lyrics Edwards had left behind to the band weeks before his disappearance.
They came together in 1986, when James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Sean Moore and rhythm guitarist Flicker formed Betty Blue in the small South Wales town of Blackwood. Two years later, Flicker had left and Nicky's friend Richey Edwards (previously the group's driver) joined in his place. Richey would later say in Vox magazine, "If you built a museum to represent Blackwood, all you could put in it would be shit. We used to meet by this opening called Pen-y-Fan. It was built when the mines closed down but now the water has turned green and slimy. They put 2,000 fish in it, but they died. There's a whirlpool in the middle where about two people die every year". A bleak image, then, but it provided the necessary fuel to drive the band.
Inspired by the passion of The Clash, and moved by Thatcher's suppression of the miners, the band's lyrics exploded with politicised anger. Their first single, the self-financed Suicide Alley, didn't make great waves, and the band moved to London. There, they found a sympathetic character in the form of Bob Stanley: later a member of St Etienne, but then a freelancer for the Melody Maker.
Stanley released a collection of their demos as the New Art Riot EP in June 1990. It caught the attention of Philip Hall, who became their publicist and co-manager.
In early 1991 Heavenly released Motown Junk, an inspired three-minute punk blast. Later that year it was followed by You Love Us, a swaggering, arrogant self-regarding slice of brilliance.
The Manics paved the way for a resurgence of guitar bands in Wales. In the press, they were forced to live with punning headlines referring to sheep, boyos and leeks - they got all the clichés out of the way so the bands of the so-called Cool Cymru would be taken more seriously.
Yet their image often overshadowed the music. On 15 May 1991 came a turning point for the Manics. Following a gig at Norwich Arts Centre, Steve Lamacq, then writing for the NME, argued with the band that they were a cartoon band - not real punks. The band refuted this, but still Lamacq persisted. Frustrated, Richey Edwards took a razor and calmly carved the words 4 REAL into his forearm. Lamacq was horrified; Richey needed 17 stitches. Six days later the Manics signed to Sony. Richey had suffered from depression for many years, and self-mutilation had become increasingly common for him. But the Norwich incident was the first time the guitarist had aired his emotional problems in public.
In February 1992 the debut album Generation Terrorists was released. Heavily influenced by Appetite For Destruction, Richey said of it, "We wanted to sign to the biggest record label in the world, put out a debut album that would sell 20 million, and then break up. Get massive and then just throw it all away". The album sold 250,000 copies worldwide. Predictably they didn't split up, but the album polarised opinion between those that saw them as the new saviours of rock and roll, and detractors who considered them contrived and insincere. Not that the Manics cared: they were off on their first American tour, shortly after the LA riots, and singles such as Slash 'N' Burn and Motorcycle Emptiness were climbing up the charts.
The second Manics album was released in June 1993. Gold Against The Soul was overproduced and less passionate, but did contain the classic songs La Tristesse Durera (Scream To A Sigh) and From Despair To Where. However, they also chose to support Bon Jovi for a string of unwise live dates. The troubles continued with the death on 7 December 1993 of their mentor Philip Hall, who had been battling cancer for two years. Meanwhile, Richey's problems were worsening. Weighing less than six stone and subjecting his body to drinking and cutting binges, he was eventually admitted to the Priory in Roehampton.
Richey's despair was documented in what is now considered the Manics' masterpiece, 1994's 'The Holy Bible'. Unremittingly bleak, the opening song Yes contained the lines "I eat and I dress and I wash and I still can say thank you / Puking, shaking, sinking / Can't shout, can't scream, I hurt myself to get pain out". The song was about prostitution, but every line emanated from Richey's fragile state of mind. He rejoined the band for tours with Therapy? and Suede (and an early incarnation of Vitriol I.D.) in Europe, and a series of frantic shows at the London Astoria in December. The final night saw them destroying 10,000 worth of their equipment. "We'll never be that good again," said Nicky after the event. It was also their last live appearance as a four-piece.
Although they had never found transatlantic success, at the beginning of 1995 they were preparing to give America one last try. However, on 1 February Richey walked out of the Embassy hotel in London and never returned. His passport and money were found in his Cardiff Bay flat, and two weeks later his car was discovered beside the Severn Bridge - a notorious local suicide spot. The file on his disappearance remains open.
"We decided to carry on in April," said Nicky Wire in The Guardian, "after two months of waiting by the phone and feeling ill and exhausted. We thought we'd been so close, and in the end we couldn't do anything for him." September saw the band record a cover of Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head for the War Child "Help" album, and by January 1996 the Manics were recording their comeback album 'Everything Must Go'. It was released on 20 May to critical acclaim, went double platinum and yielded four top ten singles: 'A Design For Life', the title track, 'Kevin Carter' and 'Australia'. The sound represents a cross between the heavy rock of 'Gold Against The Soul' and a new, less agressive, almost Britpop like sound.
Two Brit Awards later, they released the LP This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours which gave the band their first number one single in If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, perhaps the only song that references the Spanish Civil War to ever appear on Top of the Pops.
On December 31st 1999 the band said goodbye to the 20th Century with a gig at Cardiff Millennium Stadium, attended by upwards of 50,000 people. This was followed by their second number one single, The Masses Against The Classes, which hit the top spot despite not having a video or marketing support from their record company.
Shortly afterwards, Nicky stated that "the fourth era of the Manics is beginning".
The fourth era, so far, has involved an audience with Fidel Castro in Cuba, the 2001 album Know Your Enemy, and continuing success. Their long awaited greatest hits collection, Forever Delayed, appeared in October 2002, followed in 2003 by Lipstick Traces, a two-disc collection of covers, B-sides, and outtakes including the last song recorded with Richey, 'Judge Yr'self'.
The Manics returned in November 2004 with the more reflective Lifeblood, which featured the singles The Love Of Richard Nixon and Empty Souls, both of which went straight in at number two in the charts.
Not to rest on their laurels, the band released a 10th anniversary edition of The Holy Bible in December 2004 which included a digitally remastered version of the original album, a never before heard U.S mix and a DVD of live performances and extras.
In April 2005 the Manics released a limited 3 track E.P. titled God Save The Manics as a free download but with hard copies distributed also without cost at the final date of their small, intimate 'Past Present and Future' tour at Hammersmith Apollo, London - their last show before a two year hiatus.
Later that year the band contributed the new track Leviathan to September's War Child charity album Help: A Day in the Life, becoming one of the few bands to contribute tracks to both albums.
2006 saw both James Dean Bradfield and Nicky Wire releasing solo albums, The Great Western and I Killed the Zeitgeist respectively. But both insisted that this in no way meant an end to the Manics and in December the band headlined XFM's Winter Wonderland gig in Manchester.
2007 sees the band enter yet another era with their 8th studio album, Send Away The Tigers, which was released on May 7th.
The album Journal For Plague Lovers was released in May 2009 and features lyrics left to the band by Richey before he disappeared. They released several different versions of the album, including a special edition, which has a book featuring copies of the original typed lyrics and pictures that went with them, and a bonus disc with all the original demos, recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, which they say is one of their favourite studios.
Their 10th studio album, Postcards from a Young Man, was released in September 2010. The album features several guest artists: Duff McKagan on A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun, John Cale on Auto-Intoxication and Ian McCulloch on Some Kind of Nothingness. A deluxe edition was also released containing a bonus disc with the original demos on it.
In 2011 the band released their second compilation National Treasures- The Complete Singles Collection, a release preceded by new single This Is The Day a cover of a ´¨The The song. The collection featured every single released since and including Motown Junk.
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Crucifix Kiss
Manic Street Preachers Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
We fall between indifference rejection and the whole fucking wall
We fall
Christin me fuhrer nazarine
Believe in tomorrow but not today
Give me all your possessions
Allow your leaders to control you
Questions are now blasphemy
Why walk when you can crawl
Stay on your knees and kiss my feet
Censorship'll stop your excess thought
Check your billboard for my tour
Listen to Luke sermon six
"And if one of the occupation troops
Forces you to carry his
Pack one kilometer carry it two"
Be a tourist in the war zone
Interrogate scriptures and not your stinking home
That diet of bread and waters old
Now feed on alcohol drug and do what you're told
Now we'll take your number for a name
Soak mind control in christening water out of jail
Fall in love, fall in love with me
Nail a crucifix onto your soul
Fall in love, fall in love with me
Nail a crucifix onto your soul
Fall in love, fall in love with me
Nail a crucifix onto your soul
Fall in love, fall in love with me
Nail a crucifix onto your soul
The lyrics to Manic Street Preachers' song "Crucifix Kiss" are a scathing indictment of religion, politics, and society. In the first verse, the lyrics suggest a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. The lines "so mighty so hegemonic so hating so desecrating so there so nowhere so hurting" describe a world that is dominated by powerful forces that are insensitive to human suffering. The second verse describes a twisted version of Christianity, where followers are asked to make poverty their "perfect home" and to give up all their possessions, while allowing their leaders to control their lives. Questions are deemed blasphemy, and obedience is the only option.
The chorus is both seductive and menacing. The singer invites the listener to fall in love with him and to "nail a crucifix onto your soul." The repetition of this line suggests a kind of brainwashing or manipulation, where the listener is being coerced into accepting a certain ideology or belief system. At the same time, the line is reminiscent of the Christian ritual of baptism, where water is used to cleanse the soul. The singer of the song is offering a different kind of purification, one that involves surrendering to his authority.
Overall, "Crucifix Kiss" is a provocative and challenging song that asks listeners to reconsider their beliefs and values. It is a powerful critique of authoritarianism, conformity, and blind faith.
Line by Line Meaning
So mighty so hegemonic so hating so desecrating so there so nowhere so hurting
We feel small and powerless in the face of a dominant force that actively hates and disrespects us, making us feel like we have nowhere to turn and causing us pain.
We fall between indifference rejection and the whole fucking wall
We are caught in a state of feeling ignored and rejected by society, unable to break free from the figurative wall that traps us.
We fall
Our hopelessness overwhelms us and we give in to defeat.
Christin me fuhrer nazarine
We are under the control and influence of a figure like a cult leader or dictator who claims to be religious in nature.
Believe in tomorrow but not today
We hold onto hope for a better future ahead, but struggle to find meaning or purpose in our current circumstance.
Give me all your possessions
Our leader demands complete control over our lives, including our material possessions.
Make poverty your perfect home
Our leader wants us to embrace poverty and hardship as a way of life and reject outside help, thus strengthening their hold over us.
Allow your leaders to control you
We are expected to submit completely to our leader and follow their decisions without question or hesitation.
Questions are now blasphemy
Our leader forbids questioning anything they say or do, equating it with a sin against God.
Why walk when you can crawl
Our leader wants us to abandon any sense of personal agency or ambition and simply follow their lead without question or protest.
Stay on your knees and kiss my feet
Our leader demands complete subservience and worship from us, treating us as their inferiors and expecting us to literally bow down to them.
Censorship'll stop your excess thought
Our leader controls all information that we receive, censoring anything that could inspire independent thinking or dissent.
Check your billboard for my tour
Our leader promotes themselves and their message through propaganda that is everywhere we look, from billboards to public spaces.
Listen to Luke sermon six
"And if one of the occupation troops
Forces you to carry his
Pack one kilometer carry it two"
Our leader uses religion as a tool of control, taking verses from the Bible out of context to justify their demands and manipulating us into accepting them.
Be a tourist in the war zone
Our leader encourages us to treat our suffering and hardship as if it were entertainment or a spectacle, rather than a true experience of human suffering.
Interrogate scriptures and not your stinking home
Our leader encourages us to question and doubt the words of religious texts, rather than looking critically at our own living conditions and hardships.
That diet of bread and waters old
The idea of living in poverty and subservience is not new or exciting, but rather a tired concept that has been around for centuries.
Now feed on alcohol drug and do what you're told
Our leader encourages us to engage in reckless and self-destructive behavior as a way of numbing ourselves to our hardship and making us easier to control.
Now we'll take your number for a name
Our leader strips us of our individuality and humanity, treating us as mere numbers in a system that they control.
Soak mind control in christening water out of jail
Our leader uses religion as a tool of control, brainwashing us with the idea that our suffering is part of God's plan and that we should submit to our leader to avoid eternal damnation.
Fall in love, fall in love with me
Nail a crucifix onto your soul
Our leader demands our love and worship, treating us as if we are committing ourselves to a religious calling by submitting to their will.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BRADFIELD, EDWARDS, JONES, MOORE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind