The Holy Bible (album) - Lyrics

Lyrics

Whereas lyric-writing on the two previous albums was split fairly evenly between Richey Edwards and Nicky Wire, the lyrics on The Holy Bible were 70-75% written by Edwards, according to James Dean Bradfield. Wire describes himself as largely responsible for "This Is Yesterday" and "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart", contributing only titles to some of the songs.

The album's lyrics deal with subjects including prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial-killers, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide. According to Q: "the tone of the album is by turns bleak, angry and resigned". The same magazine commented in 1994 that "even a cursory glance at the titles will confirm that this is not the new Gloria Estefan album".

Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go". According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking, 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'". Critic Simon Price notes that the potential radio-friendliness of the song is undermined by its focus on the subject of prostitution and the recurrence of sexual swearing in the lyric.

Interviewed at the time of the album's release, Nicky Wire said that the track "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" was "not a completely anti-American song", but was about "how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense". "Of Walking Abortion" is about right-wing totalitarianism, of which Wire commented: "there's a worm in human nature that makes us want to be dominated". "Archives of Pain", dealing with the glorification of serial killers and seemingly advocating capital punishment, he said, "was the song that me and Richey worried about most the song isn't a right wing statement, it's just against this fascination with people who kill". Later in 1994, Bradfield described the song as "one of the most important things we've done" but said it was also "very right-wing" and "miscalculated".

Wire described "Revol" as being about Edwards' idea that "relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures". "P.C.P.", he said, was about how "PC followers take up the idea of being liberal, but end up being quite the opposite". He said that he was "completely confused" by "Faster" (most of which he had written), although Edwards had told him that it was about self-abuse.

"Mausoleum" and "The Intense Humming of Evil", Wire said, were both inspired by visits by the band to former concentration camps at Dachau and Belsen. A first draft of the latter song had been considered insufficiently judgemental by Bradfield, who had asked for a re-write ("you can't be ambivalent about the Holocaust").

Wire said that "Die in the Summertime" and "4st 7lb" were "pretty obviously about Richey's state of mind". According to Edwards, the former song is about a pensioner wanting to die with memories of childhood in his mind. 4 stone 7 pounds (29 kg) is the weight below which death is reputed to become medically unavoidable for anorexics.

"This Is Yesterday", according to Wire, is "about how people always look back to their youth and look on it as a glorious period".

Wire and Bradfield have both expressed a disliking for the lyrics to the song "She Is Suffering", Wire saying it suffers from "man coming to the rescue syndrome". According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire".