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  #61  
Old 01-02-2011, 16:23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lydia View Post
I hate the line in Mr Carbohydrate (I think it's that one anyway,) about wanting to work in a bank. Go on then Wire, get on with it. Quit the job that thousands would love to have and go and work in a bank. Seemingly he doesn't really want that, because he's still in the Manics, in which case he shouldn't have whinged in the first place.
Isn't it more that others see him as not behaving in a manner befitting a "rock star" so he might as well go work in a bank as he'd presumably be seen to fit in more there?

That's always been my take on it. Although I guess like the "pointless jobs lead to pointless lives" line, it could be seen as them belittling people in mundane employment.
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  #62  
Old 02-02-2011, 10:59
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Quote:
Originally Posted by counterlanguage View Post
"Oh, good god, I feel like a liberal"

...and other Nicky-does-a-facepalm moments in Manics lyrics, which I can't remember at the moment
I thought this line was pretty good actually - in fact I like all of 'Rendition', as I don't quite understand it all, and every time I return to it I find a new reading possible. Out of interest, what did you take it to mean, and why does it annoy you so?

On the "pointless jobs, pointless lives" question, a lot of you have put forward very plausible ideas that I hadn't considered. In the context of the whole album, I heard it as an expression of some kind of crisis in the idea of mechanical socialism: I remember Orwell being quite sceptical of the dream of spending a few hours in a mindless mechanical job (I think his verson was 'pressing my button at the ketchup factory') and then having hours to engage in self-defining/fulfilling activities in your leisure time. Perhaps, it turns out, such jobs are so poorly paid that very long hours become a necessity, and the process repeats itself so that class distinctions remain embedded. Isn't there a programme about the persistance of the class system on tonight? Anyway, it was just a thought.
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  #63  
Old 06-02-2011, 23:20
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Lol, let's all man up! Richey used to call us fans maggots and no one bitched.
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  #64  
Old 07-02-2011, 05:32
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Manic Street Hippie View Post
For me, it's the line 'pointless jobs lead to pointless lives', in an otherwise great song. It just seems a little unfair, that they are three talented and loved musicians, who don't have to work 'pointless jobs' like th erest of us with 'pointless lives'. It just seems a little out of touch to my mind.
Very good point.

Contrast this pathetic pseudo-political line with some of their earlier Marxist influenced situationist style rants/rhetoric/slogans and it pales in comparison.

Wire hasn't written a good political line since last time an American president was impeached.
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  #65  
Old 07-02-2011, 13:19
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Originally Posted by love made out of hate View Post
Lol, let's all man up! Richey used to call us fans maggots and no one bitched.
This.

I don't mind the "freaks" line in Underdogs - I tend to interpret it more about how others percieve the Manics and the fanbase, rather than how Nicky percieves us or we percieve ourselves. It's probably less offensive than "don't fall in love coz we hate you still" if you think about it.

It's also similar to Suede's Trash in a way - songs about being part of somethng that others may find odd.
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  #66  
Old 07-02-2011, 13:23
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The phrasing of the line "cowering behind divided curtains" in Nixon. James sounds like he's forgotten the words and remembered them at the last minute. They should have changed it to something that fits.
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  #67  
Old 07-02-2011, 13:35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Porco View Post
Partly, but he's talked in interviews about 'lies' and blogs and forum posts in relation to the song. But the whole notion is ludicrous that the internet is some revolution in consuming boredom and time-wasting and gossip and half-truths.

So you read a rumour on a website instead of hearing it down the pub? Big deal. Or you read an outright lie on a blog instead of the more traditional route of a tabloid newspaper. So what?

"Without any kind of consequence" Nicky? No, that's not true. In many ways the internet is great leveller of class and money and allows the wronged to make a blog or post on a forum, or get a twitter account, as much as the next person.

But most of all I just hate the sense of snobbery I get from it. I have a real problem that after a lifetime of addressing class issues from his background that in this song he's basically supporting the establishment, saying only 'real professionals' are allowed public opinions, and the great unwashed are just a billion liars, AND that anyone reading those lies lack the critical faculties of someone reading a real-life newspaper. I think it stinks, and if that isn't a message he wanted to imply then I consider the lyrics and his explanation of the song's meaning deeply unsatisfactory.

But I really do love the guitar solos.
I see your main points but I still think Wire has it right when he talks about 'without any kind of consequence'. This place seems to be the honourable exception but most message boards online can be deeply poisonous places and the anonymity that comes with pseudonyms and avatars can sometimes make people behave in ways that (hopefully) they wouldn't in real life. Just look at the tirade of abuse that can follow simply posting up a youtube video of anything. College Humor among others have brilliantly captured it in their 'Internet Comment Business Meeting'.
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  #68  
Old 07-02-2011, 13:36
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The first verse of Underdogs doesn't sit well with me.

"This one's for the freaks
For you're so beautiful
For all the devotion
Written in your soul"

Freaks, fair enough. Beautiful, fair enough to most of you but not to me. Devotion? This band has cost me things like passport, nice clothes, other gigs, actual holidays to places that aren't Blackburn..

Course, I love it but damn, it's horrible when I think of what I could've done with all that money instead...
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  #69  
Old 07-02-2011, 16:29
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"Worms in the garden more real than a McDonalds"

*shudder*
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  #70  
Old 07-02-2011, 16:33
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarilynRoxie View Post
"Worms in the garden more real than a McDonalds"

*shudder*
"We follow a Shining Path / That you will never destroy"

For a student of politics he really should know better.
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  #71  
Old 07-02-2011, 20:26
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'This reason for this song, well I haven't really thought of one.'

Well don't bother writing it then!
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  #72  
Old 07-02-2011, 20:32
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'Tiny massive hands'

A line that still prevents me being able to listen to Fragments.
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  #73  
Old 07-02-2011, 20:41
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SeveredJoke View Post
"We follow a Shining Path / That you will never destroy"

For a student of politics he really should know better.
esp. as a student of politics he's right....totally agree with that one! AND you always have to have in mind that 'we' is not the same thing as 'we - including the people who think about development in society'....sounds more like a warning not to do that! didn' t so many people follow a 'shining' path like sheeps without thinking about consequenses?
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Last edited by purity; 07-02-2011 at 20:45.
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  #74  
Old 07-02-2011, 20:50
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Industrial Symphony No.1 View Post
It's more Nicky lamenting the decline of industry in this country and a criticism of the kind of jobs that are replacing them. It's like my (Lib Dem) MP writing in the local paper that yes, there will be job losses in public sector work, people with jobs that contribute something worthwhile to the community, but the private sector will offset these losses. What, like having to get a job in the new KFC that's opened in the high street? Oh thanks ever so much, I'm so grateful to you.
Ditto. That's how I see it. The title of the song sums up the uk and how we no longer produce anything. Working down a pit or on a car plant factory line is not pointless.
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  #75  
Old 07-02-2011, 21:01
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Quote:
Originally Posted by magicalbertie View Post
I don't know, I have nothing against the film, I just don't think the line fits in it's just a bad lyric. It doesn't make sense to me. Perhaps if I'd seen the film, it'd make more sense, I don't know.
The lyric goes "When I start to break free, it calls me back again, like the Godfather 3, I never can escape" so Nicky is talking about not being able to escape from something. Godfather 3 chronicles the inability of Al Pacino's character, Michael Corleone, to escape the mafia and his past sins. In one scene (often referenced in the Sopranos) he says; "Just when I thought I was out they pulled me back in". So whenever I hear the song I think of that and it makes sense to me, I don't see what people's problem with it is! The reference wouldn't work if he'd said The Godfather or The Godfather Part 2 which are admittedly the better films.
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Last edited by Industrial Symphony No.1; 07-02-2011 at 21:05.
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