I have a recap coming up in a couple of posts, in which I’ll name the best/worst/weirdest/dullest of the most recent number one singles. But if I ever decide to dish out awards for ‘Best Song Title’, then we’ll have an easy all-time winner…
If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, by Manic Street Preachers (their 1st of two #1s)
1 week, from 30th August – 6th September 1998
I make the nine-word ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’, to be the second longest chart-topping title not to feature brackets (and obviously not counting double-‘A’s). Bonus points for naming the eleven-word winner of that award… Anyway, so far so interesting. But is the song any good…?
Well, the dreamy reverb on the guitars is cool, and the song has a big, beefy wall-of-sound feel to it. It’s confident, and orchestral, and as the lead single from their fifth album it declares the Manics to be perhaps the biggest band in post-Britpop Britain. It’s also fairly mid-tempo, a bit Radio 2, when compared to some of their earlier, spikier hits.
Of course, with a title like that, the lyrics were surely going to be the most interesting aspect of this song. And on one level they don’t let us down. So if I can shoot rabbits, Then I can shoot fascists… is a line unlike most others in the preceding seven hundred and ninety-eight #1s. Inspiration for the song came from a Spanish Civil War-era poster, showing a child killed by Franco’s forces with the title-line printed below. The singer is singing from a modern viewpoint though, and feels gutless when he thinks about the generations before him who fought fascism.
The lyrics are also what leave me a little cold, when faced with writing a post on this record. I’d like to celebrate the Manics making number one – a rock song making number one in the very poppy charts of late ’98 – but they have better songs in their canon. And it’s not that I’m put off by the preachy-ness of it (the hint is in the band’s name, after all), but ‘A Design for Life’ did the socialist-statement-with-strings-and-a-massive-chorus much better than this two years earlier (and only made #2). ‘If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next’ is a little too on the nose, a little too much edge without substance. And, removed from the song’s actual lyrics, it can be co-opted by any crackpot conspiracy theorists, as happened in 2009 when the BNP used the song on their website.
I go through phases with the Manics where I listen to them a lot; and then at other times I seem to forget they exist. They always remained somewhat outside the world of Britpop, pre-dating the movement by several years, and by managing hits well into the 2000s, long after most of the other big nineties rock acts had imploded. I do like them, though. And just to prove that I don’t mind political statements in songs, as long as the song itself is strong enough to carry said statement, I will be giving their second number one a glowing write-up.
***I should also mention that I’ve written a post for Kinks Week at Powerpop Blog, which was published earlier today. Please do check it out, along with the rest of Max’s always entertaining and informative posts on music and pop culture!***
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Thanks Stewart, I always wondered just what this one was about. I remember them quoting Gladstone (Masses…classes) but hadn’t done my research to check out the origins of this one. Not sure I like this one a lot, but as you say it did stand out from there poppies of som much of what surrounded it. And a big thank you to pointing me in the direction of Powerpop, which I’d never come across until now – and your first-rate Kinks piece.
Thanks! Glad to point you in the direction of a great blog. Plus, Max’s musical choices don’t tend towards the Boyzones and the B*Witcheds, so you may find it’s more to your tastes : )
……oh my lack of proof-reading again in a hurry. and that autocorrect nonsense….’…from the poppiness of so much…’
They were bought up in Blackwood, about 2 miles from where I grew up. The opening line of Design For Life (libraries gave us power then work etc) was carved into the facade above the entrance to the library in Newport city centre ( nod to Newport’s links to the Chartist movement I think). A lot of the Manics and Stereophonics lyrics have local cultural references that Gen X and early Millennials from south east Wales ‘get’. Local Boy in a photograph by the phonics is another one. I used to drink occasionally in the pub where the Manics wrote a lot of their early lyrics whilst getting more and more drunk in the early 90’s, before Richie disappeared. Sorry to be a bore!
Not boring at all! Very interesting – have you ever met any of them? I’ve always admired the Manics proud Welshness, and their socialism, but at them same time found it does sometimes put a barrier between me and their music, if that makes sense…
No I’ve never met them. I worked with a couple of girls who were in school with two of them but that’s as it goes. The pub is off the beaten track and by the time I discovered it it was because it was mentioned in a local newspaper article about them after ‘Everything Must Go’ was released, so they weren’t regulars anymore
Not a bad song. And a good reminder for me to revisit Manic Street Preachers.
I previously covered (somewhat randomly) “A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun”, an album track from their 10th studio release “Postcards from a Young Man,” which came out in September 2010.
They have been very consistent with their singles throughout their career. Definitely worth a revisit!
I’ve heard the name Manic Street Preachers, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song by this band. This is a pretty decent song. I like the lyrics. The opening line “The future teaches you to be alone, the present to be afraid and cold” is a great one. Music video’s cool. Sonically, it sounds more in common with 2000s alt-rock/pop rock – the type of U2-influenced rock that a lot of bands in the 2000s were doing, for example Coldplay – -than 90s rock.
Interesting music video.
Yes, this is probably the first post-Britpop number one, and a sign of things to come (not that many of those 2000s alt-rock hits will be getting to number one…)
You should definitely check out the Manics. This is decent enough, but it’s far from their best song. They started out as way more glam-punk in the early 90s, before the disappearance of their guitarist Richey Edwards (whose body has never been found) and a shift in sound to more stadium rock.
“What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For?” by Emile Ford & The Checkmates – I make that 11 words, but I am somewhat the worse for wear at the moment.
Precisely! I hope the knowledge that you got this right makes you feel better…
I’ve heard their name over and over again but never really listened to them as much….I looked up the song and lyrics…it IS preachy but I would guess that is their style. Didn’t one of their members vanish?
Thanks for the plug as well!
Well the clue is in the name… lol. This is one of their preachier numbers, I’d say, so don’t be put off. They’re worth exploring.
Yes, Richey Edwards disappeared in 1995, presumed suicide. But nothing’s ever been proven, and a body never found, leading to all sorts of theories…
I do plan on exploring them. Hey at least they know what a guitar is and they don’t dance in a field of flowers.
Yes! I remember watching a crime show on him…that is terrible. Something like that happened to a folk singer…it’s worth it if you are ever bored Stewart…her name was Connie Converse…but they think she took up a new identity….they are almost positive.
Oh wow, she just upped and left! I mean, good for her if that’s what happened…
It sounds cliched, but the best place to start with the Manics is a Greatest Hits. They’re such a good singles band. ‘The Holy Bible’ and ‘Everything Must Go’ are seen as their best albums.
With Edwards, his car was found near a bridge, with the assumption that he jumped and was washed out to sea.
I loved this record, a big-sounding grandiose single in the vein of Design For Life or Motorcycle Emptiness, almost a Phil Spector vibe to me on all 3 of those singles, and a big chart-topping run in my personal charts for this one. I just took the title on face value, and as a basic principle to take notice and fight for injustice it really works. As I’d never looked at the lyrics in detail that bit about killing fascists passed me by – that makes me uneasy, but I still think it’s one of their best records before they dropped the ball a bit until the noughties highlights with an album I downloaded, and that great single with The Cardigans’ Nina Persson, Your Love Alone Is Not Enough. I’ve always been a bit hit and miss on The Manics, sometimes great sometimes not so great, but obviously I lean more towards their more-pop-oriented stuff than the shouty, posturing stuff – but I still buy their stuff, so they must be doing something right!
I like this, but it does feel like a slight retread of the orchestral ‘Design for Life’, which is one of the 90s greatest singles, and which should have been a #1… But I do also enjoy many of their singles, including their next number one, ‘Richard Nixon’, ‘Autumnsong’… without knowing too much about them at album level.
Like a previous poster, I also grew up in the same area. It’s tricky to describe exactly what that post coal mining era was like in the South Wales valleys. Towns, communities, lives and prospects had been ripped apart and the Manics politics were shaped around that. Anger, fury, rage, ideology set the tone for the early career but then shifted to something a bit more mellow with Everything Must Go success. Though ‘Tolerate’ maybe weaker than ‘A Design For Life’, delving further into the lyrics lets it stand the test of time IMO. It still staggers me that this made number 1 in the Pop Idol era. But I’d urge you to find it and listen to the lyrics again whilst thinking about the current Russia-Ukraine war. To me, this isn’t just a random Spanish Civil War angle because they’ve got tired of socialist ideals. But then I’m a big fan. Enjoyed your post though. Good work.
If interested, James DB + an acoustic guitar + IYTTYCWBN = haunting magic
https://youtu.be/1wULJgK8is0?si=mhajM6eufKlVS5Eb
Thanks! Yes, I didn’t mean to write the lyrics off, they do resonate. And the Manics have taken some different stances in their time. Having a #2 single reappraising Richard Nixon stands out in my mind…