Revol

Richey's comments on this were : "Revol/Lover - All adolescent leaders of men FAILED. All love FAILS. If men of the calibre of Lenin and Trotsky failed, then how can anyone expect anything to change? Won't get fooled again."

Mr. Lenin - awaken the boy Lenin, as the revolutionary leader of 1917, 'awakened' socialism/marxism

Mr. Stalin - bisexual epoch Once again, love/sex symbolism is used - 'bisexual' refers not to Stalin's sexual orientation but his seemingly dualistic appearance.

Kruschev - self love in his mirrors Kruschev, as Stalin's successor cultivated a different kind of image of himself. "Self-love in his mirrors" possibly refers to his apparent jocular approach in front of the cameras.

Brezhnev - married into group sex Perhaps this refers to Brezhnev's interventionist foreign policy, more commonly known as "The Brezhnev doctrine" under which the Soviet Union reserved the right to intervene, with its Warsaw Pact allies, in the domestic affairs of satellite states in defense of socialism.

Gorbachev - celibate self importance As president, Gorbachev witnessed the demise of the Soviet Union - his failure (which Richey drew upon) was his inability to prevent the breakup of his country into smaller independent states.

Yeltsin - failure is his own impotence Economic meltdown, internal unrest, the reemergence of the communist party, and growing humiliation

Richey said that the relevance of the political figures to the statements that follow are analogies. I like Dr Strangelove's interpretations, they stand up well. The second stanza's harder to interpret, possibly because I don't know enough about the political figures - Chamberlain is obviously the British Prime Minister who famously declared that he had established 'peace in our time' a year before WWII broke out (chuckle), so that line figures, and Che Guevara was assassinated, which might offer a literal translation for 'You're all target now', but I'm struggling with the rest. I'm intrigued to know what the connection between the leader of the Nation of Islam (Farrakhan) and alimony is. If there even is one. This is a song I like musically, and am baffled by lyrically - it's probably the most radio-friendly of all the songs on The Holy Bible.

This is how Richey describes the thinking behind the lyrics:

'All adolescent leaders of men FAILED. All love FAILS. If men of the calibre of Lenin and Trotsky failed, then how can anyone expect anything to change. Won't get fooled again.'

Which is really depressing (but hey, this IS The Holy Bible). He begins with a critique of Russian communism, logically enough considering that the Manics were big on Marxism. Personally don't agree with the over-riding sentiment that we're all fallible, and that hence there is no hope - if I did I'd kill myself - but there you go.

'Revol' is 'Lover' backwards. The song considers the fact that these politicians/revolutionaries were indeed bad lovers, with poor personal relationships. The chorus lyrics: "Lebensraum" is German for 'living space' a concept presented in Nazi Germany. "Kulturkampf" again is German, translating as roughly 'culture struggle'.

i think The 'Honeymoon' bit about Trotsky is about what Trotsky did after being exiled. He was made to leave Russia and renowned for travelling all around the globe (a la a honeymoon) and bieng rejected from several different Countries. But I haven't a clue what the 'seranade the naked' bit is about.

At the very end of the song (@ around 2:49), he says something before Revol. Does anyone know? I thought it might be "Shot down the Revol", but i'm not sure.

Also what is the last thing JDB says in the song (after the last 'fila fila' @ 2:58)? I can't understand him.

I sometimes find it difficult to understand him. :)

Much thanks, xxShelbie

Raus means 'get outside' and fila means 'form a line', apparently. According to Ben Myer's Richard: A Novel, this made the Manics the first songwriters to have 'written a pop song based upon the orders of Nazi death-camp guards'.

Personally, "Trotsky-honeymoon-serenade the naked" is the hardest analogy to figure out. I suppose it might make more sense to someone who knows enough about Trotsky. All the others can be figured out by looking at a brief rundown of their political actions on Wikipedia or somewhere similar.

This is a great song to confuse people with, they hardly ever know what in the heck it's talking about.

i think The 'Honeymoon' bit about Trotsky is about what Trotsky did after being exiled. He was made to leave Russia and renowned for travelling all around the globe (a la a honeymoon) and bieng rejected from several different Countries. But I haven't a clue what the 'seranade the naked' bit is about.

I think the Trotsky line, like someone said earlier, is after he was exiled, and, while I'm no expert on Leon, I assume he "spread the message" of Socialism in the various countries he entered and exited, hence "serenade the naked".