I wasn't making the s up. You're right they did a lot of drugs but grew out of that. In the end the thing that they rejected was the hard drugs , but too late. Read their own words from an interview in Melody Maker May 13th 1995:
MANI (unprompted): "Good Times is just a focus on what's happenin'. Everyone's on smack. Fin' up."
Mani you said recently that 14 of your friends had died in the last year because of heroin. Is that true?
MANI: "Not any more. It's 15 now. Another one went last week -methadone. It's a scourge, man. A f***in' waste."
...
John, there were reports in a US tabloid that you'd had a serious problem with cocaine during the making of Second Coming. Correct? (Mani and Ian shuffle uneasily in their chairs.)
JOHN (staring at the table): "Yeah. I did too much."
How serious was the problem? (Cue distracting noises from Ian and Robbie.)
JOHN: "It made me anti-social."
....
It has been suggested that the sessions were typified by bouts with heavy drugs, depression, rows, laziness and incompetence. How far is this true?
IAN: "True… but with a lot of hard work in the end."
...and finally...
There's always been a lot of religion in the Stone Roses music, from the lyrics of Resurrection to the title 'Second Coming' and the imagery on Driving South. Why do you take so much from The Bible?
JOHN: "It's unconscious. Resurrection was Ian's and Second Coming, that's public domain, innit? I thought it was cocky and tongue-in-cheek at the same time."
IAN: "I read The Bible whenever it takes me. I read Exodus a lot during the Gulf War, when we were recording in Wales. It hit home cos here was this rich family who was bringing the biggest army in the world to kill poor people. We couldn't do anything to stop it."
Could God have done something to stop it?
IAN (thoughtfully): "Yeah. God's creative, not destructive. God is a creation."
One thing I particularly liked about Love Spreads were the lyrics "The Messiah is my sister", which sound really innocuous when you hear them on the radio but in fact you're questioning thousands of years of Christianity by saying that. It's a casually controversial thing to have in a pop song.
IAN: "I don't see it as controversial."
Tell that to the Pope!
IAN: "Well, if you read the Dead Sea scrolls, they tell you that Mary Magdalene gave Him his power."
ROBBIE: "Do you know what The Bible calls the church? 'She'. It's like what The Bible calls the earth, 'Mother Earth'."
Maybe, but it's always been written that God/Jesus was a Him. You could be on the brink of a major religious and political storm here, with people - in Italy or Ireland say - burning records in the street like they did with The Beatles!
JOHN: "The idea of the song is, 'Why couldn't Jesus have been a black woman?' It's just an attack on the white guy with a beard sittin' on a cross, cos that reinforces the patriarchal society."
I wasn't making the s up. You're right they did a lot of drugs but grew out of that. In the end the thing that they rejected was the hard drugs , but too late. Read their own words from an interview in Melody Maker May 13th 1995: MANI (unprompted): "Good Times is just a focus on what's happenin'. Everyone's on smack. Fin' up."
Mani you said recently that 14 of your friends had died in the last year because of heroin. Is that true?
MANI: "Not any more. It's 15 now. Another one went last week -methadone. It's a scourge, man. A f***in' waste." ... John, there were reports in a US tabloid that you'd had a serious problem with cocaine during the making of Second Coming. Correct? (Mani and Ian shuffle uneasily in their chairs.) JOHN (staring at the table): "Yeah. I did too much." How serious was the problem? (Cue distracting noises from Ian and Robbie.) JOHN: "It made me anti-social." .... It has been suggested that the sessions were typified by bouts with heavy drugs, depression, rows, laziness and incompetence. How far is this true? IAN: "True… but with a lot of hard work in the end." ...and finally... There's always been a lot of religion in the Stone Roses music, from the lyrics of Resurrection to the title 'Second Coming' and the imagery on Driving South. Why do you take so much from The Bible?
JOHN: "It's unconscious. Resurrection was Ian's and Second Coming, that's public domain, innit? I thought it was cocky and tongue-in-cheek at the same time."
IAN: "I read The Bible whenever it takes me. I read Exodus a lot during the Gulf War, when we were recording in Wales. It hit home cos here was this rich family who was bringing the biggest army in the world to kill poor people. We couldn't do anything to stop it."
Could God have done something to stop it?
IAN (thoughtfully): "Yeah. God's creative, not destructive. God is a creation."
One thing I particularly liked about Love Spreads were the lyrics "The Messiah is my sister", which sound really innocuous when you hear them on the radio but in fact you're questioning thousands of years of Christianity by saying that. It's a casually controversial thing to have in a pop song.
IAN: "I don't see it as controversial."
Tell that to the Pope!
IAN: "Well, if you read the Dead Sea scrolls, they tell you that Mary Magdalene gave Him his power."
ROBBIE: "Do you know what The Bible calls the church? 'She'. It's like what The Bible calls the earth, 'Mother Earth'."
Maybe, but it's always been written that God/Jesus was a Him. You could be on the brink of a major religious and political storm here, with people - in Italy or Ireland say - burning records in the street like they did with The Beatles!
JOHN: "The idea of the song is, 'Why couldn't Jesus have been a black woman?' It's just an attack on the white guy with a beard sittin' on a cross, cos that reinforces the patriarchal society."