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A Design for Life

Manic Street Preachers
Language: English


Manic Street Preachers

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A Design for Life
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The song’s lyrics are usually thought to be themed around working class solidarity, and make specific reference to the value of libraries, which have historically allowed poorer people to learn on their own terms through books – by contrast, owning books has historically been the preserve of the educated rich (and books of course remain expensive today, particularly factual ones). This line was directly inspired by the band’s time in public libraries when they were young. The lines “we don’t talk about love / we only want to get drunk” are a play on upper class assumptions about poor people – the idea that the lives of “the proles” are dominated by idle pursuits like drinking and that they ostensibly don’t have a capacity for philosophy or independent thought. Naturally, the Manics rail against this narrow-minded idea. By contrast, the song was famously misunderstood by some at the time, who saw the song as a kind of laddish drinking anthem.

Like ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ before it, ‘A Design For Life’ began as two songs – one written under that title designed to play up the positive aspects of working class life and another, named ‘The Pure Motive’ which was about the darker side and was inspired by ‘To Be A Somebody’, a 1994 episode of Jimmy McGovern’s crime series Cracker. In the episode, Robert Carlyle plays a killer working to avenge the deaths of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. This event would itself be the inspiration for a later Manics track, ‘S.Y.M.M.’, the closing track on This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. Parts of ‘The Pure Motive’ were absorbed into ‘A Design For Life’, resulting in the final version.
(tratto da Manic Street Preachers. A Critica Discography)


“Le biblioteche ci diedero il potere / poi venne il lavoro e ci rese liberi / Che prezzo ora per un pezzetto di dignità.”



“Knowledge is Power” – frase attribuita al filosofo, statista e scienziato inglese Francis Bacon (1561-1626) - è la scritta che campeggiava sulla facciata delle vecchia biblioteca di Pillgwenlly, Newport, a pochi chilometri da Blackwood, la città gallese di cui sono originari i membri dei Manics. L’edificio che ospitava quella biblioteca era stato costruito agli inizi del 900 non grazie a qualche ricco benefattore ma per iniziativa dei minatori del carbone della zona, gente povera e illetterata che aveva organizzato una colletta per garantire un futuro migliore a sé e ai propri figli.



Il secondo verso – “Then work came and made us free” – parafrasa l’ “Arbeit macht frei (il lavoro rende liberi) nazista che – e siamo al terzo verso – soltanto il sistema di sfruttamento capitalistico ha portato a compimento.



I versi successivi – “Noi non parliamo d’amore / Vogliamo solo ubriacarci” – mirano a confutare il luogo comune di una classe lavoratrice indifferente al proprio destino di sfruttamento. Nel testo sono innestate anche strofe risalenti ad una canzone che poi non ebbe seguito, che avrebbe dovuto intitolarsi “The Pure Motive” e in cui i Manics volevano parlare della strage di Hillsborough del 1989, quando durante una partita di calcio decine di tifosi del Liverpool morirono nella calca causata dall’assenza di misure di sicurezza e dalla condotta criminale delle forze di polizia, che caricarono quelli che cercavano di mettersi in salvo invadendo il campo di gioco.
Alla strage di Hillsborough i Manics hanno poi dedicato una canzone inclusa nell’album “This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours” del 1998 e intitolata “S.Y.M.M.”, ossia “South Yorkshire Mass Murderer”.
Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now
For a shallow piece of dignity

I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my dirty face
To wear the scars
To show from where I came

We don't talk about love
We only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life

I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my pretty face
To wear the scars
To show from where I came

We don't talk about love
We only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life

We don't talk about love
We only want to get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
A design for life
A design for life
A design for...

Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2015/12/1 - 15:09




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