Motown Junk' (1991, on Generation Terrorists) It's a hate song. It's just a blur of hatred, a constant tirade. Everything in our lives had been one long let-down. Nicky (1991) It was the starting point for us really. That was the first time we ever really felt like a band, the first time we created a record we could live with. We had people around us who understood exactly what we were trying to say and how we wanted to say it. Then we signed to Sony. James (1994) 'Motorcycle Emptiness' (1992, on Generation Terrorists) The record company never even released it in America - they didn't want it on the album 'cos they said it was too AOR. So our dreams were shattered straight away 'cos that was our universal song. If anything could do it, that could. Nicky (1996) 'Theme From M*A*S*H' We chose it because it reminded us of a very gloomy time in our lives. It was number 1 when there was a musicians strike and no Top Of The Pops, which essentially meant there was no music on TV at all. Richey (1992) We just went into a little demo studio in Cardiff and did it in a day. We just kept playing it over and over until we got it right. It cost us eighty quid to do the whole thing. Richey (1992) I couldn't really care less about being a top 10 chart star, the important thing was to do a good job and make some money for the Spastics Society. I was pleased when it didn't drop down the charts after the first week. The fact that it went up in the second week was a bigger thrill than going straight in at number 9. Richey (1992) 'Roses In The Hospital' (1993, on Gold Against The Soul) It's just about the idea of something beautiful in a decaying place. It's about people who hurt themselves in order to concentrate, or just to feel something. Richey 'Faster' (1994, on The Holy Bible) I had more to do lyrically with 'Faster'. It's not a post modern nightmare, it's more a voyeuristic insight into how our generation has become obliterated with sensations. We could deal with things but we prefer to blank them out so that virtually every atrocity doesn't have that much impact any more. Nicky (1994) Frankly, a lot of it is Richey again, and I was always completely confused by it. But when he wrote it he told me it was about self-abuse. The opening line is 'I am an architect/they call me a butcher' - and of course, he's been carving into his arm and all that... I think it's the most confusing song on the album. I added some stuff about the regurgitation of 20th century culture. It's probably the first time we've written a song and not completely understand what we've written. Nicky (1994)

'Revol' (1994, on The Holy Bible) This song is not about revolution and it's not about fucking S*M*A*S*H and it's got fuck all to do with the family cat. All those lines like 'Brezhnev married into group sex' are just analogies really. It's trying to say that relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures. It's very much a Richey lyric, and some of it's beyond my head. He's saying that all these revolutionary leaders were failures in relationships - probably because all his relationships have failed. Nicky (1994) 'She Is Suffering' (1994, on The Holy Bible) It's quite a simple song, both musically and lyrically. It's kind of like the Buddhist thing where you can only reach eternal peace by shedding every desire in your body. I think that the last line, 'Nature's lukewarm pleasure' is Richey's view on sex. I can't really explain it, but that's the way he sees it. Nicky (1994) 'A Design For Life' (1996, on Everything Must Go) 'A Design For Life' reminds me of Motown Junk', one of our first singles, but that was the most claustrophobic, angry record, once in a lifetime for us. The difference is we got more ambitious and we changed. There are only certain moments when you can look into the abyss and dive in. Now we kind of look in and step away. Nicky (1996) For 'A Design For Life' to sell 300,000 copies and start with the line 'Libraries gave us power'' - I'm really proud. Because Blur and Oasis... Well, 'Country House' is just Madness yob pop, and Oasis' lyrics are hardly the deepest. I do think that's something we can be really proud of. Nicky (1997) I feel slightly bitter-sweet. It taints it. Lyrically, there doesn't seem to be much to that song, but the lines are so concise. As soon as I got those words I thought 'I've got to write the best tune ever'. This was one of the first times in my life when I read a lyric and it sent a tingle up my spine. To transfer that to a number 2 position - that gives me a sense of fulfilment. James (1996) Along with 'Motorcycle Emptiness', it's become our universal song now. Wherever you go, people know it. The lyrical content is something that we're really proud of. Simple as that. Nicky (1997) I've done a little bit of damage to the band - me being in London, a bit of a boy around town and stuff. And when I got those lyrics, I actually felt part of where I came from, for once. I actually felt the disillusionment which I'd deferred by getting pissed. That track actually put me back on track a tiny bit. James (1996) 'Little Baby Nothing' (1994, on Generation Terrorists) When we met Traci Lords and she came over, we just talked to her about the lyrics. At the time we were getting misrepresented 'cos of Richey's arm and everything, and she was just saying, 'you know, I keep coming round and people will say I'm a born porn star. Whereas, if I was a man, people would think I'm great, I'm a celebrity, I get to be me'. I think she completely understood the song at the end. Nicky (1993)

Generation Terrorists (1992) With the confidence we have in this record we won't be happy unless it sold 16 million. Nicky This album it everything we wanted it to be. Every lyric is totally uncensored. Every bit of music we ever wanted, we have. Richey (1991) It's a fucked-up because we tried so hard to make it rock FM. No band in our position has ever tried to do that: write a six minute epic depressive song ('Motorcycle Emptiness'). It'd be easier and more credible to make ten versions of Motown Junk. Nicky (1992) The thing about Generation Terrorists was that the title was misunderstood. At the age of 10 or 12 everybody is full of some kind of optimism, yet by the time that they leave school they've given up on everything. In those five or years your life has been dramatically changed and pretty much destroyed. That's what the title meant. The whole point was to be hypocritical, to be false. All we wanted to do was to write better songs and find a better economy with words. We are improving all the time. Everybody knows the first album would be better if we'd left out all the crap - but we wanted it to be a double, so nothing was left out. Richey It would be wrong to say that we regretted it. We could have sold a lot more records if we'd done a debut album that was ten songs just like 'Motown Junk' and played the game a bit more carefully, but I prefer bands when they're messy and sprawling and epic, and they make mistakes. We've made indie bands realise - even on the smallest level - that you can be stars again... that's all down to us. Musically and lyrically they're not going to take anything from us. I know that - they're too scared. Nicky Gold Against The Soul (1993) There's too much bluster. There's some great singles, but it's definitely not a masterpiece. Nicky (1996) The first album was more a statement of intent. This one is far more musical, more current. We were a little too scared to make a hash of things last time. But we don't like slagging off past records. It's like we're despising our fans for buying them. James (1993) The Holy Bible (1994) It's not a party album. It's not 'Abba Gold', but there are a few basic home truths on it. James (1994) I really enjoyed how it confronts the audience, but it confronts us too. You play it on stage and you can feel Damien round the corner. It feels like handling a cursed chalice; you can feel the lesions breaking out all over your body. James (1996) We just wanted to make a statement that was anti-everything. But in the end it was too grim. It's one of those albums you won't play very often, but it's comforting that it's there nestling in your record collection somewhere. Nicky (1996) It's gothic with a small 'g'. It's not Cranes, but it is quite a morbid album. We've rejected our past in a lot of ways with this album. There's a bit of early Joy Division on it, and a few PIL basslines. Nicky (1994)

You might think 'Yes' reads about prostitution, but it's the prostitution of what we've felt over the last three years. There's a line in there 'There's no part of my body that has not been used', and I think that might start with me and Richey having love bites on the first NME cover, then escalates to Richey or whoever sleeping with groupies or cutting yourself. It's like what Red Indians believe, that your soul is taken away when you're photographed constantly. It does get to a point where it feels like that. Nicky (1994) 'Die In The Summertime' has got to be one of the most frightening lines ever, where it goes 'A tiny animal curls into a quarter circle'. That really scares me. It's hard to explain some of these things without Richey being here. Nicky (1994) Everything Must Go (1996) We're all glad that the album's coming out when it is. I think it has a real summer side to it. We're very proud of it and I'm sure if Richey ever gets the chance to hear it, he'll feel the same. Nicky (1996) With the first album, we definitely did think we would sell a lot, and we always fell well below the expectations of what we thought an important band should sell. With Everything Must Go, in the way we talked about it, we were the most timid we'd ever been, because we were very nervous. It was strange, because it was the most un-Manic we've been about an album, and then it was the most successful. James (1997) 'Interiors' (Everything Must Go) is a tribute to the painter Willem De Kooning, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Apparently he's a hypochondriac - and, being one too, I can sympathise with him. Nicky (1996) Everything Must Go isn't exactly a feel good album, but I think it's an album that soothes. With 'Enola/Alone' and 'Australia', people can grab hold of them because they're melancholic but also uplifting - everybody gets that kind of sad uplifting moment. It's raining, or you're pissed, but you're still kind of okay. I think that's what those too songs translate to. I knew Enola/Alone had to be la-la-la, it had to be a Noel Gallagher structure and still have Manic traits in it. Nicky (1997) Every song is a good song. It's more Spectoresque, rather than rock, a lot of the time. It was my Brian Jones contribution to say 'get a harp'. My one musical idea in five years. And we've always been trying to get Sean to play the trumpet. Nicky (1996) Everything Must Go stands for getting rid of some of the baggage and learning that we have to break some of our own rules sometimes. This time we realised we couldn't make every album like an enclyclopedia. Once upon a time we could never have done a song like 'Further Away', which is almost a love song. It's healthy to be able to do whatever we like without having to think, 'Wait a minute, we're the Manic Street Preachers'. James (1996) 'Elvis Impersonator' is all about Britain accepting crap American culture and putting it on a pedestal. Nicky (1996) I have to quote one of Richey's lyrics here and say that ours is a pyrrhic victory. It felt like a relief more than anything else. We had success without compromising or riding on the back of any movements like Britpop, grunge or baggy. We were always outsiders, always deeply unfashionable. That hasn't really changed. James (1996)

Since (manager) Philip (Hall) died we've taken each day as it comes. Philips death was so arbitrary. At least Richey exercised some kind of control. But they were both slow declines. 'Enola/Alone' on the album (Everything Must Go) stems from that, from me looking at my wedding photos and seeing two people standing right by me who aren't around anymore. Nicky (1996) No one in my immediate family's ever died, so it was the first funeral I'd been to. Philip wasn't just a manager, unfortunately. We lived with him for virtually a year, he lent us about £45,000 before we got a deal, virtually financed us. Nicky (1994) Philip had a big impact on our lives. He was the first person that ever believed in our music; the first to respond to all the stupidly long letters we would send out to anyone we could think of. He said 'I'll come and see you do a gig in London'. We said we couldn't get a gig in London. So he drove down to see us in a crappy schoolroom. Richey (1994) Traci Lords was the nicest American I've ever met, up until now. Nicky (1993)

We really had no notion of what Philip did, or how helpful he could be to us. We just thought he sounded like a person who could help us out. Within three months he'd become our manager, we escaped from Wales and the four of us slept on his floor in London for six months. He put up with a lot: by the time we'd signed to Sony he'd re-mortgaged his house for us. Even when we smashed our equipment up he never got pissed off - in fact he used to encourage it. He used to have a glint in his eye. He loved a good wind-up and at least before he died we'd repaid the faith he'd put in us by starting to become a successful band. Nicky (1994) Traci Lords is female power. We wanted her or Kylie on 'Little Baby Nothing' because at the time they were both women who are perceived as puppets. No one could imagine that they might have their own vision on how they wanted to be sold. Richey (1992) You know, I miss my dog Snoopy. He died two weeks ago. That's why I shaved my head... he was 17 years old. I've had him since I was little. Richey (1995)