Archives Of Pain

[Noisy Cat]

Despite the fantastic guitar solo/bassline/vocals etc, I've never really felt comfortable with it's pro-death penalty message. To be honest I'm surprised at how popular it seems to be amongst many fans.

[tzb]

Is it pro-death penalty or is it ironic? Or is there a tension/ambivalence between the two views in the song, a kind of agreeing and ridiculing in the same lines?

Some questions, there. I don't have any answers but I like it because it poses them, it has great imagery and a quality tune.

[Noisy Cat]

Originally Posted by tzb

Is it pro-death penalty or is it ironic? Or is there a tension/ambivalence between the two views in the song, a kind of agreeing and ridiculing in the same lines?

Some questions, there. I don't have any answers but I like it because it poses them, it has great imagery and a quality tune.

It's never come across as ironic to me. Perhaps I'm missing something. "A drained white body hangs from the gallows / Is more righteous than Hindley's crotchet lectures" seems pretty unambiguous.

[starfucker]

Originally Posted by tzb

Is it pro-death penalty or is it ironic? Or is there a tension/ambivalence between the two views in the song, a kind of agreeing and ridiculing in the same lines?

Some questions, there. I don't have any answers but I like it because it poses them, it has great imagery and a quality tune.

Exactly the point in my opinion. It sparks debate and is an absolute belter.
You don't have to be anorexic to appreciate the empathy, intelligence and genius behind 4st, 7lbs.

[raven]

Originally Posted by tzb

Is it pro-death penalty or is it ironic? Or is there a tension/ambivalence between the two views in the song, a kind of agreeing and ridiculing in the same lines?

Some questions, there. I don't have any answers but I like it because it poses them, it has great imagery and a quality tune.

It's pro death penalty. Tis a Richey lyric and the views are his own - not shared by the rest of the band who have expressed a bit o' discomfort over them.

I remember random stuff like this.

It's against the glorification of killers too, I think that's maybe what inspired it - at the time I remember Charles Manson being a bit of a cult figure - I guess he's long been one for some - but there seemed a fashion at one point for Charlie t-shirts....and o course it ties in the bigger themes of the album - the holocaust, the mass killers with the more personal stories of murderers and their victims - from Milosevic to Hindley & Brady. All leave victims, all often forgotten while their killers names live on.


And though it's not a typical Manic lyric, I'm maybe not a typical Manic fan for I've no objections, in principle, with the death penalty

[Mark]

I doubt Richey would have failed to see the irony in the line 'All I preach is extinction'.

[Mr Richey]

I've always felt it's a song about questioning the value of justice against the value of life. It offers no conclusive answers, merely sets out the mentality of the argument. Should killers, in their turn, be killed? I don't think it's pro-death penalty anymore than it's anti-death penalty. It's simply raising the issue. And it does that well.

[starfucker]

Originally Posted by Richey83

I've always felt it's a song about questioning the value of justice against the value of life. It offers no conclusive answers, merely sets out the mentality of the argument. Should killers, in their turn, be killed? I don't think it's pro-death penalty anymore than it's anti-death penalty. It's simply raising the issue. And it does that well.

Well said. It's all about sparking discussions. It makes people think and it's still doing it 14 years later! Job done.

[Clarence Pistoldinner]

I always thought it was Richey challenging his own liberal assumptions. Like much of Manics stuff, it's not so much offering an answer as posing a question.
IMHO.

[Mr Richey]

Originally Posted by Clarence Pistoldinner

Like much of Manics stuff, it's not so much offering an answer as posing a question.

Precisely.

[Mark]

As if the song wasn't awesome enough, I love the fact that the band can make the crowd chant back at them the line 'Give them the respect they deserve'. That's some pretty powerful stuff right there.

[Noisy Cat]

Originally Posted by Mark

As if the song wasn't awesome enough, I love the fact that the band can make the crowd chant back at them the line 'Give them the respect they deserve'. That's some pretty powerful stuff right there.

Personally, I hate that. It's like when Morrissey crowds yell "England for the English!" during National Front Disco (even though that song definitely contains irony). Just a pack, almost yobbish, unthinking mentality. Not bothering to even question what their heroes are singing.

[lopaz]

Originally Posted by Noisy Cat

Personally, I hate that. It's like when Morrissey crowds yell "England for the English!" during National Front Disco (even though that song definitely contains irony). Just a pack, almost yobbish, unthinking mentality. Not bothering to even question what their heroes are singing.

But the whole point of the song's to explore and immerse yourself in that emotion of rage, singing along to it's just the natural thing. I'm sure when they wrote the song they didn't want people to passively examine it, they wanted people to feel what they were feeling

[Phil C]

As a couple of people have said (but no-one's commented on) the important lines in the song are 'Sterilise rapists/All I preach is extinction' - in other words, we're all rapists, therefore all criminals, therefore we *all* deserve the death penalty. And that's why I love the lyric despite being anti-death penalty; because it completely subverts where you think the lyric is going.

Take that final couplet out of the song and you'd be right that it's just pro-death penalty. But Richey at the time, and therefore 'The Holy Bible' as a whole, is on a different scale and the songs are linked. 'Of Walking Abortion' answers the question 'Who's responsible?' with '*You* fucking are'. 'Archives' picks that up and takes it a stage further - if we're all responsible, all guilty, then we should be punished. And if you're staring into the abyss of 'Mausoleum' or hearing 'The Intense Humming Of Evil' then there's only one solution - get rid of humankind altogether because we're completely corrupt.

Seeing 'AoP' as simply pro-death penalty ignores that brilliant twist in the last lines, and reduces the song to something less than it actually is.

[tzb]

Originally Posted by Phil C

'Sterilise rapists/All I preach is extinction' - in other words, we're all rapists, therefore all criminals, therefore we *all* deserve the death penalty.

Hang on, hang on... Extinction of rapists or murderers maybe (those being the object of the song), the word "extinction" thus making them an inferior sub-class of our species, choosing not to identify with them as the same as "normal" people, but killing off the whole species? In a song which explicitly criticises indiscriminate murderers? I don't see it that way at all and I think that's a fair leap - he differentiates rapists then talks about extinction, to me that implies extinction of the offending type of individuals by removing their right to breed (extinction of rape itself through extinction of rapists), not of the whole human race. Without some basis of belief in the rest of humanity the song loses absolutely all of its meaning. If we're all rapists and deserving of the death penalty, how can you "remember victims"? In that view they got what they deserved.

And anyway if he were to make a statement as bold as "all humans deserve to die", do you really think he'd disguise it behind such an obtuse lyric? That doesn't sound like the Richey I'm familiar with.

I think the context is crucial; extinction only as opposed to what people ordinarily preach: forgiveness, atonement, faith. I see it as the denial of those approaches in favour of annhialation for offenders rather than some explicit sentiment everyone deserves to die.