Blurb:
"If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" was the lead single from the Manic Street Preachers' fifth studio album, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. It was released on August 24, 1998. All three members of the band shared writing credits.
The song was about the Spanish Civil War, and the idealism of volunteers from around the world who joined the International Brigade fighting Franco's fascist insurrection against the Spanish Republic.
The song takes its name from a Republican (left-wing democratically elected government) poster at the time. A young child killed by the Nationalists was portrayed on the poster and a stark warning written at the bottom: "If you tolerate this, your children will be next." A variant poster came with the similar message, "What Europe tolerates or protects. What your children can expect."
The single reached number one in the UK charts on September 5 1998 to become the first of their singles to achieve this. ("The Masses Against The Classes" also made number one on January 22 2000.) The song is in the Guinness World Records for being the number one single with the longest title without brackets.
It is the only Manic Street Preachers single ever to be released as a single in the US.
"If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next" was the lead single from the Manic Street Preachers' fifth studio album, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. It was released on August 24, 1998. All three members of the band shared writing credits.
The song was about the Spanish Civil War, and the idealism of volunteers from around the world who joined the International Brigade fighting Franco's fascist insurrection against the Spanish Republic.
The song takes its name from a Republican (left-wing democratically elected government) poster at the time. A young child killed by the Nationalists was portrayed on the poster and a stark warning written at the bottom: "If you tolerate this, your children will be next." A variant poster came with the similar message, "What Europe tolerates or protects. What your children can expect."
The single reached number one in the UK charts on September 5 1998 to become the first of their singles to achieve this. ("The Masses Against The Classes" also made number one on January 22 2000.) The song is in the Guinness World Records for being the number one single with the longest title without brackets.
It is the only Manic Street Preachers single ever to be released as a single in the US.
Scroll and Sing:
The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists
Bullets for your brain today
But we'll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain
Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next
And on the street tonight an old man plays
With newspaper cuttings of his glory days
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next
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