Lyrics for If You Tolerate This Then Your Children ... as interpreted by typo

If You Tolerate This Then Your Children ... Lyrics
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


'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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rhysjohn87
06-12-2002

Rated 0 
I found out that the phrase "if you tollerate this then your children will be next" was used by the communists during the spanish cival war about the blitzkrieg tactics that the nazi's and mussolini used.

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roger wilco
06-14-2002

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'And on the street tonight an old man plays
With newspaper cuttings of his glory days'

i love this lyric. these guys are so hopeless.

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Zed92uk
08-05-2002

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It's about how the current generation could not fight a war and Nicky asking himself if he could

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Little_Baby_Nothing
08-11-2002

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"I've walked La Ramblas but not with real intent"
Now it all makes sense. I knew it was a communist phrase but I didn't know it was about the Spanish Civil War. La Ramblas is the main street in Barcelona.

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the_wombat
08-15-2002

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I knew it was about the Spanish Civil War, and pressumed that it was making a point about the British government of the time, refusing to support the Republic in the war and allowing Hitler to test Blitzkrieg in Spain. If you tolerate this (Guernica), then your children will be next (dying in WW2)

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forever delayed
03-23-2003

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we all know its about the Spanish Civil War, but isn't this site to show what the song means to you?
Well anyway i know its about the Spanish Civil War, but to me its like you've done something wrong; however you are blind to see that. therefore, if you tolerate this then it will make others suffer. Children could be seen as everyone in the world, the worlds Children.

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Okami
03-31-2003

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I agree on the spanish civil war thing, the "I" in the song thought that he could push himself o fight if it was for a good cause:
'So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists'
He dehumanizes his enemy and tries to consider them nothing but animals.
"Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain"
He is ashamed for being naive and think that he could manage experiencing a war and killing other human beings.
"Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent "
The war changed him. Now he cannot kill, even though he know it's to protect himself and the people close to him

Thats what I think, anyway. A guy, going to war to fight for what he believes is right, but well there, he discovers that the enemy is also human, and that makes him unable to defend his firends, beliefs, or even himself. He curses himself for being unable to fight, but he is still unable to go back to being naive and young...

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Okami
03-31-2003

Rated 0 
I agree on the spanish civil war thing, the "I" in the song thought that he could push himself o fight if it was for a good cause:
'So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists'
He dehumanizes his enemy and tries to consider them nothing but animals.
"Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain"
He is ashamed for being naive and think that he could manage experiencing a war and killing other human beings.
"Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent "
The war changed him. Now he cannot kill, even though he know it's to protect himself and the people close to him

Thats what I think, anyway. A guy, going to war to fight for what he believes is right, but well there, he discovers that the enemy is also human, and that makes him unable to defend his firends, beliefs, or even himself. He curses himself for being unable to fight, but he is still unable to go back to being naive and young...

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CB2001
10-05-2004

Rated 0 
I came across a Manic Street Preachers website that included a track-by-track description. This song was described as "a tribute to not only to one of George Orwell's short stories, but a song about honoring the past and hope for the future." I do believe this to be true. It does seem that way to me.

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gongozolo
11-27-2004

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Before WWII communism was very popular with the left leaning intellectual elite. They saw fascism as a huge threat and thought that by joining the communists in the Spain civil war they could prevent fascism from spreading, help the world, build a utopia, etc.

Needless to say, they were fairly naive. Many went to fight the fascists without any concept of how horrible it would be. So you had these left leaning university grad intellectuals (like Austin) who had only fired rifles when hunting, enlisting to be fighters and ambulance drivers in Spain. Hence the
"if I can shoot rabbits
then I can shoot fascists".

Only once they got there did they start to realize that the communists were just as much puppets controlled by Russia as the fascists were controlled by Germany & Italy (in fact maybe even more so).

They were young and vain and thought they could win. The fascists were much better equipped and organized and probably had more local support. Many returned to England and America broken men.
Hence the line
"Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain".
Notice how they had to keep their heads down to avoid being shot.

Many had been pacifists in college, they were idealistic and unprepared. The war wasn't real to them, until they arrived and saw their friends killed.
Hence,
"Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent"

The war became a prelude to World War II, in which oddly enough, the victorious Spanish fascists remained neutral.
“Bullets for your brain today
But we'll forget it all again”

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1 Reply
Ants
02-14-2005

Rated 0 
gongozolo has pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one! The song seems to be a reflection on how those who took part were used and abused. The Communists were dictated to by the USSR and presured into trying to wipe out the anarchists (which IMO lost the "left" the war). The anarchists lost a hell of a lot of members, and notable heroes like Buenaventura Durruti.

It is one of the saddest songs I know, thinking about those who gave their lives in good faith for what ended up amounting to nothing.

"We carry a new world here, in our hearts"

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user1951
03-09-2005

Rated 0 
"If you tolerate this your children will be next" is a phrase applicable to many events in history. The British government effectively supported Franco by pretending there was a "blockade" of Spain and no arms could be provided "to either side". The Fascists got arms, the opponents did not. Who cares it was only Spanish peasants who were being killed and only Spanish communists who were being tortured...and then within three years it was our turn.
You can interpret this any way you life of course, but we used to criticise other countries for imprisoning people without trial. We never thought our own allies would torture people and our government would applaud them.
When you look at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo the phrase "if you tolerate this your children could be next" should inform our response.
When I mentioned this song to an American friend she responded "we have plenty of manic street preachers over here!"

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evlin
04-05-2005

Rated 0 
You guys have pretty much said everything you need to know about this song.

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richeye
08-16-2005

Rated 0 
'So if I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists' were the words of a Welsh farmer who went to fight in the Spanish civil war, apparently.
I initially thought this song was a celebration of the bravery of those men who answered the call of the anti-fascists, and Nicky was lamenting his pacifism, but now I'm not so sure.

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sean4
08-30-2005

Rated 0 
its something about the government and its saying that if people tolerate it then there children will grow up in a bad world.

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orangebeaker
01-05-2006

Rated 0 
This line confuses me:

"I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent"

Isnt La Ramblas were the prostitutes hang out in Barcelona?

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1 Reply
hastalavictoria
01-25-2006

Rated 0 
I have to disagree with gongozolo on a couple of points. The International Brigades actually did have a lot of popular support in Spain, as they were the side that was democratically elected fighting Fascist rebels. As further evidence of this, it has been remarked that were it not for foreign intervention, the Republicans would have won. Also, I disagree on the fact that they were "puppets" of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not send any soldiers, only military advisors, and thus had no solid influence in Spain. The fascists, on the other had, were given troops and supplies by Hitler and Mussolini.

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bison_libertine
07-19-2006

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I think this song is now especially poignant considering the rise of islmanic fundamentalism(essentially fascism) and the growth of the BNP in England. I think the message is quite clear throught the song, that if you tolerate fascism in any way, ultimately it will not only be you that suffers but your children, as many Spanish people would testify.

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cabbie
10-30-2006

Rated 0 
Its interesting that someone discussed this as being a response to a George Orwell story. In his book, "Inside the Whale and Other Essays", Orwell describes and incident in the village he was serving in in Burma. An elephant goes on a rampage and kills a man and Orwell (Blair), is called down to the field where the elephant stands, now docile and eating grass. The man lies nearby, the skin ripped off his back by the force of the elephant's foot crushing him. Blair stands there, unsure and acutely aware that the gathered people expect him to do something. He shoots the elephant twice in the head, mortally embarassed that an essentially harmless and innocent creature should die simply because he feels like he needs to assert his authority. He writes the story as a kind of catharsis for the self loathing he experiences. This is possibly reflected in the lines:
Bullets for your brain today
But we'll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
i know thats not much "meaning" per se, but an interesting slant perhaps. Read the story yourself and figure out why the Manics may have been inspired to include it in this song, coz ive got my own theory and i reckon its prolly wrong.

Turns me into a gutless wonder

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finisha
12-06-2006

Rated 0 
I pretty much agree with most of what everyone's been saying. I just want to add to what gongozolo was saying about many of the foreign volunteers being pacifists. I think that's probably true and that the might be partly about having a moral dilemma about whether to fight or not when you don't believe in fighter yet you do believe in the cause and you know that if people don't take a stand then the horrors of what's going on could effect your own country and family someday (which is essentially what did happen once WWII started). This thought struck me because after the verses which are filled with uncertainty comes the chorus "And if you tolerate this/Then your children will be next." Anyways, this is a great and terribly sad song.

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Falcon
01-23-2007

Rated 0 
To me, this song is about useless violence in any way. It has to be stopped, because in what scale soever, the safety of the future is at stake.

I got my arm broken last weekend by some jerk. Without any reason. If we tolerate that, he will do the same thing next week. Just an example.

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number5withabullet
02-08-2007

Rated 0 
I am pretty sure this song was guernica

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Brat
03-18-2007

Rated 0 
its been my favorite song all my life (13) and ive finally found out the lyrics to it :D and i always thougth it was about chavs

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Davin Bacon
05-01-2007

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I took it as being a pro-socialist song. the maniacs grew up during the mining strikes, and I took the line “if you tolerate this, Then your children will be next” to be referring to stagnation of life, and putting up with abuse from the high classes. I found this too, it is about Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, which he wrote during Spain’s civil war. it refers to the quote about fascists and rabbits: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=8855

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annazoff
11-26-2007

Rated 0 
Is a song with a message that is not boring.

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