Lyrics for 4st. 7lbs. as interpreted by ShiverForMe

4st. 7lbs. Lyrics
I’m too much to die
I'm not enough to stay alive
I'm sitting in the middle waiting

Days since I last pissed
Cheeks sunken and despaired
So gorgeous sunk to six stone
Lose my only remaining home

See my third rib appear
A week later all my flesh disappears
Stretching taut, cling-film on bone
I'm getting better

Karen says I've reached my target weight
Kate and Emma and Kristin know it's fake
Problem is diet's not a big enough word
I wanna be so skinny that I rot from view

I want to walk in the snow
And not leave a footprint
I want to walk in the snow
And not soil its purity

Stomach collapsed at five
Lift up my skirt my sex is gone
Naked and lovely and 5st. 2
May I bud and never flower

My vision's getting blurred
But I can see my ribs and I feel fine
My hands are trembling stalks
And I can feel my breasts are sinking

Mother tries to choke me with roast beef
And sits savouring her sole ryvitta
That's the way you're built my father said
But I can change, my cocoon shedding

I want to walk in the snow
And not leave a footprint
I want to walk in the snow
And not soil its purity

Kate and Kristin and Kit Kat
All things I like looking at
Too weak to fuss, too weak to die
Choice is skeletal in everybody's life

I choose my choice, I starve to frenzy
Hunger soon passes and sickness soon tires
Legs bend, stockinged I am Twiggy
And I don't mind the horror that surrounds me

Self-worth scatters, self-esteem's a bore
I long since moved to a higher plateau
This disipline's so rare so please applaud
Just look at the fat scum who pamper me so

Yeh 4st. 7, an epilogue of youth
Such beautiful dignity in self-abuse
I've finally come to understand life
Through staring blankly at my navel

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  • 33 Comments
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grapekiwi338
05-23-2002

Rated 0 
quite clearly about anorexia

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yousaidpunksucks
07-08-2002

Rated 0 
The first 'verse' is actually:

I eat too much to die,
And not enough to stay alive,
I'm sitting in the middle, waiting.

And it is a sound clip taken from the British documentary series, '40 Minutes', titled "Caroline's Story". It was the story of a British girl who had anorexia.

This is a great song from an AMAZING band. It is literally impossible to listen to it without feeling some sort of emotion.

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BloodLust
07-11-2002

Rated 0 
they are truely amazing. and i LOVE Richey Edwards. he's beautiful, how he lived and how he wrote and performed and wow...

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Cherub Rock
08-05-2002

Rated 0 
Extremely emotional and harrowing song about anorexia and how it has consumed the girl's life.

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Zed92uk
08-05-2002

Rated 0 
Actually it's about Richey's anorexia

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ladyboygrrl
08-11-2002

Rated 0 
i like the way that as the song's tempo slows down, so does the frenzy of her illness. at the start of her anorexia she is full of determination and strength....but asher body weakens ("too weak to fuss, too weak to die") so does her belief in her goal ("self-worth scatters, self-esteems a bore") and it eventually comes to a stop with her reaching her target of 4st 7lb, finding the true meaning of life....and finding nowhere else to go

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Little_Baby_Nothing
08-11-2002

Rated 0 
Zed92uk is right, i autobiographical. When he was admitted to the Priory, Richey was a llowed to decorate his room and, in typical fashion, it was a collage of different images from loads of different sources. But probably the most important images he stuck up were that of three supermodels, Kate Moss Kristin something and Kate something else (Kit Kat) sorry, i forget the surnames. The band always said it was written from the perspective of the girl in the BBC documentary but that's kinda hard to believe when you read into it and the imagery seems so personal. "Mother tries to choke me with roast beef and sits savouring her sole ryvitta, that's the way you're built my father said."
Also, 4st 7lb is the lowest a fully grown male can survive at. If a male slips below this weight, he will die almost instantly. That also points to the fact that it isn't written about a girl.

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cornflake
08-27-2002

Rated 0 
I especially love the end, i mean, im not jet quite sure if i like the manics music, but i definitely am absorbed by their lyrics, but in the end of this song thei both work together perfectly.... "self worth scattered self esteems a bore...."

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MissD
08-30-2002

Rated 0 
ladboygrrrl I kinda disagree 4st 7lb is when ur on the brink of death. So she loses ne more weight the girls dead. It's about finding ur own self worth and admiring yourself for it. All the girl had was her discipline not to eat. She is vain like we all are. The song is sung in a diary style she slowly loses more and more weight it finishes before she's die unless u believe she was cured. But the girl in the documentry the beggining quote is from died. It is autobiographical also but Richey never got down that low. I think he reached 6 stone which is pretty awful for a 5ft 8 man. I think it's about richey quite obviously but he's kinda taken his feelings and imprinted them on a girl. In some sort of attempt to get the attention off him. He was too self absorbed I'm not condemning him for that I think that's a fault with most people including myself. He used to be my hero but he was never a hero he was just a person. Not a tortured artist a person the same thing could've happened to a taxi driver but it happened to him and he was in the public eye. Richey was/is a person who was overly sensitive the world was too much for him to take in. Maybe he's dead maybe he's not. But he wrote some great lyrics that and his intelligence is what I admire.

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MyLastDays
09-01-2002

Rated 0 
Harrowing song...... Manics Have never been the same after Richey James, but he was a great songwriter.

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indignity
05-12-2003

Rated 0 
I really like this song.. but I'm just curious, how heavy is a stone?

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ReActor
06-12-2003

Rated 0 
I think a stone is 14 pounds.

I agree with MissD about this, particularly about Richey projecting his condition onto someone else. If you look at The Holy Bible as a whole, the lyrics are mostly about Richey, but diverted into another person or another issue.

As for the self-absorption thing, yeah he probably was self-absorbed but I get the sense that it was uncontrollable, like the anorexic girl of the song. They are both uncontrollably obsessed with what they see when they look down at themselves and in the mirror.

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walkingabortion
06-30-2003

Rated 0 
i couldn't agree more with yousaidpunksucks. its impossible to listen to this song without any kind of emotion. fucking amazing.

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pumkinhed
10-25-2004

Rated 0 
Thought: what if the narrator just kept "rot"ting "til I disappear from view." I know it probably can't happen logically, but you never really know.

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fourganger
03-21-2005

Rated 0 
4st. 7lb. is the average weight sufficient to live for an adult human of normal size.

A song about anorexia in teenage girls ostensibly, but its plausability comes from Richey James's own personal afflictions with this condition. The centrepiece of the greatest album ever made for sure.

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ultimatemusic
04-28-2005

Rated 0 
This is a great song, and yes it's on about a girl who is losing wait, as she feels pressured. And her friends think it's good. Great song, like the comment above i never thought about it but Richey did suffer the same and maybe this is what inspired him to write this.

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Madkal
05-11-2005

Rated 0 
even though its about richy's battle with anorexia, i still think that it is written from the point of view of a girl. there is mentionings of depleting breast size :
And I can feel my breasts are sinking
also the line:
Lift up my skirt my sex is gone
further backs up the idea that it is a girl, unless richy was a crossdresser.

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matt675
05-15-2005

Rated 0 
heh, Madkal you obviously don't know of Richey too well - he and Nicky were always dressing up in women's clothes. But yeah, it is written from the perspective of a girl, but in essence it's what Richey is feeling in his own experience that is being conveyed.
A very harrowing song though.

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mojo risin
05-21-2006

Rated 0 
I don`t have problems with anorexia, but I look like a skeleton, and this song made me feel better. I don`t know if that is good or bad???

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CrumblingEffigy
05-23-2006

Rated 0 
This is about anorexia, and although Richey was[rather, is i still think hes alive] not anorexic, he was described as "on the brink of anorexia.
its about self abuse in a way too. Starving yourself so you don't feel the pain around you, but only the pain from hunger, until eventually you feel nothing at all.
"I choose my choice, I starve to frenzy
Hunger soon passes and sickness soon tires
Legs bend, stockinged I am Twiggy
And I don't mind the horror that surrounds me"

and then at the end:

"Such beautiful dignity in self-abuse
I've finally come to understand life
Through staring blankly at my navel "

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i_am_the_law
09-19-2006

Rated 0 
i think the references to all the stick-thin models are excellent, it really puts it in context. also i love how twisted and graphic the lyrics are, but the meaning is still blatantly obvoius so you don't have to fight to wrok it out, you can just chill out and get nightmares from it.

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nicnic
12-25-2006

Rated 0 
I think although it is partially about Richey himself, it brings in the experience of an adolescent girl who is severely anorexic. From her perspective, starving herself is beautiful. Not only will it bring her to a perfect body, but happiness and another state of being. 'staring blankly at my navel' suggests meditation. The 'character' in the song also notices the hypocrite that is her mother, who eats diet foods and yet forces her to eat - it's true of society currently that in the media there is a pressure to have a perfect body but at the same time purporting the message you're fine as you are. Overall, on reaching a weight where it soon will be impossible to live, the girl has never felt more alive.

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blundertown
02-16-2007

Rated 0 
the last two verses are escpecially disturbing to listen.

Also does "Karen" refer to Karen Carpenter and "Kate" to Kate Moss?

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krisse
04-21-2007

Rated 0 
yes, it's about richey's anorexia, and kate is kate moss, emma is emma balfour, kristin is kristin mcmenemy and karen is karen krizanovich. richey has told this on different interviews.

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donniedarko28
06-18-2007

Rated 0 
an amazing song, one of the best they've ever written.

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