Only Disturbing Song I Know

The court has come. The court of the Nations and into the courtroom will come the martyrs of majdanek and oswecim. From the ditch of kerch the dead will rise, they will arise from the graves, they will arise from flames bringing with them the acrid smoke and the deathly odour of scorched and martyred europe. And the children they too will come, stern and merciless. The butchers had no pity on them. Today the victims will rejusge the butchers Today the tear of the child is the judge, the grief of the mother is the prosecutor.

I'm not easily disturbed. If you were to look at my twitter right now, my background is the picture of Richey Edwards showing off the 'lovely' creation of '4 Real' on his arm. I saw "Cannibal Holocaust" and, aside from the animal cruelty, wasn't disturbed. Songs DON'T disturb me.

Least until tonight, that is.

"The Holy Bible" by the Manic Street preachers is regarded as one of the most disturbing albums of rock and roll. When I first heard it (without reading the lyrics) I didn't quite understand why, so I did some soul searching. Don't get me wrong, "4st 7lb" is a pretty straight-forward account of someone suffering from anorexia and "Yes" is about the "horrors" about prostitution. But... there is one song on the album that... quite frankly, scares the fucking shit out of me, and it's not necessarily because of the cryptic bass line or the sounds relating to murder in the background; it's the lyrics.

Richey wrote most of these lyrics while he was staying at a mental home attempting to recover from his long struggle with depression, self-harm, anorexia, and alcoholism. While he was studying at the University of Wales, he got a degree in Political History. If this doesn't dig deep into his knowledge of it all, then I... don't know what does. Granted on their first album "Generation Terrorists" it was evident that they were a tad political, but this? This song screams politics, history, but one event in particular:

The Holocaust.

Everyone knows how terrifying the Holocaust was; hearing about it in school made me want to cringe, but I always wanted to know more. Documentaries, videos... this is one of the first songs I've heard about it, and I personally think that if someone know just wrote about it without any knowledge from studying it thoroughly, it won't... not that it won't, matter but it probably won't have the same effect.

I highly suggest listening to the song, maybe not while reading this but if you never heard it before, you'll be in for a real... surprise. I'm not easily disturbed, and I'm not saying this song is disturbing... I'm saying it puts the horrors that happened during the Holocaust up front and real, and I don't know if any song, or even movie, can do much justice. I honestly don't know what creeps me out more... the lyrics themselves, or the chilling sound of a machine-line device and the constant humming.

I can honestly say, though, I am proud I took German = "arbeit macht frei" means "work made free" or something to that effect.

Fuck, there is so much I can say about this song, but I can't put it into my words. Make what you will of it.