Little baby nothing by Manic Street preachers

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wM3N54avEQc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparentLittle baby nothing- Manic street Preachers

Today I am going to talk about the fantastic single by Manic Street Preachers Little baby nothing that was released in November 1992 off their debut album.

Little baby nothing features vocals by Traci lords a former pornographic actress who lied on her birth certificate by two years and was actually performing films underage which led to prosecutions and the films that she starred in were pulled as child pornography.
Shocking stuff but Traci was ideal to feature in this song about sexual exploitation.
Bradfield said: “we needed somebody, a symbol, a person that could actually symbolize the lyrics and justify them to a certain degree. Traci was more than happy to do it. She saw the lyrics, and she had an immediate affinity with them. It was definitely easy to incorporate her personality into the lyrics. We just wanted a symbol for it, and I think she was a great symbol.”

The Manics tackle issues regarding female sexuality and their vulnerability often you will see it in songs like She is suffering and 4st 7lb for instance.

Their first choice for the single was Kylie Minogue who due to commitments couldn’t be involved.

These are the lyrics for little baby nothing:

No one likes looking at you
Your lack of ego offends male mentality
They need your innocence
To steal vacant love and to destroy
Your beauty and virginity used like toys

My mind is dead, everybody loves me
Wants a slice of me
Hopelessly passive and compatible
Need to belong, oh the roads are scary
So hold me in your arms
I wanna be your only possession

Used, used, used by men
Used, used, used by men

All they leave behind is money
Paper made out of broken twisted trees
Your pretty face offends
Because it’s something real that I can’t touch
Eyes, skin, bone, contour, language as a flower

No god reached me, faded films and loving books
Black and white TV
All the world does not exist for me
If I’m starving, you can feed me lollipops
Your diet will crush me
My life just an old man’s memory

Little baby nothing
Loveless slavery, lips kissing empty
Dress your life in loathing
Breaking your mind with Barbie Doll futility

Little baby nothing
Sexually free, made-up to breakup
Assassinated beauty
Moths broken up, quenched at last
The vermin allowed a thought to pass them by

You are pure, you are snow
We are the useless sluts that they mould
Rock ‘n’ roll is our epiphany
Culture, alienation, boredom and despair

You are pure, you are snow
We are the useless sluts that they mould
Rock ‘n’ roll is our epiphany
Culture, alienation, boredom and despair

Great lyrics and even more appropriate than ever with women selling themselves online in front of a webcam for OnlyFans etc.

Looking through the comments on YouTube everyone agrees how attractive James Dean Bradfield is and let’s face it that image did not detract from their popularity.
Lots of feminist style slogans going on here, He-man being put into a blender (I wept at that), women divided into cuts like chattel. The lady with lipstick on her legs Read my lips and the lipstick on John Wayne was a nice touch too.
W H I T E M E N A R E S E X U A L L Y I N F E R I O R written on the backdrop too. I love Richey James and his use of slogans just to get a reaction a lot of the time.

That’s what I loved about Manic Street Preachers they married art, literature, music, philosophy and a rock n’ roll image into this debauched symbolic act of defiance with a touch of politics.
They aren’t afraid of intellectualism which is something to be cherished in the world of mass entertainment.
Names like Orwell, Bukowski and Valerie Solanos all appeared on my cultural radar.