I bought this single which had Faster and P.C.P. on it way before the album was released and it gave me a totally different expectation to how the album would sound.
I was expecting three minute punk songs but apart from these Revol and Yes the album was slower and much darker than that.
I love this track and it’s such a good way to end the album and after the spiral down into the holocaust of the previous track this was a welcome burst of energy.
P.C.P. is an acronym for the drug phencyclidine but within those letters it can also refer to political correctness and police constable which are namechecked in the song.
https://manicsdiscog.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/a60-p-c-p/ This is the link to the following article by Andy Johnson which I will write here:
“P.C.P.’ is an interesting prospect within the context of The Holy Bible and as a joint A-side with ‘Faster’. As the album’s closer, the song provides a rare moment of relative levity immediately after the crushing darkness of [T73] ‘The Intense Humming of Evil’; fast-paced and with some oddball lines, it is actually quite amusing in places. It is these qualities that made it a natural counterpart to ‘Faster’ on the single, although that role for the song is seldom remembered today (it was not included in the band’s single ranking in 2011, for example).
The track has a kind of darkly playful aspect to it, which is nicely summed up by the clever title, which has fun with acronyms. “PCP” is itself an acronym for phencyclidine, a recreational and hallucinogenic drug, but the letters also contain the acronyms for political correctness, police constable and (perhaps not relevantly) Conservative Party. Political correctness is the song’s main theme; in Melody Maker in 1994 Wire described the idea as “inherently good”, but something that, like socialism, had been abused and could lead its adherents to become not more fair, but almost tyrannical in an Orwellian kind of way. The lyrics are arguably a sort of satire on this idea, which take it to extremes.
‘P.C.P.’ can be seen as an example of a Manics song which deals with issues which, if anything, have gone on to be of larger importance in the almost twenty years since its release – in particular, political correctness is still an issue of debate in the UK, as are designer drugs and the song’s other theme: the increasingly dumbed-down, hollow and grey nature of contemporary society. One of the Manics’ enduringly confusing and mysterious lines is “king cigarette snuffed out by her midgets”: something to do with banning smoking presumably, but midgets?
Musically, the song is one of the most straightforward balls-to-the-wall rockers on The Holy Bible; the otherwise jarring shift from the previous track on the album to this one is softened slightly by the initially quite ponderous, leaden drums from Moore in the intro. After this interlude the song becomes much faster, but in keeping with the humour in the lyrics there are some other softer touches, especially the backing vocals in the choruses.”
Lyrics:
Teacher starve your child, P.C. approved
As long as the right words are used
Systemised atrocity ignored
As long as bi-lingual signs on view
Ten foot sign in Oxford Street
Be pure – be vigilant – behave
Grey not neon, grey not real
Life bleeds, death is your birthright
P.C. she speaks impotent, sterile, naive, blind, atheist, sadist
Stiff-upper lip, first principle of her silence, of her silence
P.C.P. – a P.C. police victory
P.C.P. – a P.C. Pyrrhic victory
When I was young P.C. meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference
Liposuction for your bad mouth boy
Cut out your tongue, effigies are sold
Words discoloured, bow to the bland
Heal yourself with sinner’s salt
Doctors arrested for euthanasia
Kill smokers through blind vanity
If you’re fat don’t get ill
Europe’s gravestone carved in plastic
P.C. she says inoculate, hallucinate, beware Shakespeare
Bring fresh air, king cigarette snuffed out
By her midgets, by her midgets
P.C.P. – a P.C. police victory
P.C.P. – a P.C. Pyrrhic victory
When I was young P.C. meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference
P.C. caresses bigots and big brother, read Leviticus
Learnt censorship, pro-life equals anti-choice, to be scared of, of feathers
P.C.P. – a P.C. police victory
P.C.P. – a P.C. Pyrrhic victory
When I was young P.C. meant Police Constable
Nowadays I can’t seem to tell the difference
Lawyers before love, surrogate sex
This land bows down to
Yours, unconditional love and hate
Pass the Prozac, designer amnesiac
“Two hundred and twenty-seven Lears, and I can’t remember the first line.”
Choice Lyric
“systemised atrocity ignored / as long as bi-lingual signs on view”
References
Oxford Street – Europe’s busiest shopping street, located in Westminster, London.
Pyrrhic victory – a victory which almost completely destroys the victor in the process. Named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus due to his battles with the Roman Empire.
Liposuction – surgical procedure to remove fat from overweight people.
Euthanasia – also known as “assisted dying”. Ending a life in order to alleviate pain and suffering.
Inoculate – term used fairly interchangeably with vaccinate.
Shakespeare – William Shakespeare (baptised 1564 – 1616), English playwright and poet widely regarded as the greatest ever writer in English.
Big Brother – a character in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, enigmatic ruler of the state of Oceania. Subsequently a term for government oversight or surveillance.
Leviticus – third book of the Hebrew Bible. Edwards referred the book being “used by homophobes to justify their hatred”.
Surrogate sex – sex with a specialised sex therapist designed to achieve a therapeutic goal.
Prozac – trade name for fluoxetine, an antidepressant drug.
Allusions
Bi-lingual signs – this is probably an allusion to the road signs in the Manics’ native Wales, which are presented in both English and Welsh.
Quote
“Be pure, be vigilant, behave” – a slogan used by Tomas de Torquemada, puritanical and xenophobic villain in Nemesis the Warlock, a long-running story in British sci-fi comics anthology 2000 AD (Torquemada shares his name with the infamous Spanish inquisitor). Edwards in particular was a fan of 2000 AD; when he was young a picture of his was printed in the comic – he won £3. Later, the 4 Real incident was satirised in a Judge Dredd story by Garth Ennis, and the character Domino wore a Manics t-shirt in the Grant Morrison story Zenith.
Closing Quote
“227 Lears, and I can’t remember the first line” – spoken by Albert Finney in the 1983 film The Dresser, based on the 1980 Broadway play written by Ronald Harwood. “Lears” refers to performances of King Lear, Shakespeare’s tragedy play.
https://227lears.com/2021/06/30/word-limits/ Again a superlative essay on this song and political correctness and free speech.
“There will always be those whose instinct inclines towards submission to authority, who are happy to shift beliefs in accordance with the fashion or decrees from above. Orwell called this the ‘gramophone mind’, content to play the record of the moment whether or not one is in agreement”
― Andrew Doyle, Free Speech And Why It Matters
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