Video hit Manic Street Preachers

Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (live)

If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next is a single by Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. It was released on 24 August 1998, through Epic Records as the first single from their fifth studio album This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours.

The song's theme is taken from the Spanish Civil War, and the idealism of Welsh volunteers who joined the left-wing International Brigades, fighting Francisco Franco's military rebels against the Spanish Republic. The song takes its name from a Republican poster of the time, displaying a photograph of a young child killed by the Nationalists under a sky of bombers with the stark warning "If you tolerate this, your children will be next" written at the bottom.

Various works on the Spanish Civil War were the inspiration for this song, and certain lyrics pertain directly to these works. For example, the line "If I can shoot rabbits/then I can shoot fascists" is attributed to a remark made by a man who signed up with the Republican fighters to his brother in an interview years later. This was originally quoted in the book Miners Against Fascism by Hywel Francis. Another work George Orwell's first-hand account, "Homage to Catalonia". "I've walked Las Ramblas/but not with real intent" brings to mind the account in Orwell's book of fighting on the Ramblas, with the various factions seemingly getting nowhere, with the fighting and often a sense of camaraderie overriding the vaunted principles each side was supposed to be fighting for. Wire has also acknowledged that he was also inspired by a song by The Clash, "Spanish Bombs", which has a similar subject.

The song is in the Guinness World Records as the number one single with the longest title without brackets.

The song was voted number 20 on Channel 4's "100 Greatest Number One Singles" list.

The 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

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