MANIC STREET PREACHERS Released Their Iconic Single ‘A DESIGN FOR LIFE’ Today 30 Years Ago
Top singles from the past
15 April 2026
Welsh luminaries MANIC STREET PREACHERS (1986 – present / 15 studio albums, so far) released their immortal classic single A DESIGN OF LIFE on 15 April 1996, today 30 years ago.
The title was inspired by Joy Division‘s debut EP, An Ideal For Living.
The opening line of the song, ‘Libraries gave us power’, was inspired by the famous aphorism Knowledge Is Power engraved in stone above the top floor central window
of the library in Pillgwenlly, Newport, 15 miles from the band’s hometown of Blackwood.
The words are attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, English
philosopher and statesman from the 16th century.
The next line, ‘then work came and made us free‘, refers to the German slogan Arbeit Macht Frei that featured above the gates of Nazi concentration camps and which had been used previously by the band in their song “The Intense Humming of Evil” on the album The Holy Bible.
The song featured on their 4th longplayer, Everything Must Go, the first
without Richey Edwards, who disappeared in 1995 and was declared dead
in 2008.
It peaked at #2, in both the UK and Scotland.
“Libraries gave us power
Then work came and made us free
What price now
For a shallow piece of dignity
I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my dirty face
To wear the scars
To show from where I came
We don’t talk about love
We only wanna get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end”
