"A Design for Life" is a single released by Welsh band Manic Street Preachers in 1996 and the first to be taken from the Everything Must Go album of May that same year. It peaked and debuted at number 2 in the UK Singles Chart.
Origins
The title was inspired by the debut Joy DivisionEP, An Ideal for Living. The opening line of the song 'Libraries gave us power' was inspired by a legend engraved over the entrance to the former library in Pillgwenlly, Newport, 15 miles from the band's home town of Blackwood in Wales: 'Knowledge is Power'. 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 explores themes of class conflict and working class identity and solidarity, inspired by the band's strong socialist convictions. Its video exemplifies this theme further. Vintage advertising slogans promoting compliance and domesticity clash with scenes of fox hunting, Royal Ascot, a polo match and the Last Night of the Proms representing what the band saw as classprivilege. The video was directed by Pedro Romhanyi. The song was the first to be written and released by the band following the disappearance of figurehead Richey Edwards the previous year. Interviewed in 2014 by NME for their "Song Stories" video series, singer and guitarist James Dean Bradfield recalled that the lyric had been a fusion of two sets of lyrics — "Design for Life" and "Pure Motive" — sent to him from Wales by bassist Nicky Wire, while he was living in Shepherd's Bush. The music was written "in about ten minutes" and Bradfield felt a sense of euphoria with the result. The song was credited with having "rescued the band" from the despair felt after the disappearance of Edwards, with Wire describing the song as "a bolt of light from a severely dark place".
Release
The single reached number 2 in the UK Singles Charts on 27 April 1996 and was the first in a run of five consecutive releases to be top ten hits. It spent a total of 14 weeks in the chart, with 7 weeks in the UK Top 40, being the best performing single by the band, along with "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough". It has achieved Silver status in the UK. With "A Design for Life" the band also began a run of 11 years where all their singles until 2007 charted within the Top 20 in the UK, with the single "Indian Summer" from their eighth studio albumSend Away the Tigers breaking the run by peaking at number 22. The song peaked at number 48 in New Zealand, and at number 50 in Australia. In both countries it only charted for one week. In Ireland it charted in the top 20, reaching number 17. The CD single also included the songs "Mr Carbohydrate", "Dead Passive" and "Dead Trees and Traffic Islands", while the cassette included a live version of "Bright Eyes". As part of Record Store Day 2016, 2000 copies were released on 12" vinyl in a copper sleeve.
Legacy
The song is referred to in the song "Slide Show" on Travis' 1999 album, The Man Who: "'Cause there is no design for life, There's no devil's haircut in my mind, There is not a wonderwall to climb or step around". In May 2007NME magazine placed "A Design for Life" at number 30 in its list of "50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever". In October 2011NME placed it at number 75 on its list of "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". On 18 June 2009 the band were invited to officially open the new £15m Cardiff Central Library, unveiling a plaque inscribed with the words to the opening line of the song. At the event, Wire spoke about how his experience with libraries had partly inspired the song. The Cardiff Arms ParkMale Voice Choir performed a version of the song, in front of the band, which Nicky Wire described as "spine tingling". Wire later said in an interview with The Guardian that the occasion had been a great honour for the band: "For us, it seemed like a chance to give something back to Wales. Seeing one of our lyrics – "Libraries gave us power", from A Design for Life – inscribed on the opening plaque was in its own way as affecting as playing the Millennium Stadium."
