Down in My Core Feed Me Heaven Disco Lyrics
Hold Me Like a Heaven
June 17, 2021 by Flint
Seconds of hate, tiny screams of love
If you read into the origin story of "Hold Me Like a Heaven", your alarm bells might start ringing. There was a particularly confusing promotional interview with James at the time of the album's release where he spoke about the record and this song to some length, almost dismissively admitting that the very on-trend woah-ohs of the chorus was an idea that was suggested to him and which he tried to fight against, half-reluctantly agreeing to do it in the end. Sean doesn't really appear on the track as the drum is a loop cobbled together from prior studio recordings, and while there's no real background as to why this is, it springs to mind anecdotes around "Close My Eyes" which was another loop affair simply down to Sean's dislike of the song. You get the feeling that most of the band wasn't so particularly keen on "Hold Me Like a Heaven", and that it's so very radio-friendly in a very un-Manics-y fashion doesn't help the initial impression. It's not a million miles away from Coldplay, is it? And that's not something no one really wants from the Manics, regardless of how you feel about Coldplay.
But I'll be damned. "Hold Me Like a Heaven" is the shining gem of Resistance Is Futile, its heart and soul and one of its few real keepers. It's undeniably pop but it's so full of real warmth: it's the perfect distillation of the aims and goals of Resistance Is Futile in terms of sound and direction, but with the band's inspirations from the past holding hands with the present day music world. Those infamous millennial whoops of its chorus may be really weird coming from this band, but the way James delivers the lines delivered in-between the woahs are among the best vocal moments on the album.
Above all, it's embracing. It's a song which invites the listener to a place of comfort, to find a peace of mind within its genuinely positive bosom. The reason the woah-oh vocals became so popular all across music is because it invited people to partake in something communal, to share their love for the music that's playing by providing an easy blank line to shout out with a thousand other voices in unison and to be a part of a greater whole. The reason that trick works so well within "Hold Me Like a Heaven" is because the whole song is all about finding that comfort in company, as the Manics for once lower their weapons and break down their defenses for something that's really heartwarming. It's big and bombastic but it remembers that underneath the grand gestures and massive choruses there needs to be a great beating heart, and there's so much of that love in "Hold Me Like a Heaven".
This goes all the way down to the lyrics, which are similarly atypical for this band. The general sentiment is a Wire favourite as he wanders around broken promises, unfaithful truths and a world that no longer makes sense – there's no clear future and nothing believe in. Except someone else. Where in other songs Wire would retreat into his own hole of self-doubt and misanthropy, here he openly seeks solace in company. It's almost romantic, bordering on a love song: finding peace and absolution from the presence of someone you love. Resistance Is Futile is an album dedicated to things that have brought the band inspiration and comfort: here that inspiration is the person near you who accepts you with all your demons. It's a twist and it works – it's what cracks that armour around the band and lets the song bathe in light, and the chorus is absolute bliss in its pure human vulnerability.
(The lyrics, by the way, were inspired by Philip Larkin's poems Lines on a Young Lady's Photograph Album (from which the song gets its title), and to lesser extent Aubabe. Besides the title there's very little in common between the poems and the lyric, and Wire has instead distilled the bittersweetness of the former poem into a form that he's more comfortable to wield.)
Resistance Is Futile is an album that I struggle to make my mind up about because so much of it conflicts with itself, and what could be a better example than this? I should give "Hold Me Like a Heaven" cold shoulder because I'm typically jaded against the Manics pressing themselves against an easy pop/rock comfort zone… but this isn't a comfort zone for them, this is the band pulling out the pop core out of those stadium antics of theirs and holding it open and visible, covering it in heavy studio magic. Somehow, that results in the album's grand stand-out moment, the one song from it that I would without a doubt land on a best of among the band's other classics. It's a genuinely resonant song and a real highlight.
Unsurprisingly, "Hold Me Like a Heaven" was released as one of the album's "proper" singles and received another video where the actress from the previous two videos continues to walk around various vistas, interspersed with shots of the band. It also received two remixes which rank by and far as some of the best Manics remixes in the band's later days. The Public Service Broadcasting remix removes much of the rhythmic backbone and emphasises the serene atmosphere of the song to lovely results, but the Warm Digits remix is the big standout, transforming the song into a thundering synth-pop banger. It, quite frankly, slaps.
Source: https://manicsongs.wordpress.com/2021/06/17/hold-me-like-a-heaven/
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