The Holy Bible:
The album's lyrics deal with subjects including child prostitution, American consumerism, British imperialism, freedom of speech, the Holocaust, self-starvation, serial killers, the death penalty, political revolution, childhood, fascism and suicide.
Sean Moore has described the content of the lyrics as being "as far as Richey's character could go" According to Bradfield: "Some of the lyrics confused me. Some [...] were voyeuristic and some were coming from personal experience. I remember getting the lyrics to 'Yes' and thinking 'You crazy fucker, how do I write music for this?'"
Critic Simon Price notes that the potential radio-friendliness of the song is undermined by its focus on the subject of prostitution and the recurrence of sexual swearing in the lyric.
Interviewed at the time of the album's release, Nicky Wire said that the track "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" was "not a completely anti-American song", but instead was about "how the most empty culture in the world can dominate in such a total sense".[19] "Of Walking Abortion" is about right-wing totalitarianism,[24] of which Wire commented: "there's a worm in human nature that makes us want to be dominated". "Archives of Pain", dealing with the glorification of serial killers and seemingly advocating capital punishment, he said "was the song that me and Richey worried about most [...] the song isn't a right-wing statement, it's just against this fascination with people who kill".[19] Later in 1994, Bradfield described the song as "one of the most important things we've done" but said it was also "very right-wing" and "miscalculated".[21]
Wire described "Revol" as being about Edwards' idea that "relationships in politics, and relationships in general, are failures". "P.C.P.", he said, was about how "PC followers take up the idea of being liberal but end up being quite the opposite". He said that he was "completely confused" by "Faster" (some of which he had written),[25] although Edwards had told him that it was about self-abuse.[19]
"Mausoleum" and "The Intense Humming of Evil", Wire said, were both inspired by visits by the band to former concentration camps at Dachau and Belsen.[19] A first draft of the latter song had been considered insufficiently judgemental by Bradfield, who had asked for a re-write ("you can't be ambivalent about the Holocaust").[26]
According to Wire, "Die in the Summertime" and "4st 7lb" were "pretty obviously about Richey's state of mind".[19] However, Edwards attested that the former song is actually about a pensioner wanting to die with memories of childhood in his mind.[27] 4 stone 7 pounds (29 kg) is the weight below which death is reputed to become medically unavoidable for anorexics.[24]
"This Is Yesterday", according to Wire, is "about how people always look back to their youth and look on it as a glorious period".[19]
Wire and Bradfield have both expressed a disliking for the lyrics to the song "She Is Suffering", Wire saying it suffers from "man-coming-to-the-rescue syndrome".[28] According to Edwards, the "she" in the song title is desire: "In other Bibles and Holy Books no truth is possible until you empty yourself of desire".[24]
Use of dialogue samples:
Several tracks on the album are also complemented by samples of dialogue, in keeping with the themes of the songs themselves, as follows:
"Yes" contains dialogue from the 1993 documentary Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and their Johns, by Beeban Kidron, about the prostitution trade.
"Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit'sworldwouldfallapart" begins with a TV trailer for GOP TV's Rising Tide show.
"Of Walking Abortion" begins with an extract from an interview with Hubert Selby, Jr.
"She is Suffering" on the U.S. mix of the album begins with a sample of British scientist/philosopher John G. Bennett saying "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering." This dialogue is not present on the standard album/single version of the song.
"Archives of Pain" begins with the words of the mother of one of serial killer Peter Sutcliffe's victims from a TV report on his trial.
"4st 7lb" begins with dialogue from the 1994 documentary about anorexia, Caraline's Story, by Jeremy Llewelyn-Jones about Caraline Neville-Lister.
"Mausoleum" features a quotation from an interview with J. G. Ballard explaining his motivation for writing the novel Crash.
"Faster" begins with dialogue from the 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, spoken by John Hurt.
"The Intense Humming of Evil" begins with an extract from a report on the Nuremberg Trials.
"P.C.P." ends with dialogue spoken by Albert Finney from Peter Yates' The Dresser.[29]
Let's just say this is no 'You're the best thing about me or Elevation' lyrically or musically....