“It’s about not being beaten, about fighting back, about finding someone you can believe in and help you get through this life.”Bobby Gillespie (364)

“It’s not really a drug song, though. It’s more like me just saying how I feel. And I mentioned hallucinogens because sometimes they can enlarge upon those feelings. But sometimes those feelings can be negated by those drugs as well. It’s a spiritual song. It’s me disconnecting myself from everything, but being totally in touch with myself. It’s like when sometimes you’re on Earth but you feel separate from everybody else, you just want to rise above the everyday. I’m sure that when astronauts are up in space, they must get the impulse to just disconnect themselves from the ship and drift off into space and never come back. I could imagine feeling that.”Bobby Gillespie (779)

“I see the song as a modern day ‘Street Fighting Man’. It’s certainly not a statement of vapid New Age optimism. Rather, I see Weatherall’s [Producer and DJ, Andy Weatherall – Ed] side as being tragic: like, ‘if only the world could be as one…’ but I know it never will be.”Bobby Gillespie (780)

“I’d been reading a lot of books like Soledad Brother by George Jackson and Seize The Time by Bobby Seale. And I’d always wanted to write a song about equal rights. I’m not trying to write a black song, I’m trying to write a socialist song, a rebel song. I’m a punk rocker, me, and it seems like a punk thing to do. It’s an affirmative, uplifting song. And it’s a rebel song. Whether it’s the Liverpool Dockers, or the miners on 1985, anyone who fuckin’ goes out there and stands up for what they believe, they’re all stars to me. There are three ways [to change society] – there’s a peaceful way, a violent way, and an individual way. I think that’s what I was trying to put across. It’s a song for everybody – although these examples [Sister Rosa, Malcolm X and Dr. King – Ed] are black people, they were doing it for everybody.”Bobby Gillespie (781)

“‘Swastika Eyes’ is a good, powerful, authoritarian image for a song, It’s about the American multinational corporations, dropping bombs, being able to commit mass murder anywhere they like in the world. It’s white fascism, getting out of control. No one is able to stop it. I guess that’s what the song’s about. It’s punk, but we made it disco as well, so it was quite jolly and people could dance to it.”Bobby Gillespie (782)