The Manic Street Preachers Sang About Them Quiz

Answer: Mark Chapman

Mark Chapman was an obsessive fan of the Beatles and JD Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye'. A convert to Christianity, he was angered by Lennon's statement about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus, and saw him as one of the 'phonies' that Holden Caulfield (the hero of 'The Catcher in the Rye') disparaged. On the night of Lennon's murder, Chapman approached him and asked him to sign his copy of 'Double Fantasy'. When Lennon returned to the Dakota Hotel, where Chapman had been lying in wait, Chapman shot him in the back and shoulder. He made a point of reading 'The Catcher in the Rye' when the police came for him, saying the book was 'his statement'.

(Lyrics from 'Motown Junk', from the album 'Generation Terrorists'.)

Answer: Union of Democratic Mineworkers

The Union of Democratic Mineworkers was a Nottingham-based miners' trade union, Nottinghamshire being a principal mining area, and was established as a result of the Nottingham branch of the National Union of Mineworkers breaking away from the main body of the union. Lynk was one of its leaders; he started out as a member of the Nottinghamshire NUM, becoming its General Secretary, but formed the UDM with David Prendergast in 1985. National Archive files later revealed that Lynk had met with Margaret Thatcher on three occasions, and that although the UDM publicly opposed the privatisation of coal, its leadership privately supported it. Both Thatcher and members of her cabinet, such as Energy Minister Peter Walker, were willing to give the UDM favourable treatment, seeing it as an opportunity to weaken the NUM.

(Lyrics from 'Gold Against the Soul', from the album of the same name.)

Answer: They were all serial killers

In order:

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, known as the 'Moors Murderers', killed five children and teenagers and buried their bodies at Saddleworth Moor. They recorded one victim, 10-year-old Lesley Anne Downey, screaming for help. Both died in prison, Hindley in 2002 and Brady in 2017.

Colin Ireland was nicknamed the 'Gay Slayer', due to all five of his victims being gay men. He was not gay himself, but pretended to be in order to trick his victims. He died in prison in 2012.

Beverley Allitt, nicknamed the 'Angel of Death', was a paediatric nurse who murdered four children in her care, caused grievous bodily harm to six more, and attempted to kill another three. At least one of her victims died of an insulin overdose, though two others she tried to overdose survived.

Peter Sutcliffe was nicknamed the 'Yorkshire Ripper' and predominantly targeted female prostitutes, killing 13 women in total. The Manics sampled the mother of one of his victims for 'Archives of Pain'.

Jeffrey Dahmer was an American sex offender and cannibal, nicknamed the 'Milwaukee Monster', who targeted both men and boys, killing 17 in total. He consumed the parts of some of his victims after they died. He was beaten to death in prison by a fellow inmate, Christopher Scarver, in 1994.

Dennis Nilsen targeted men, and was thought to have killed 12-15 victims. He dissected and burned the bodies of many of his victims, after storing them under his floorboards, and also flushed body parts down the toilet, which led to his arrest. He died in prison in 2018.

Yoshinori Ueda was a Japanese serial killer who murdered 5 people. He was released after pleading insanity.

(Lyrics from 'Archives of Pain', from the album 'The Holy Bible'.)

Answer: Kevin Carter

Kevin Carter was a member of the Bang-Bang Club, a group of South African war photographers active in the early 90s, in the final days of apartheid. (The other members were Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva and Ken Oosterbroek, who was killed by friendly fire in the Thokoza township.) Carter was a member of the South African Air Force, and was beaten up by white servicemen for standing up for a black waiter. The Pretoria Church Street bombing inspired him to become a photojournalist, and in 1993, he and Silva travelled to Sudan to cover the South Sudanese civil war. It was there that he took the iconic photograph of the child and the vulture, which Carter chased away, entitled 'Struggling Girl' (although the child was actually a boy). The photograph won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Three months later, Carter committed suicide by asphyxiation in his car, aged 33.

(Lyrics from 'Kevin Carter', from the album 'Everything Must Go'.)

Answer: Hillsborough

Jimmy McGovern was a writer on the Liverpool soap 'Brookside', which originally featured Ricky Tomlinson - who would go on to star in 'The Royle Family' - among its cast. He also created the crime series 'Cracker', which starred Robbie Coltrane, and Lancashire-based drama 'The Lakes', starring John Simm. 'Hillsborough' came about after two women whose children had died at Hillsborough asked McGovern if he could write their story, and he interviewed families who had lost loved ones in the disaster. It starred Christopher Eccleston as Trevor Hicks, a leading Hillsborough Justice campaigner who lost two daughters in the disaster. ('SYMM' is about the Hillsborough Disaster; it stands for 'South Yorkshire Mass Murderer'.)

(Lyrics from 'SYMM', from the album 'This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours'.)

Answer: He was the subject of a custody battle which involved the Cuba and US governments

Elián González was the child of divorced parents, and was one of three survivors when a boat carrying emigrants to Cuba sank; among the dead was his mother Elizabeth. Elián's great uncle Lázaro, who lived in Miami, took him in and Lázaro's daughter Marisleyslis became Elián's caretaker. Juan Miguel González Quintana, Elián's father, demanded that he return to Cuba, and was backed up by Elián's grandmothers.

On 22nd April 2000, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service raided the house; photographer Alan Diaz captured a frightened Elián and Donato Dalrymple, one of the men who had rescued him, being confronted by an INS agent. After several months of legal proceedings, Elián's father was granted custody and he returned to Cuba. Elián later stated that he wished to return to Cuba, but that his family in the US had coached him to say that he wanted to stay in the US. Elián later went on to study engineering.

(Lyrics from 'Baby Elián', from the album 'Know Your Enemy'.)

Answer: Athletics

Steve Ovett was a track athlete who won the 800m gold and the 1500 bronze at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, the 5000m gold at the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games in 1986, and two IAAF World Cup 1500m golds in 1977 and 1981. Both he and rival Sebastian Coe set 1500m world records. From 1982 onwards, his career was plagued by injuries, and he officially retired in 1991. In 1987, a statue of him was erected in Preston Park in his hometown of Brighton (and replaced with a replica after the original got stolen in 2007).

(Lyrics from 'A Prologue to History', from the album 'Lipstick Traces'.)

Answer: Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby, né Jacob Rubenstein, was the owner of the Carousel Club, a nightclub in Dallas, Texas. He was alleged to have underworld ties. On the morning of 24th November, he got into the basement of the police station where Oswald was being held, and shot Oswald in the abdomen as the police escorted him to an armoured car. Ruby was sentenced to death, but his sentence was overturned; however, he died in prison of a pulmonary embolism in 1967.

Zapruder (who gets a mention in 'Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart' on 'The Holy Bible'), Tague and Greer were all people associated with the assassination of Kennedy. Zapruder was filming a home movie of the procession, and happened to catch Kennedy's death on camera. Tague was a member of the public who was injured by flying debris as a result of the bullet hitting the kerb. Greer was a Secret Service agent and the driver of Kennedy's limousine.

(Lyrics from 'Just a Patsy', from the album 'Send Away the Tigers'.)

Answer: Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism was heavily influenced by Greco-Roman art, and began in the mid-18th century as a response to the popular rococo style. Ingres is most known for his portraits, though he also painted classical figures such as Oedipus and the Greek general Agamemnon. The painting the song refers to is 'Grande Odalisque', a painting of a naked woman which received much criticism for its anatomical inaccuracy (such as the woman's abnormally long back), though Ingres actually did this on purpose. (An odalisque, from the Turkish 'odalik', was a female attendant in a seraglio, an Ottoman Turkish household.) The Guerrilla Girls, a feminist group, used the painting for a poster with the slogan, 'Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?', with a gorilla mask superimposed on the woman's head.

(Lyrics from 'Pretension/Repulsion', from the album 'Journal for Plague Lovers'.)

Answer: Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1979 with 'The Executioner's Song'; his other novels include 'The Naked and the Dead' and 'Of Women and their Elegance'. He also wrote non-fiction, including biographies of Marilyn Monroe and Lee Harvey Oswald. He married six times and the painter Adele Morales, the victim of the incident in question, was his second wife.

In 1960, Mailer was planning to run for Mayor of New York, and he and Morales hosted a party on 19th November, whose guests included several homeless people Mailer had met on the street, and the poet Allen Ginsberg. The atmosphere was tense, and fights broke out; Mailer himself got drunk - Morales described him as being 'so out of it, he didn't know what his name was' and left the apartment. He returned with a ripped shirt and a black eye in the early hours of the morning, having been in fights with various people. A few people were still in the dining room, and an argument broke out between Morales and Mailer. Mailer stabbed her twice with a penknife, once in the chest and once in the back, narrowly missing her heart. Morales was taken to hospital in a taxi, where she initially claimed she had fallen on glass, but later admitted that Mailer had attacked her. Mailer was convicted of assault, but released on probation.

(Lyrics from 'Faster', from the album 'The Holy Bible'.)