Resistance

George Orwell's prophetic novel of a future repressive totalitarian regime, 1984, had a massive impact on Bellamy when he was writing the album. The NME asked him if he felt there any themes running through The Resistance. He replied: "I think if you had to boil it down to one theme, it would be the idea that there's some sort of romance taking place in this, call it contemporary England, with all the b--locks going on everywhere – you just think to yourself, 'It's a bunch of b--locks isn't it?'. So if I was in doubt as to where to go with certain lyric or song I'd go back to those initial thoughts. Like Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I read the book when I was at school and I only really took in the political side of it, but I read it again and the romance side moved me – this idea that love was the only place where there was some freedom from all the b--locks. The act of love can be a political act in those kind of scenarios, as the one place where the state can't invade your privacy. That love story touched me more than the overall political meaning of the book. So I'd say that was one of the cornerstones of the album, really, the love story in that book."