Here's a chilled-out slice of relaxed Fall loveliness.
Song: The Coliseum
Album: The Light User Syndrome
Year: 1996
This one is great, its a laid-back, relaxing piece to be honest, swathes of slowly strummed electric guitar, combined with some almost trip-hop/electronica backing. Mark's vocals are recorded in a crackled monotone, but still ring through.
The lyrics are almost a polar opposite to Leave The Capitol where in that song MES was implying you should Exit this Roman shell, on here he is resignedly suggesting you've got to be of a certain standard to get into the 'coliseum', which I presume is either a city or a record company. I can almost imagine this is a sequel to LTC, the sound is so laid-back and so are the lyrics and the way he sings it, it could not be more opposite. Where LTC was fraught and angered, this is so laid back it's almost horizontal.
I do wonder if he ever writes songs with this in mind, like an extension of ideas he placed in a song years ago. There's a fantastic blues rock band called Clutch, who did exactly that, on an early song in their career A Shogun Named Marcus, singer Neil Fallon sang 'Yes, I'm a New World Samurai, and a redneck nonetheless/Yes, I'm a New World Samurai, and I can read your mind/Check it out, I'm like a buzzbomb' years later, he recalled this on 2001 song The Great Outdoors, singing 'Remember when I told you that I was a samurai?/Well the fact of the matter is that was a lie' I love the fact that if you're a fan, you can make the connection, but it also doesn't alienate new listeners, this track does the same and whether MES meant it or not, the threads fit if you look. I wonder how many other songs do the same thing?
This is a rare song that is fully calm by The Fall, I've listened to it several times today and it suits them, more of this please.
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