Wednesday 21 March 2012

Day 126: 60-hour weeks...

Apologies for severe lack of updates, I've taken on the editorship of this website, I started it with friends in 2004 and it was really popular at one point, but we let it slip badly over a few years and so I've decided to ressurect it, but still have time for The Fall. Anyone listen to 6music today? Lauren Laverne played 'Touch Sensitive' possibly the only time that will ever happen at work, awesome.


Song: English Scheme
Album: Grotesque (Against the Gramme)
Year: 1980

So this is a sprightly little number, all bad casio and an almost sing-song nature, it could easily have been plonke on ...Witch Trials as it's just 2 minutes long and features some snotty-nosed vocals from Lord Smith.

But wait! There's something calculated and suddenly profound hidden in there... The line 'He's rich, but he struck it rich...switch' signals a subtle change in the music, it's another case of MES the conducter giving vocal instructions to the band while they are playing again, once again, there is no fourth wall and we are just intruding on the spectacle.

There's some well-observed stuff in here too, I'm talking almost kitchen sink: 'Down pokey quaint streets in Cambridge/Cycles our distant spastic heritage/Its a gay red, roundhead, army career, grim head/If we was smart we'd emigrate' this just smacks of thick-stockinged women blarting to each other about nothing over the fence. The kind of thing you get regailed with when you visit your hometown, brief and synopsied recent histories of people. All part of the great Fall documentary then, a brief snippet, but a good entry in the scrapbook nontheless.

The word 'scheme' is very British too, we have 'schemes' as something positive, even though the meaning of the word is 'to plot', as in 'Mark E Smith schemed to chuck out another member of the band, he was sure he could make it to 100 former members'. When I was growing up in the 90s, there were summer sessions at the local secondary school where kids could be looked after for a whole day against their will, they called them 'play schemes' and it was incredibly bleak and depressing, well summed up Mr Smith, I like.

Requests are still accepted by the way, anyone care to reach through the void and suggest a tune?

5 comments:

  1. 'The Littlest Rebel' from Extricate is one of Fall's best stompers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ...and 'Lie Dream of Casino Soul', if you haven't done it yet. Probably the greatest single I've ever heard, by any band. This is such a great little blog, this - You should compile a neat little alphabetical list of the songs you've done so far...

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