Day 66: He is not apprieciated...

This would have been Thursday's song this week, apologies they are all coming at once, but better than not coming at all I presume!

Here's one I've had to think about for a long time as its a song that has followed the group around since they released it, its been reworked several times into new songs, there must be a million live versions of it, but I still rate the original over anything else. It appears in 90s thriller Silence Of The Lambs, its unhinged dynamics suit the unusual subject of that film well. Who knows if the director wanted a song about a deluded genius and thought of MES?



Song: Hip Priest
Album: Hex Enduction Hour
Year: 1982

So, perhaps one of the most minimal songs by the Fall musically, but one of the most atmospheric in terms of lyrics, I've seen someone, can't remember who, saying this is MES's most self-reverential song, that it is about their lack of commerical success. Bollocks to that I say, since when did the Fall care about commercial success? Why would they record obscure covers, release singles with no backing, constantly switch labels and be deliberately difficult if they wanted chart positions? I think the brief hits they had were pleasant bonuses, but MES and co have always treated the band like a job, while not compromising their artistic integrity once to my mind.

Anyway, the song, that drum beat that fills the song with an air of menace, the casually picked guitar line, Mark's now-famous 'heeee-eee iiii-iiiisss nooo-ooo-oot, eeeerr-preeciaTED' and the fact it jumps in and out of intensity with the dynamics gives it the air of an improvised jam, with MES in total focus with his vocals.

The lyrics are baffling, the line 'drink the long draught Dan' has always puzzled me, can anyone tell me what it means? It's delivered with such feeling and comic brevity that it must mean something, whether its an in-joke, a reference to someone in particular or just a throwaway line, I've been wondering for years.

I like the part where it picks up in volume and the guitar skitters maniacally, this is where MES delivers some of my favourite lines 'I picked my last clean dirty shirt out of the wardrobe' being particularly good, but my personal favourite is 'People only need me/when they're old and gone to seed' again, as I mentioned this morning in my Disney's Dream Debased entry, this sounds so olde-English it could almost be Shakespearian, brilliant.

The cries of 'Hip, hip, hip, hip' are also amazing, it follows the stab of the music perfectly.

I won't talk about the rework for I Am Kurious Oranj now, I'll cover that when I do that song, if anyone has anything to add to this particular entry, let me know as I know it is a song heavy with history throughout their career, are there any particular live versions people enjoy for example?

Day 61: Sinister Popes...

Here's a request, and it's claimed it's a hard one. I agree, but only because it's so different.



Song: Papal Visit
Album: Room To Live
Year: 1982

So this is what sounds like a highly-improvised soundscape to me, there's some scratchy violin actually played by MES, some footstep-sounding percussion, some industrial noises and faint squalks of feedback in the background far off. The main focus of this is the lyrics, which focus on an account of a papal visit, incredibly sinister and unnerving.

The zombie-like delivery adds an air of unease to the track, lines are uttered as fact in a calm, unwavering voice about an actual papal visit. I think it's a bout disbelief that people could be duped into making a fuss, and just general thoughts about it. As with everything in the wonderful and frightening world of this band, normal items and situations take on unusual traits, yellow-white umbrellas for example.

The sinister lines come in the form of 'helicopter strips the land' and specifics like 'the first impression will be the last'. Some say this song is a focus on the evil of the church, the uneasiness it creates is similar to the unease people get when broaching this subject, the idea of 'human trash' fits in with this, but again, this is just conjecture, it could be to do with anything.

It's generally disturbing as a whole, the drone of the violin combined with the unusual percussion and Mark's barely-there vocals mumbling about lay bread and assassinations simply add to this. This whole track actually sounds years ahead, it sounds like stuff that improv groups like Sunburned Hand Of The Man put together now, washes of nothingness that build to create terrifying beasts, the real joy of experimentation within music.

Comparisons must have been made to The Velvet Underground with this track, the post-modern lyrics and highly obtuse sounds would suggest this, but I would argue MES would not have consciously ripped them off, I have faith that this is a wholly original track, it creaks and stammers to an end, to close what, after all, is the strangest Fall release ever, surely?

Day 55: This is the home of the vain!

Okay, so this is probably my favourite song by The Fall, it's just so unhinged and life-affirming, the reason I've avoided covering it until now is I was afraid I couldn't do it justice in words, it's a song that is steeped in a myriad of meanings and is one of the best Fall songs lyrically as well as musically I think they've ever done. It's also one of the best and most representative opening tracks to an album ever.



Song: The Classical
Album: Hex Enduction Hour
Year: 1982

I find it amazing they recorded this very clean sounding album between the raw power of Slates and the experimental weirdness of Room To Live, it has more in common with the Brix era than any of the surrounding releases, but there we have it, The Fall is an ever-changing beast. This album features two drummers and the production pops with their variety of styles, there's some cowbell in there, differing rhythms and it all fits perfectly. The bass sound, courtesy of Steve Hanley, sounds incredible on here, more complex than usual for a Fall album and it makes this particular track stand out, there's also much more variation than you would expect on this one, lots of little twists and turns, melodies appearing from nowhere seamlessly, keyboard sounds rushing in and out, sounding all chaotic, yet focused and honed.

The only negative aspect of this song is the opening gambit, I'm sure many people don't mind it now, but when I first heard it I had to kind of get over how blatant it is. I have no idea what is meant by it, but use of the 'n' word is universally frowned upon these days (you'd hope) and even in 1982, this would have been shocking, just for clarity, the line is: 'Where are the obligatory ni**ers? Hey there fuckface, hey there fuckface' whether this is a line he'd heard at a show, or if he was paraphrasing someone, who knows, but its there, a little smudge on what is otherwise an incredible song. Apparently Mark sent a copy of the album to Motown Records in 1984, the only album he had to hand and the result was an outright rejection, he has publicly stated that perhaps it was to do with those opening lines. Shooting himself in the foot I reckon.

Anyway, onto the rest of the song, there are some incredible concepts on show here, from the 'now I can remember, now I can remember!' lines about the 'Hotel Amnesia' and the 'destroying of romantic actors' the bizarre claim that 'there are only twelve people in the world/the rest are paste'. My favourite part is the brief segue that comes in the form of 'You won't find anything more ridiculous than this new profile razor unit/Made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail' it just makes me laugh every time, an obscure reference to British engineering, or just a comment on the petty and minutiae people focus on sometimes.

Mention must go to MES's vocals, one minute he is squealing 'Poleaxe! The Classical!' the next he is singing, the amazing refrain of 'I've never felt better in my life' and there is everything in between, his timing is perfect, his delivery easily understood and he sounds oddly angry and amused at the same time, which is why I love this track so much. As it fades out, I can't help wanting to hear the next song on the album: Jawbone and the Air Rifle, the two songs run into each other so smoothly, this release feels like an album, rather than a collection of songs.

Much mention of his lyrical twists and turns on this album have been talked about and I fully agree, I would argue this is MES at his most sharp, equaled only by Grotesque and Perverted By Language, he is clear, concise and inventive and this is the album I always have with me, the rest are great, but this has the edge for me. He has recently found even more to insert into his lyrics, see the likes of Mexico Wax Solvent, Bury, What About Us?, Blindness and 50-Year-Old Man for proof, but this is an exemplary period of creativity for him.

Thought I'd include this live version from 2002, MES seems to be in slow motion, his vocals are slow and more drawling, but it stills retains that punch, good stuff.

Day 43: He sees visions of islands.

A dark story unfolds in a graveyard, a rabbit hunter creeps round a dark setting and a grave-tender is shocked to be shot at, as a result, he shows the rabbit hunter who has mistakenly shot at him a jaw-bone from the ground, obviously dislodged from a recently-disturbed grave. From then on the laid-off rabbit hunter is cursed with visions of jawbones and is put off eating at all. Now if this isn't literature laced with music, I don't know what is. The lyrics in this song are again, somewhat buried in delivery, but what a song, dark, inventive, bat-shit crazy. Only helped along by the demented and chirpy chorus.

Also one of MES's best vocal deliveries ever.



Song: Jawbone And The Air Rifle
Album: Hex Enduction Hour
Year: 1982

So this album was partly recorded in Iceland, I've no idea if the dark perpetual night-time got to the band, but this is where the sweep of dark, gothic horror via the north-west comes in for me, there had been hints of it before, but this is a masterpiece, two drummers create a clanging, skitterish rhythm section, while the bass sounds incredibly prominent and MES's vocals are clear and concise, a welcome rarity.

The lyrics would bear a full replication here, but that would be lazy of me, I'll instead say that the sense of narrative wouldn't be out of place in film or a collection of short stories, such is the strange, totally unique nature of the descriptions and cadence he unfurls here. Whole sections could be deconstructed to create dozens of other stories, take this one for example: 'A cemetery overlooked clough valley of mud/And the grave-keeper was out on his rounds/Yellow-white shirt buried in duffle coat hood/Keeping edges out with mosaic color stones' in a brief verse, he has fit in more description than most bands manage in an album, you get an instant image of this man and his mannerisms and its haunting, even the comic lines like 'The air rifle lets out a mis-placed shot/It smashed a chip off a valued tomb' and 'Rifleman he say y’see I get no kicks anymore/From wife or children four/There’s been no war for forty years/And getting drunk fills me with guilt' this is a humourous image, a man so bored of life he goes out drunkenly shooting things at random, but also, addresses being laid off, something which is inherently sad, this is what life has come to, very poetic.

I like the disgusting idea of a jaw-bone covered in slime, and the fact it puts him off meat and eating, having hallucinations, 'Advertisements become carnivores/And roadworkers turn into jawbones/And he has visions of islands, heavily covered in slime' it's all a bit Wicker Man isn't it? A normal 1970s/80s situation injected with a touch of the uncanny, really strong stuff when you think about it in this context.

I'd like to know what books MES was reading at the time he wrote this, if it was something similar to HP Lovecraft I wouldn't be surprised. I'd thoroughly recommend if you have friends who dismiss The Fall as too awkward to get into or they don't get it, get them to listen to this one and read along with the lyrics, there's no denying this is one of their definitive tracks and one that showcases everything wonderful about this incredible band.