Fall Monday Playlist #11 - 'We Are The Fall'
"Good evening, we are The Fall; from the long, long days..."
In playlist #8, I selected ten songs that mentioned MES himself. There's an equally rich seam of Fall tracks that refer to the group as a whole. Smith's customary introduction to Fall performances (having given the musicians a few minutes to churn away at a riff before making his grand entrance) was 'Good evening, we are The Fall'. More often than not, it followed a few random snippets of the lyrics to the song the group were playing - frequently this was a relatively new and not yet fully developed tune. On several occasions, it was accompanied by one of his favourite phrases, 'from the long, long days' (or variations thereof).
Here are a few examples:
- 'Kwik Save started there. The Fall started there. Good evening, we are The Fall. [to audience member] You've got nice hair.' (Tilburg, The Netherlands, 13 May 1981)
- 'Good evening, we are The Fall. Touchstone, as all is stone. As all damp retains time.' (The Ritz, New York, 6 May 1988)
- 'Good evening, we are The Fall. One! Bank Holiday in Britain.' (Glasgow City Hall 8 May 1992)
- 'Good evening, we are The Fall, we thought we were in Whitby, we thought we were in the wrong town.' (The Dome, Whitley Bay, 1 December 2000)
- 'Good evening, we are The Fall, from the long, long days down the crumbling castle, whatever it is.' (Islington Academy, 3 November 2005)
- 'Good evening, we are The Fall. From the long, long days of your half-educated system of Cheshire cheese.' (Bilston, 4 March 2008)
I've kept all of these playlists to ten tracks and avoided having songs appearing in more than one, so if you spot what you think is a noteworthy omission, then that's probably why.
Jim's "The Fall"
Trigger Happy were a band who were booked to support The Fall in early 2001. Members included Ed Blaney, Dave Milner and Jim Watts, all of whom would go on to play with (or manage) the group at some point. Watts wrote the opening track on Are You Are Missing Winner, a bold statement of intent from the new line-up: 'we are new Fall / not like the old one’.
Clasp Hands
A jaunty piece of rickety rockabilly that finds Smith in uncharacteristically positive mood, expressing an enthusiastic esprit de corps regarding a successful Fall performance: ‘it was a pleasure… it was one of the best shows ever seen / ludicrous, majestic and exhilarating’. The lyric also refers to the fact that the song, written by Steve Trafford, was originally called ‘NYC Steve’. One of the five Fall tracks to reference wolverines, it also features Simon 'Ding' Archer on banjo.
(Jung Nev's) Antidotes
Named after guitarist Neville Wilding, '(Jung Nev's) Antidotes' was, thankfully, a lot more developed and coherent than the almost unlistenable Peel session version. Over swathes of bombastic noise, MES references the Marx Brothers, a 1940s novelty song and the Carry On... film series.
Before The Moon Falls
'We are private detectives onward back from a musical pilgrimage
We work under the name of "The Fall".'
Also references Yvonne Pawlett's departure: 'We were six like dice but we're back to five'.
Noise
The comedy 'roast' is very much an American phenomenon, but MES occasionally adopted the approach on a few of the group's experimental fillers/interludes (for example 'North West Fashion Show': 'next up we have Mr. Stephen Hanley, modelling the bald look'). On this track from Re-Mit, Greenway is 'nasty noise Peter', Dave Spurr is 'David, warrior of the dark forest' and Grant Showbiz becomes 'Emperor Cunliffe'.
Fall Sound
With yet another new and hastily-assembled line-up and simmering, rancorous resentment regarding recently departed members, Smith was keen to point out that he defined the Fall sound.
'No '80s reprobates - Fall sound
No laptop wankers overground - with Fall sound.'
Greenway
I'm not sure how Pete Greenway, the second longest-serving Fall guitarist, feels about being immortalised in one of the group's most divisive songs. The riff is lifted from Athenian thrash-metallers Anorimoi; the infamous cat/dog line is borrowed from Jon Wayne's ‘But I've Got Texas’. Some fool even went to the trouble of giving it a remix.
In My Area
'Former friends suck on The Fall
Genuine white crap article'
Insult Song
Another 'roast', this time framed around an angular, funky Beefheart-esque jam. Eleni is 'the mad Greek woman, The Hydra'; Orpheo McCord is 'the ancient name from Greece'. As for Dave Spurr, 'put a stocking over his head, and you couldn’t tell the difference'.
Reprise: Jane / Prof Mick / Ey Bastardo
An entertaining if messy and self-indulgent track that makes a fitting conclusion to the patchy Are You Are Missing Winner. Spencer Birtwistle gets the brunt of the 'roasting' ('Spen is a bastardo') but Ed Blaney and guitarist Brian Fanning also get a mention; 'Steve the mixer' is probably the album's engineer, Steve Lloyd.
Thanks, as ever, for reading and for your support. Next week I'm going to look at the best Brix moments.
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