Fall Monday Playlist #23 - "Borrows" part 2
Happy new year to you all! I hope you had as good a time if possible, even if like here it was just a Zoom quiz and a few glasses of wine.
The first Monday playlist of 2021 revisits the theme of The Fall's 'borrows' that I touched on in playlist #18. These are the tracks that aren't covers (although some come rather close) but take some inspiration from the work of others - sometimes a little, sometimes a lot...
Mansion
Brix had perpetrated one of the group's most notable borrows on 1984's 'Elves'; the following year saw her in magpie mode again, as the riff of This Nation's Saving Grace's opener is a clear lift from 'Billy The Monster' by The Deviants. The Deviants were a late 60s psych-rock who released three albums, the last of which, The Deviants 3 (released in 1969) contained 'Billy'. Vocalist Mick Farren sporadically played under the Deviants name from 1977 until his death on stage in 2013; the remaining three members of the group went on to play in The Pink Fairies.
Brix declared that her aim with 'Mansion' was 'to evoke the creepy theme song to the Haunted house at Disneyland'. It set the scene nicely for the following aural barrage of 'Bombast'.
Over! Over!
Another album opener, this time from Reformation Post TLC. The demonic cackle that kicks things off is 100% MES, but the fuzzy blues-rock that follows borrows heavily from 'Coming Down' by The United States of America. The track came from their sole, eponymous album, released in 1968. The album made little impact at the time, and the band spilt up shortly after its release; it has, however, come to be regarded as a classic example of 60s psychedelia.
Ten Houses of Eve
Yet another album opener - this time from Levitate - finds the group plundering 60s psych-rock again. This time it's The Seeds' 'Evil Hoodoo' from their eponymous 1966 debut LP.
O! Zztrrk Man
The nineteenth and final Fall song to feature an exclamation mark in the title, 'O! Zztrrk Man' bears more than a passing resemblance to Gary Numan's 'M.E.' The track appeared on his 1979 debut solo album The Pleasure Principle. It was also pointed out to me on Twitter only yesterday (by @PaulG258) that 'Where's Your Head At?' by Basement Jaxx also deploys the same riff.
Cowboy George
A track that owes a debt to both Link Wray's 'Jack The Ripper' and The Seeds' 'Pushin' Too Hard'. The former provides the sweeping chords that bookend the first section of the song; the latter the surging 'stagecoach-racing-across-the-plains' riff. 'George' also features the unlikely scenario of The Fall sampling Daft Punk: the distorted robotic voice that appears nine seconds in is taken from the French duo’s 2001 single, 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'.
Everybody But Myself
This Levitate track's house-style piano chords are similar(ish) to those on Derrick May’s 'Strings Of The Strings Of Life', although to be fair, it's a fairly generic house sound.
Ride Away
Defiantly odd and wonky, Fall Heads Roll's opener is a bit of a divisive one amongst Fall fans. What's inarguable is that the melody is distinctly similar to that of 1971 Northern Soul track 'I'm Gonna Run Away From You' by Tami Lynn.
Scenario
'Over! Over!' wasn't the only RPTLC track to borrow from The United States of America's 'Coming Down'. 'Scenario' also added a dash of Beefheart's 'Veteran's Day Poppy', the final track on Trout Mask Replica.
Spoilt Victorian Child
Not quite as clear and direct a link as some of the others, but there are shades of the recurring riff from The Groundhogs' 'Earth Is Not Room Enough' (from their 1972 album Who Will Save The World?) in 'Child'. This version ('Spoilt Victorian Childe') is from 2004's Interim.
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