Fall Monday Playlist #25 - "Borrows" part 3

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Welcome to the third and final instalment of The Fall's "borrows" - those tracks that, accidentally or otherwise, had at least a hint of another track about them. In the last couple of weeks, I've had a couple of new ones drawn to my attention, so you get a bumper twelve-track playlist this week.

Spotify Playlist

YouTube Playlist

Elves

We'll start with one of the more famous ones. Brix claimed that it was a deliberate homage, a ‘witty commentary, a send-up of punk’. Steve Hanley suggests that his brother pointed out the similarity and Brix’s response was that she’d never heard the song. Either way, it's clearly indebted to The Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'.


Blindness

According to Jim Watts: 'We took a break from Tuff Gong to go for a drink in The Original Wire pub. Pretty much the worst pub in Warrington. I remember a cloud of flies buzzing around in there. And in the car on the way back we heard Witness by Roots Manuva and Spencer got very excited. We were inspired by the groove and I think Spencer started the beat, then Steve came up with the bass and me and Ben came in with our guitar parts.'

For a bit of variety, this is alternative take from Interim - but you can also listen to all five released studio versions in one go here.



Quartet of Doc Shanley

Inspired - according to ‘Shanley’ himself - by The Osmonds’ acid-glam boogie ‘Crazy Horses’.


Hot Runes

The riff is not a million miles away (albeit at a much faster tempo) from Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Spoonful’, most famously covered by Cream. 


I Am Damo Suzuki

Can were one of MES's most enduring influences: not only does this song namecheck their diminutive vocalist, it borrows from 'Oh Yeah', a track from 1971's Tago Mago.


Laptop Dog

A slightly tenuous one, but the riff here bears a passing resemblance to Thin Lizzy's 'Jailbreak'.


The League of Bald-Headed Men

To stick with the 70s rock theme, the driving riff behind 'Bald' is distinctly similar to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Misty Mountain Hop’. The version here is from The Twenty-Seven Points.


The Wright Stuff

Keyboards this time: this one owes a debt to Don Fardon’s 1970 tribute to George Best, 'Belfast Boy'. 


Sing! Harpy

The Stooges' were perhaps the band that The Fall borrowed from most frequently. Here, it's from 'Little Doll'.


Touch Sensitive

Solo Iggy this time. There was, of course, a dispute regarding the songwriting behind 'Touch Sensitive', but it’s also hard to ignore that the basic riff owes more than a little to 'Girls' from 1979’s New Values.


Edinburgh Man

The final two selections are ones that have only just come to my attention. DJAsh from the Fall Online Forum pointed out to me that 'Edinburgh Man' seems to borrow from 'Silver Dream Machine' by David Essex...


Proteinprotection

...and another forumite, gappy tooth, spotted the similarity between 'Proteinprotection's guitar riff and that of The Afghan Whigs' 1993 track, 'Fountain and Fairfax'.



As I mentioned last week, I've pretty much exhausted the 'themed playlist' approach, so look out for something a bit different on future Mondays!


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