An A-Z of The Fall - C (part 1)
C is for...
John Cale
Cale, founder member of the Velvet Underground, get's a mention in 'Eat Y'self Fitter': 'I met a hero of mine...' Smith met Cale after watching him play at the Haçienda in March 1983. According to Peter Hook, only about 40 people turned up for the gig:
'Most of them talked all the way through the show... all of the chatter drove me insane. Marc Riley from The Fall was as incensed as I was and we walked through the crowd, poking them telling them to shut up'.
Caretaker
An increasingly disillusioned and impecunious Steve Hanley took a job as a school caretaker in 1998, shortly before his departure from the group. It has been suggested that 'Groundsboy' from New Facts Emerge alludes to this fact, although the lyrics don't really support the interpretation.
Cargo
The Rochdale studio where Dragnet, ‘Rowche Rumble’, Room To Live and The Infotainment Scan were recorded. It was opened in 1978 by John Brierley, who gets a mention in the opening seconds of 'Hard Life In Country' - 'yeah, it's like, its a bit sort of reedy, John'.
Johnny Cash
The Fall's 1980 single 'Fiery Jack' had more than a touch of Johnny Cash about it, and MES often included a line or two from Cash's 'Ring Of Fire' in live performances of the song.
The ‘last clean dirty shirt’ line in 'Hip Priest' echoes Cash’s ‘Sunday Morning Comin’ Down’, written by Kris Kristofferson (‘I fumbled in my closet through my clothes / and found my cleanest dirty shirt’) - which features in episode 5 of the Fi5 Radio Show. In a 1982 radio interview, MES referenced Cash in a rather opaque explanation of the song: ‘It was a bit of a joke on the group cos they’re all like Catholics…it’s meant to be a bit of a funny song…I have an image of Johnny Cash or somebody, I don’t know why…or South America.’
Billy Chainsaw
The Fall's back catalogue is littered with pointless compilations, often characterised by inaccurate and/or poorly-written sleeve notes. 13 Killers, released on Secret Records in 2013, is a prime example. On this occasion the sleeve notes were provided by ‘contemporary Pop Artist’ Billy Chainsaw, who also designed the sleeve: ‘In 1976… Smith cragged his sonic angst kicking and screaming into existence’.
Chindits
The Chindits were special operations units that fought in Burma during WW2 that MES referred to in 'Scenario'. Smith said that the lyric had partly been inspired by a friend giving him some poems written by his father, who had served in one of the units.
Chip
One of the most frequently recurring words in Fall song lyrics:
- Arms Control Poseur (Chip! Chip!)
- Devolute (Testa Rossa Monitor Mix) ('Chip pan')
- Jerusalem ('I caught the side of my head on a protruding brick chip')
- Eat Y'Self Fitter ('Who tells you what to tape on your vid chip')
- Gut of the Quantifier ('Make the Kane Gang look like an Einstein chip'; 'Life can be a downward chip')
- Jawbone And The Air-Rifle ('It smashed a chip off a valued tomb')
- Medical Acceptance Gate ('But you won't fix my quartz chip')
Chocolate
In The Big Midweek, Steve Hanley recounts an incident during the recording of The Infotainment Scan where MES offered him a bar of Dairy Milk. The next day, the bassist heard the opening line of 'Glam Racket' for the first time: 'Stop eating all that chocolate; eat salad instead'. ‘How is it even possible’, Hanley mused, ‘to take health tips from a man who, in all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never once seen eat a vegetable, unless you count pickled onions?’
The phrase echoes a line in Roald Dahl’s George's Marvellous Medicine: 'And stop eating chocolate. Eat cabbage instead.'
Clarinet
Dave Tucker played clarinet at a few Fall gigs in late 1980 / early 1981. Tucker was a Prestwich resident who had been in bands such as The Dirty Shirts and Mellatron, the latter of which briefly featured Karl Burns on drums. The photo below, taken by Martin McClenaghan, is from Glasgow, 23 February 1981.
Tucker played on Slates and the fourth Peel session. On the session version of 'Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul', Tucker's clarinet was much more prominent than Richard Mazda's saxophone on the single.
Craig Scanlon played clarinet on 'The Chiselers' (his final recording session with the group), although it was wiped from the final versions. Grant Showbiz described how this happened:
‘Craig Scanlon had gotten a clarinet and we tried very hard to make it work, to get a good sound. Then Mark heard it and said, “What the fuck is there a clarinet on this song for?” He told us to wipe it off the track. We played the mix again and Mark was like, “This is shit. Where is the clarinet? That was the best thing on the track”’.
Kurt Cobain
After their gig at the Hollywood Roxy on 7 September 1993, The Fall received a visit from Kurt Cobain. Accompanied by Courtney Love, Cobain asked to join the group on their tour bus but was denied entry. It’s not clear who turned them away: Hanley says it was him; Wolstencroft says it was Smith. Cobain was possibly intending to offer The Fall some support slots on Nirvana’s planned 1994 European tour. Given Smith’s thoughts on the tour bus incident and the American grunge scene in general, it seems unlikely he would have accepted:
‘…all those American bands, Pearl Jam and Nirvana are dead into The Fall. Nirvana tried to get into our bus, Courtney whatshername, the actress, tried it and we pushed her off. …they’re nothing more than glorified longhair guitar salesmen, y’know. Fucking idiots playing pub rock. Aye, pub rock, that’s what it is. If they were English you wouldn’t put up with it.’
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