An A-Z of The Fall - I
I is for...
Ice hockey
The cover of the 2009 single 'Slippy Floor' featured Blackburn Junior Hawks Under 16s ice hockey team. Other than the fact that ice hockey players by definition play on a 'slippy floor', it's not entirely clear why.
Incantation
Simon Rogers, who joined The Fall in 1985, had attended the Royal College of Music and worked with Michael Clark at Ballet Rambert. He was, as Dave Simpson described, ‘the least likely musician ever to end up in The Fall’. But there was more to Rogers' history than composing ballets: in 1982 he had a top twenty UK hit with ‘Cacharpaya’ as a member of Incantation.
Inch
Two years after their dismissal from the Levitate sessions, Simon Spencer and Kier Stewart released 'Inch', a version of '4 1/2 Inch' It featured some secretly recorded MES dialogue, where Smith describes to Stewart (in a comical human beatbox fashion) how he wants the bass and drums to sound. The duo sent it to John Peel and several record companies with the message, ‘Hey guys, check out the sound of my new album. This is the brand new Fall sound and I think you’ll agree – it rocks!’
Insects
A perennial lyrical favourite for MES. As well as 'Cyber Insekt', 'Bug Day', The Aphid' and 'Ladybird (Green Grass)', insects feature in the lyrics of several Fall songs:
- ‘Two Librans’ ('Oprah Winfrey - she studied bees')
- ‘Idiot Joy Showland’ ('the locusts are all queuing')
- ‘Neighbourhood Of Infinity’ (Palace of Swords Reversed) ('it was the time of the giant moths')
- 'Age of Chang' ('consign them to your insect mind')
- 'Bonkers in Phoenix' ('insect wings turning to rust')
- 'Free Range' and 'So-Called Dangerous' ('insect posse will be crushed')
Inspiral Carpets
His collaboration with Oldham's Inspiral Carpets, the 1994 single 'I Want You', saw Smith make his sole appearance on Top of the Pops, sandwiched between a Michael Bolton video and Morrissey’s ‘The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get’ (see my first post about Smith's collaborations).
In 1999, MES appeared on stage with The Clint Boon Experience (the band that Boon had formed following the Carpets’ demise), providing vocals for their cover of ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’, which was the b-side of their ‘You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down’ single.
Instrumentals
- 'Jumper Clown' (played live in 1978-79 but never recorded*)
- 'Mansion' (This Nation's Saving Grace, 1985)
- 'Countdown' (played live in 1986; no studio recording)
- 'Guest Informant (excerpt)' (The Frenz Experiment, 1988)
- 'The Funeral Mix' (White Lightning/The Dredger EP, 1990)
- 'Instrumental Outtake' (The Infotainment Scan, 2006 reissue)
- ‘Tunnel’ (played live 1995-96 - later used as the introductory section of ‘Interlude/Chilinism’)
- 'The Knight, The Devil and Death' (an instrumental version appeared on Sinister Waltz, 1996)
- 'Ed's Babe (Alternate Version)' (Fiend With A Violin, 1996)
- 'Tragic Days' (Levitate, 1997)
- 'Jap Kid' (Levitate, 1997 - instrumental version of 'I Come And Stand At Your Door')
- 'White Lines' (Oxymoron, 1997)
- 'Italiano' (instrumental alternative mix of 'Oleano', Oxymoron, 1997)
- 'Instrum One' (outtake from The Unutterable that had the working title 'Rubber')
- 'Instrum Two aka Two' (outtake from The Unutterable that had the working title 'Weirdo')
- 'Dramatic' (outtake from Country On The Click, 2003)
- 'I'm Ronney The Oney' (appeared as a 93 second snippet on Interim in 2004, although there's a longer version here)
- 'The Boss' (played live in 2006)
- 'The Boss - Early Rough Mix' (recorded in 2006; appeared on the 2020 reissue of Reformation Post TLC - confusingly, is a completely different tune to 'The Boss' as played live in 2006)
- 'The Vine' (also recorded in 2006 and appeared on the 2020 reissue of Reformation Post TLC - closely related to parts of the original 'The Boss', to confuse things further)
- 'Blonde' (another 2006 outtake on the RPTLC reissue - it's an instrumental version of 'Coach and Horses')
- 'Get Out' (yet another 2006 outtake on the RPTLC reissue)
- '60s Wack' (and another)
- 'Wed 2' (and another - this one is an early version of 'The Wright Stuff')
- 'Outro' (Reformation Post TLC, 2007)
- 'No Respects (Intro)' (Re-Mit, 2013)
*It was recorded (with lyrics) by Marc Riley & The Creepers in 1984; this version was covered by The Wedding Present.
'Wise Ol' Man (Instrumental)' from the 2016 Wise Ol' Man EP is not actually an instrumental.
Internet
'What's a computer?'
Smith – as he did with many things – had a complicated and often contradictory attitude to the online world and technology in general. He admitted to The Quietus' Kevin EG Perry that he did own a computer (and an iPad) and did use the internet (although 'not a lot') but described it as ‘the tongue of Satan’. At times, however, he displayed a certain pride in the fan base’s online presence, even making the unlikely claim that in a 1996 interview for The Wire that ‘Fall fans invented the Internet… they were on there in 1982’. Speaking to The Independent in 2004, he was a little more ambivalent about The Fall Online: ‘I never read it… though I know it's the envy of a lot of groups… Most of it's all right, but this culture where you have to explain everything all the time… puts a clamp on you. It's a bit of a trap.’ In 2006, Smith suddenly demanded that The Fall Online be taken offline immediately, having ‘taken exception to one or more posts on the forum’.
In The Big Midweek, Steve describes how he began to be aware of the impact of the internet on the relationship between artists and fans during the 1994 US tour. He noted that fans sharing stories of Smith’s ‘nail-chewing, fag-smoking, obvious indifference’ seemed to have a negative impact on ticket sales.
Iodeo
An early version of 'Green Eyed Loco Man' with an interesting lyric.
iPhone
Contadictory as ever, MES told Kevin EG Perry in the interview mentioned above that he did have a phone ('I’m allergic to machinery and machinery is allergic to me. Nothing’s changed. I’ve got four mobile phones and they all just break. Watches explode.') but on other occasions (e.g. here) said that he didn't. In a 2015 interview, when discussing the song 'Stout Man' he demonstrated familiarity with the Shazam app.
'Quit iPhone' (originally entitled 'Get Off The Phone') was played live 23 (possibly 24) times 2014-17.
The extraordinary 11 minute version of 'Fibre Book Troll' that appeared on the vinyl edition of Sub-Lingual Tablet was allegedly recorded on an iPhone (as mentioned on The Fall in Fives Radio Show #11).
Ivanhoe
The languid ‘Ivanhoe’s Two Pence’, one of the b-sides to the various versions of the 'Masquerade' single, is closely related to Levitate's title track in terms of melody and structure. It features a spoken sample taken from Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman, an English dubbed version of the 1971 Italian film La Spada Normanna.
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