Head Down

I was thinking while driving home last night about The Fall and how they’ve been part of my musical life for over thirty years. When I first started properly getting into music- buying the records, going to the gigs, reading the music press, looking for the clothes, all that kind of stuff- The Fall were there (along with The Smiths, New Order, Talking Heads, and various other indie/alternative bands). And while I’ve never been a buy-all-the-records Fall fan, their music is undoubtedly part of musical DNA. In the 8 years I’ve been doing this blog I’ve posted about them 17 times. The songs- Theme From Sparta FC, Bill Is Dead (thrice), Popcorn Double Feature, Funnel Of Love, How I Wrote Elastic Man, Bingo master’s Breakout, Two Librans, White Lighting, There’s A Ghost In My House, Rowche Rumble, Big New Prinz, Wrong Place Right Time and Squid Lord (plus I Want You by Mark E Smith and Inspiral Carpets, Mark with Edwyn Collins on Seventies Night and Rhinohead by MES with Von Sudenfed). That looks like a pretty decent compilation album right there.

On top of those I could easily have posted these without much effort- Free Range, Hey Luciani!, Repetition, Industrial Estate, Edinburgh Man, Mr Pharmacist, Hit The North, Eat Y’self Fitter, Touch Sensitive, Victoria, Cruiser’s Creek, Totally Wired, Who Makes the Nazis?, Telephone Thing, High Tension Line, Twister, Blood Outta Stone, Kimble, Trust In Me, Spoilt Victorian Child, Bremen Nacht, Dead Beat Descendent, Jerusalem and Get A Hotel. That’s just the obvious ones off the top of my head. And this one, off 1988’s The Frenz Experiment (a somewhat unloved album I think among the devotees but I treasure it. I think Brix really brought something to the gruppe).

The Steak Place

For a long time I thought there must be a subtext to The Steak Place but couldn’t put my finger on it, something in the lyrics I couldn’t work out. But on reflection I think it is just a song about a steak house.

‘Cheap carpet lines the way
Aluminium tack door handles
Candelabra lions head
Via butchers display too

The steak place

Via a carcass row
Things are brought forward and eaten,
I see the corners filled with hitmen,
Two young lawyers they are whispering, in

The steak place

I want to stay here,
I don’t want to go anywhere,
I could remain here’