by Mark E Smith
‘There is a list of incorrect things’ he reveals. This notion of a gathering of wrong information is surely suggestive of Lovecraft's fictional grimoire The Necronomicon. Yet it is the spirit of Arthur Machen that is summoned with the lines ‘Hovered mid-air outside a study. An academic kneaded his chin.’
The narrator enlists the help of some gremlins, to interfere with the airline routes. This notion may have been inspired by the famous Twilight Zone episode ‘Nightmare at 20,000 Feet’ involving a man on an airline flight, who keeps seeing a hideous gremlin interfering with the wing of the plane.
In Mark's story, the narrator then pays off the gremlins with ‘stuffing from my wings’. However, this causes him to hit a ‘time lock’ and be transported to the 1860s, where he states he's been trapped for 125 years – so presumably he is no longer a victim of the aging process. He becomes involved in a shootout with ‘some veterans from the US Civil War.’ Once again he hits a time lock, and returns to the present day.
Unfortunately, he discovers ‘The place I made the purchase no longer exists.’ He realises that it is his own actions in the past that caused the shop to be erased. Now he is doomed to live out his time, hiding away from nosy kids with ‘wings [that] rot and curl right under me.’
There are numerous examples in science fiction of a time traveller whose behaviour in the past leads to their doom in the present. Indeed it's one of the key paradigms of the time travel narrative. A number of influential authors produced short stories around the subject, including John Wyndham's Wanderers of Time, Stanislaw Lem's ‘The Twentieth Voyage’ and Ray Bradbury's ‘A Sound of Thunder’.
In terms of ‘Wings’ itself, I feel compelled to throw two further possible influences into the mix. Firstly, the 1963 Twilight Zone episode: ‘No Time Like The Past’ – wherein a time traveller attempts to prevent the major conflicts of history. Secondly, the 1965 Doctor Who serial: ‘The Time Meddler’. The titular character is a time traveller who has a list of wrong things, and interferes in historic battles. The story also features a character bemoaning the fact he lacks wings.
key line: ‘A small alteration of the past can turn time into space.’
THE
1990S
‘Sing! Harpy’
The opening line ‘The harpy was tops’ initially appears an unlikely construct. The contrast of the menace inherent in the word ‘harpy’ with the almost giddy ‘tops’ seems like it can only be intended ironically. Yet the operative word here is ‘was’. For this appears to be a story of falling out of love, related in part as a struggle with a mythic being.
At times, the language is rooted in a more traditionally romantic mode of expression (‘She left the moors behind her, and the beige heather’) and the narrator states how initially the woman was ‘without malice’ and ‘just too good in bed’. But eventually he becomes concerned, feeling she is gripping him like a hawk.
It should not go unnoted that Mark's first wife and Fall guitarist Brix Smith later came to believe the lyrics were about her. Certainly the references to the harpy having a show business background, and the confidence to ‘sell you anything’ support this reading.
But, as is almost always the case with Mark's texts, there is more than one form of narrative in operation here. Whilst the talk of talons etc. may be metaphorical, the supernatural cannot be ruled out. There is the possibility that the character involved is not 100% human, or that she may indeed be an actual harpy from the ancient myths of Greece: the beings Ovid called ‘human-vultures’, with the body of a woman and the wings and claws of a bird of prey.
key line: ‘Her talons were quite famished.’
‘Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room’
In some ways, the story here resembles that of ‘Flat of Angles’. A mentally unstable protagonist spends the majority of his time holed up in a (presumably) rented room. And, when he does venture into the outside world, he is not equal to the task. He ‘Shakes in the chemists’ and suffers from ‘drooped mental inertia.’
It's interesting that despite his extreme neurotic state the man is described as being ‘at the zenith of his powers.’ Maybe this is why, rather than being referred to as a ‘paranoid man’, he is called ‘Paranoia Man’. Perhaps he is in fact some kind of superhero of paranoia.
The title and some of the story itself is refashioned from the 1960 Twilight Zone episode ‘Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room’. In Rod Serling's original story, a criminal checks into a cheap hotel room. He has been given a gun and informed that the following day he must murder a barkeeper. He then spends a night of reckoning, talking to an alternate version of his self in the room's mirror. This may well be the origin of the repeated phrase ‘replica shooter.’
key line: ‘Puts his head down when girls pass in the street.’
‘Service’
On the surface, the emotions and actions expressed here are pretty much the opposite of those in ‘Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room’ – the piece which precedes ‘Service’ on the album The Infotainment Scan. Whereas that tale told of a man almost too paranoid to mix with society, this piece recounts the experience of someone undertaking a pleasant walk, during which he kicks leaves and fallen branches. He is walking in winter, and quite possibly in the winter of his own life.
However, the sudden insertion of the phrase ‘Thought transference’ suggests that the person enjoying the walk is perhaps not the person undertaking it. Could it be that the walker's body is in the ‘service’ of another's mind? This may well be the meaning behind the phrase ‘Every man jack wants to be what he is not.’ Certainly the sentence ‘I've got a witch on my left shoulder’ suggests the walker is not in control of his body.
In H.G. Wells's 1911 story ‘The Story of The Late Mr Elvesham’, an ailing elderly philosopher swaps minds with a healthy youth. Whilst the older man enjoys a new lease of life, the youth finds himself trapped in a failing body. It seems possible that in ‘Service’ a young man's mind is experiencing a walk in the body of an elderly man.
key line: ‘Why do you have a cloud in your eye?’
‘The Ballard of J. Drummer’
The narrator informs us this tale is set in the year 199601, before adding ‘The last numeral was upside down.’ This text was in fact written in the year 1996, so the addition of the 01 could indicate that the events take place in an alternate or supplemental version of the present.
He relates how a musician, by the name of Johnny Drummer, arrives on the outskirts of a town only to be met with anger and rejection from the townsfolk. For this is an age when drum programming and computer generated rhythms have come to dominate.
The line ‘Two sticks make up a cross’ serves a double purpose. It signifies that being a drummer is the musician's cross to bear. But it is also suggestive of a crucifix that can be used to ward off vampires. After all, the events seem to play out like a mix of western and horror story. The tale even concludes with a moral: ‘Don't ever follow the path of being hard and tough when your heart is soft.’
It's worth pointing out that rather than a ‘Ballad’ this is styled as a ‘Ballard’ – as in the sci-fi author J.G. Ballard, whose books Mark had read as a young man. Is it stretching things too far to think Mark may have viewed the story of a manual musician out of his depth in a digital world as a contender for one of Ballard's Myths of the Near Future?
key line: ‘He looked into the mirror and said “I am not him”.’
‘Hurricane Edward’
A farm hand in Ross County (possibly a reference to the county of the same name in the Scottish Highlands) recounts the story of how a hurricane devastated the farm. A certain Mr Hughes, who is most probably the farm's owner, had predicted the hurricane, because ‘He knew this climate.’
It's hard to read this text and not be reminded of the shattering thunderstorm recounted in H.P. Lovecraft's 1923 story ‘The Lurking Fear’. Indeed, the supernatural is present here also, as, in an unexpected twist, it's revealed that due to his unpreparedness,
the farm hand in fact died during the hurricane. Consequently, the story is being related from beyond the grave.
It seems the farm hand has only recently passed over into the spirit world, and is still grappling with his new state. ‘I'm not an ordinary guy. Am I?’ he asks. He goes on to recall the familiar details of his life before the hurricane came: ‘Asleep at twelve thirty in cosy cots’. But there is a sense of forced nostalgia, a sense that he is according the memories more warmth than they deserve.
Elsewhere the line ‘I held yellow thick ropes’ has the vibrancy and economy of the prose of Stephen King. It should also be noted that Mark's middle name is Edward – and that the hurricane is referred to as ‘he.’ So might Mark therefore be acknowledging his reputation as an unpredictable and destructive force?
key line: ‘There are characters in my brain.’
THE
2000S
‘Dr. Bucks’ Letter’
The story opens up with a Mr J. McCarthy reflecting on how a previously ‘hard won friendship’ has been deeply damaged by his own actions. He recalls how he lost his temper, mocked his friend ‘and treated him with rudeness’.
Whilst he hopes they may be able to reconnect in the future, the current loss of the friendship is causing him to sink into depression. Matters are compounded when he receives a letter from a certain Doctor Bucks, regarding his welfare benefits.
He decides to cheer himself up by listening to the radio and reading a magazine. He happens upon an article entitled ‘The Essence of Tong’ that he reads out loud. The article is written by a second narrator who details the unremarkable assortment of things he never leaves home without: ‘Cassettes, CDs, palm pilot’ etc. Strangely, when the article is over, we never return to the ‘real world’ of the original narrator. He simply remarks ‘I was in the realm of The Essence of Tong.’
What makes this especially curious is the article in question is a real interview with DJ Pete Tong, taken from the Virgin Trains free magazine HotLine. With its blending of the fictional and the factually banal, ‘Dr. Bucks’ Letter’ has the atmosphere and atypical structure of one of J.G. Ballard's experimental short stories of the early 1980s.
key line: ‘Of my own making, I walk a dark corridor of my heart.’
‘Last Commands of Xyralothep Via MES’
The name Xyralothep is undoubtedly inspired by the strange being Nyarlathotep, who features in a number of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Also known as The Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep is a grotesque and malign deity. In contrast, the commands of Xyralothep, whilst occasionally brash and harsh, would seem to largely consist of sound advice.
In the lyric, Mark addresses Xyralothep with the words ‘This is your vessel MES.’ Although the language here feels carefully assembled, there seems to be an acknowledgement that Mark sometimes acts as a conduit for ideas from the ether.
This is not a narrative in the strictest sense, yet the notion of a human being used as a vessel to transmit commands from a creature from another dimension is well within the gothic tradition. We are also given just enough information to be able to summon up a sense of a specific world.
The commands are being transmitted by Mark, whilst he is in the fictional town of Speck Marsden. The name is possibly inspired by one of a number of English towns called Marsden. But perhaps this is ‘spec Marsden’ as in a speculative version of a town. Once again the story doesn't operate in a discreet world. Mark reminds us that it is but part of a wider reality: ‘Mountain's waters blocked by dormant tree – see later on this LP’.
key line: ‘Deploreth thy real god.’
‘Blindness’
There are a few different iterations of the lyrics to ‘Blindness’, but the most rewarding set are the ones recorded for the version of the song on the group's final John Peel session in 2004. The fact the recording in question is one of the group's finest of the era makes for a doubly satisfying experience.
The story the narrator recounts sounds not so much like a dream, more like a fugue or something experienced whilst in a heightened state. The line ‘I was talking to Jane Seymour, eyes wide open, the neck was slightly dislocated’ immediately grabs the attention. The likely assumption is that the protagonist is in conversation with British actress Jane Seymour. Yet, the reference to the neck summons thoughts of Henry the VIII's third wife. However, Seymour died of post-natal complications rather than beheading. Maybe this is why the neck was only ‘slightly dislocated.’ From there, the song evolves via a series of sightings of posters in central Manchester that seem to herald the appearance of a frightening blind man.
Mark claimed in an interview, that ‘Blindness’ concerned the blind Labour Party MP David Blunkett, who was at that point the Home Secretary. Blunkett's hardline policies had clearly positioned him as an opponent of civil liberties, hence the references to curfews and posters saying ‘Do you work hard?’
But there is far more going on here than a simple critique of an unpopular MP. The line ‘I was only on one leg’ could well refer to masonic initiation rites. Initiates are also blindfolded, so they experience temporary blindness.
The reference to Jane Seymour may actually allude to the actress's best-known role, in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die, in which she plays Solitaire: a girl with a gift for tarot readings. The tarot, like freemasonry, has its roots in the early Egyptian Mystery Schools, which are believed to have imparted secret knowledge from ancient times.
On a more prosaic level, ‘I was only on one leg’ may also refer to an incident that occurred a few months before ‘Blindness’ received its debut: Mark slipped on some ice, breaking his hip and leg, leading to him undertaking several Fall gigs in a wheelchair.
key line: ‘I said, “Blind man, have mercy on me!”’
‘What About Us?’
Is this the story of serial killer Doctor Harold Shipman, as seen through the eyes of a rabbit? Nothing nearly so simple it would seem. Whilst the story begins in earnest with the lines ‘I am a rabbit from East Germany, I was very happy’ Mark has denied that the song is from the perspective of an actual animal. In fact, he stated during an interview that the text concerned an East German drug dealer.
Despite this claim, it shouldn't go unremarked that Mark and his wife Elena owned a toy rabbit they named Gunther, which was purchased in Germany. The pair used to weave jokes and stories around Gunther, so it's not impossible that the narrative is actually being seen from the perspective of a toy.
From East Germany the dealer/rabbit/toy moves to the North of England, where he feels a great sense of disappointment. Then, by a refuse bin, he happens upon a newspaper article that describes the crimes of Dr Harold Shipman. This is a different kind of drug dealer, one who deals out death. Shipman was a Yorkshire GP who is believed to have murdered up to 260 of his patients, by injecting them with lethal doses of painkillers.
Shipman had hung himself whilst in his prison cell on January 13th 2004, just six months before the song's first appearance at a Fall gig.
key line: ‘I saw a newspaper, I was not very happy.’
‘Is This New’
Written for the album Imperial Wax Solvent, the text opens up with the narrator trying to recall on which daytime television show he saw a certain Mr J. Archer (who may possibly be the best selling author and disgraced Conservative MP Jeffrey Archer). ‘It was something like Judge and jury, or Jeremy Kyle.’
The narrator reports that Archer ‘separated everywhere’, which might be a reference to a breakdown or schizophrenia, or possibly to Archer having become splintered through time. The TV show manages to identify the man's mother Dot and his friend Judy (TV presenter Judy Finnigan?), but nevertheless they keep searching – possibly for the multiple versions of Archer.
The repeated references to ‘Time Blenders’ tends to support the idea that what we are being presented with is much more than just a comment on the questionable value of daytime TV. Instead, it's a vision with elements of both science fiction and Kafkaesque mystery
. This is especially noticeable in the reference to ‘The last statement with the department of no name.’
To increase the sense of labyrinthine machinations ‘the department of no name’ is also mentioned in the text for ‘Alton Towers’ that appears on the same album.
key line: ‘It was not in accord with any known law!’
THE
2010S
‘O.F.Y.C. Showcase’
This piece is taken from the Your Future Our Clutter album – a release that saw Mark creating an even greater interconnectivity between the lyrics of several different compositions.
The scene would seem to be at least partly set somewhere away from the UK. The narrator observes (possibly from the vantage point of a tobacco kiosk: ‘little ’baco mongers’) a parade of ex-pats with archaic names like ‘Archibald’ and ‘Old Yates’. Initially it seems possible this is a vision from the past, but as events unfold it appears we are in the present.
It's probable that Mark is talking from a personal perspective here. The reference to making the land ‘a showcase of Fall talent’ suggests he may well be scanning these ex-pats for potential future group members.
The line ‘There goes Austin down, completes what's going down, back and around ink you lot’ almost certainly refers to the writer Austin Collings who had recently co-written Mark's autobiography Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith.
key line: ‘There goes that yankee, who gets ex-pats to go on Quality Street.’
‘Nate Will Not Return’
This is perhaps the most fervent example of Mark's ‘clang process’, with the majority of the lyric being fuelled by rhyming assonance. The action is primarily focussed on an actor called Nate, who visits London and, during a telephone call with his father, reflects on his ambitions and concerns. As noted elsewhere, the title is almost certainly corrupted from the Twilight Zone episode ‘King 9 Will Not Return’.