Venice With The Girls
Lyrics
Mocking mad seniors
Fed up and tedious
Long nights in Britland
Oldernessnessness
His skin was in default
too beautiful to talk
he's been waiting
Spazz hands! (2)
Lonesome, lonely
She's off to Venice with the girls, he's been waiting so long (3)
She's off to Venice with the girls, he's been waiting so long
In Britland, oldernessness
His skin, whose is it?
Too beautiful
The best thing for you to do is hide
He's been waiting so long
Yeah he's been waiting so long
For the right month to go
He's been waiting all night long
Spazz hands!
Spazz hands!
Long nights in Britland
Underness, his skin, whose is it
Too beautiful, best thing, best thing for to do is hide (4)
She's off to Venice with the girls
Se's off to Venice with the girls
He's been waiting so long
Lonesome lonely, lonesome lonely
Lonesome lonely, lonesome lonely
He's been waiting so long, he's been waiting so long
He's been waiting so long, he's been waiting so long
He's been waiting so long, he's been waiting so long
Lonesome lonely, lonesome lonely
She's off to Venice with the girls, he's been waiting so long
She's off to Venice with the girls, he's been waiting so long
She's off to Venice with the girls, lonesome lonely
She's off to Venice with the girls, lonesome lonely
Spazz hands!
Spazz hands!
Notes
1. This was originally titled "Gone to Venice." The Fall played in the general vicinity of Venice a couple of months before this debuted in late 2014, which may have had something to do with the genesis of the song.
The song is also apparently inspired by a television advertisement for Staysure travel insurance. A woman (an "over-fifty") is packing for a trip, and talking to the camera about travel insurance. Suddenly, a horn honks, and she leans out the window and bids her husband goodbye, saying "I hope you get a hole in one!" Turning back to the camera, she explains: "Me?! [a bit conspiratorially:] I'm off to Venice with the girls! Why should I be a 'golf widow'? Not when Staysure have covered!"
From a recent feature in Q magazine:
There are some song titles on Sub-Ligual Tablet of reassuring excellence [some praise for "Stout Man"]...Venice with the Girls, inspired by Smith seeing a TV advert for travel insurance--he acts it out, swirling [sic] his bottle over his shoulder: "He's away on his golf holiday. Me? I'm off to Venice with the girls!"
Stranger and Dan on the Fall online forum point out that according to Simon Wolstencroft in You Can Drum But You Can't Hide, in 1996 MES went to Venice with Lucy Rimmer, Wolstencroft, and Sue Williams. In around 2011, MES ran into Wolstencroft and asked him to go for drinks, but Wolstencroft demurred, being too busy, which MES pretended not to hear. It was suggested that these events might possibly have something to do with the theme, or at least the title, of this song...
According to Hexen Blumenthal:
For Daphne du Maurier, "Venetian" was her private word for lesbian, and "going to Venice" was her private code for having a lesbian sexual adventure. It is thought that the movie "Don't Look Back" is set in Venice as a nod to this. Perhaps one as widely read as MES knew this or perhaps the people who made the ad did. Or both.
2. Bazhdaddy suggests this lyric is in mockery of middle aged women on vacation, dancing and doing "jazz hands."
3. Two points of reference have been suggested for this line: Cream's 1967 song "Sunshine of Your Love," and David Bowie's "Look Back in Anger," from 1979. The delivery is a little more like the refrain of the Bowie song, but Cream's song is probably burned on everyone's psyche (at least everyone in a certain, fairly wide, age range) so may have been somewhere in the back of MES's head even if it isn't consciously intended. So despite the greater similarity with Bowie, I would wager that it's either 1. an allusion to Cream, or 2. an allusion to Bowie and, secondarily, to Cream (indeed the Bowie song may be alluding to Cream to begin with, so there's just too many ways for Cream to weasel into it to ignore).
4. MES appeared on the British comedy/variety show The Adam and Joe Show in a recurring segment called "Vinyl Justice." The premise is that Adam and Joe are policemen who raid celebrities' "homes" (often actually a set, as appears to be the case with MES) and check the subject's record collection for anything embarrassing or amusing. In MES's segment, he plays a song called "Little Diesel Driving Devil," by Don Bowman:
He's the fastest thing alive
When he puts that truck in overdrive
The safest thing for you to do is hide
MES seems to have a love for truck driving songs (which are usually Country & Western kitsch, although many classic songs belong to the genre--some of which are classics but also kitsch). These appear on countless compilations, often sold at truck stops (and sometimes nowhere else) and sometimes featuring exclusive material. He seems to have gotten "White Line Fever" from a rendition by Bud Brewer which was featured on a trucking compilation (the song was of course written, and definitively performed, by Merle Haggard).
More Information
Comments (65)

- 1. | 11/05/2015

- 2. | 16/05/2015

- 3. | 26/05/2015
"inspired by Smith seeing a TV advert for travel insurance - he acts it out, swirling his bottle over his shoulder: "He's away on his golf holiday. Me? I'm off to Venice with the girls!"

- 4. | 27/05/2015
Tom, me, is the lonely one.
On the phone he mentioned he was watching it, and made hilarious related comments. And apparently he had found the groove already, to this fantastic example of his...

- 5. | 28/05/2015
Inside joke...get it

- 6. | 29/05/2015
Here's my transcription of the advert:
http://z1.invisionfree.com/thefall/index.php?showtopic=39284&view=findpost&p=22460213
.Book the flights, and the hotel. Nearly finished packing. All thanks to Staysure Travel Insurance.
See, Staysure specialise in insurance for over 50s. Just as well, with my knee replacement, John's high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and bunions. We thought we'd never afford to go away again.
Staysure include 220 pre-existing medical conditions in their cover for free. 12 months cover for two of us cost just £79.
<parp parp>
Bye! Hope you get a hole in one!
Me? I'm off to Venice with the girls.
Well, why should I be a golf widow? Not when Staysure have it covered.

- 7. | 31/05/2015

- 8. | 03/06/2015
Does this mean "land of the rich" i.e. bread = money?
Or does it refer to a particular place, like Tlaxcala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaxcala), which is sometimes translated as "land of bread"? Or other regions that get similarly labelled?

- 9. | 04/06/2015

- 10. | 06/06/2015

- 11. | 06/06/2015
Is there an echo here of "Sunshine of your love"?

- 12. | 09/06/2015
Makes more sense to me.
Inbred land

- 13. | 15/07/2015
but what is the chant in the chorus???
Smash Hits?
Smash hands?
I also prefer inbred land
but only if we can have in breadland too

- 14. | 17/07/2015
"Inbred land" will be noted as an alternative.

- 15. | 17/07/2015

- 16. | 21/02/2016
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Keep-On-Truckin/release/5036392

- 17. | 11/03/2016

- 18. | 19/03/2016

- 19. | 19/03/2016
Note other refrains have been slippery in this way..."Fall advice" sometimes rings clear and sometimes sounds like it's "Fall advance," as many have noted...I think there are other examples but maybe not, I can't recall them right now if they exist...

- 20. | 21/03/2016

- 21. | 24/03/2016

- 22. | 30/03/2016

- 23. | 26/04/2016

- 24. | 14/05/2016
Wray Wray Wray: yes it's certainly possible but to me the inflection suggests "bread land" and also the alternative is ungrammatical.

- 25. | 05/06/2016
Dan

- 26. | 05/06/2016
In 2009, Adam revealed on their BBC 6 Music show that some of the stars' 'homes' were not actually their own.

- 27. | 29/06/2016

- 28. | 21/08/2016
Mocking mad seniors
Fed up and tedious
Long nights in Britland
"It's every young feller I know", says MES
http://thefall.org/news/pics/2016-09_Mojo.pdf
Now, whether that lyric is actually MES confirmed or a guess by the writer, I don't know. But it's better than what we have, I think.

- 29. | 25/08/2016

- 30. | 25/08/2016

- 31. | 25/08/2016

- 32. | 13/02/2017


- 33. | 01/04/2017

- 34. | 01/04/2017


- 36. | 31/10/2018

- 37. | 22/12/2018

- 38. | 22/12/2018

- 39. | 22/12/2018
Could it be "Mocking my seniors"?

- 40. | 23/12/2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZvclBZL9Jk
The word sounds to me like "Space-mad" or "spazz-hands". At one point in the LP version I heard our old favourite "Bazhdads" so it might not be safe to continue.

- 41. | 23/12/2018
Mark E. MES seedy is
Fed up and tedious
Loneness in breadland
Oldernessnessess
His scheme was in default
at 1:42 "He's been waiting on and off"

- 42. | 19/01/2019
One thing is for sure, I think...so I guess not "for sure" but close to it...he does not say the same thing every time.
I HATE that we have "past it!" because I don't believe in it. But I can't make a move yet.

- 43. | 19/01/2019

- 44. | 20/01/2019

- 45. | 18/05/2019

- 46. | 07/06/2019

- 47. | 07/06/2019

- 48. | 07/06/2019
I think he actually says that every time. I think that's what it is.
Here's Note 2, in case "Bread Land" ever makes a comeback:
We originally had "bread land," which led to speculation that may be entirely beside the point. "Brit l
Dan asks, "Does this mean "land of the rich" i.e. bread = money?
Or does it refer to a particular place, like Tlaxcala, which is sometimes translated as "land of bread"? Or other regions that get similarly labelled?" "Tlaxcala" is thought to perhaps mean "tortilla" in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.
Martin suggests "Perhaps 'Bread land' is 'Hovis Land,' as in The Fall's 'That Man.'" My note there for "Hovis" reads:
Hovis is an English brand of bread. A 1973 television advertisement (directed by Ridley Scott) depicting a boy delivering Hovis on a bicycle accompanied by Dvorak's New World Symphony is one of the most famous spots of all time in Britain. The ad played on nostalgia for rural and village life, and "Hovis land" may be another reference to a supposedly "heathen" Britain. Also, Hovis is associated with nostalgia in the lyrics to "Just Step S'Ways." It is also mentioned more obliquely in "H.O.W."
So "bread land" may refer to a certain kitschy, pastoral England, which would be appropriate in context as way of emphasizing the banality of the narrator's married, middle class English life which his wife is escaping by traveling to Venice (and which, by implication, the narrator may also be escaping with the departure of his wife).
It has also been suggested in the comments below that the lyric is in fact "inbred land." This is possible, and may even be complementary in meaning to "bread land" in which case both may be intended.
[Note that we now have "Britland," which is the lyric as quoted in an interview with MES in which the journalist may or may not have checked the lyric with the author. I like to think he did. In any case, it sounds right. So why is this still here? "That Man" and it's reference to "Hovis Land" still nags at me.]

- 49. | 07/06/2019
Also, at this time I can no longer believe in "Oh, they're nice nice nice," it sounds like "olderness" every time.
I actually think this is closer than it's ever been, it used to seem impenetrable but now I think we have it pretty close.

- 50. | 07/06/2019

- 51. | 10/06/2019

- 52. | 29/06/2019

- 53. | 19/07/2019
Also SO wanted the cover of White Line Fever to be of Motorhead's song of the same name (which given Mark's amphetamine consumption, and the band's affection for Motorhead doesn't sound that far fetched)

- 54. | 25/12/2019

- 55. | 31/12/2019
Venetian Views, Venetian Blinds: English Fantasies of Venice, edited by Manfred Pfister and Barbara Schaff. Rodopi: Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA, 1999.
Might repay study.

- 56. | 31/12/2019
From Daphne Du Maurier, By Margaret Forster. Arrow Books, 2007 (originally published by Chatto and Windus, 1993, 1994 paperback also by Arrow). p.28:
('Venetian' being du Maurier code for 'lesbian')
Whether it actually has anything to do with the lyric, I don't know. But the connotations are there to be played with anyway, even if not intended.

- 57. | 31/12/2019
Bear in mind that just because "Venetian" was a code word, that doesn't mean that it was necessarily always used as a code word by du Maurier. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and Venice is just Venice.

- 58. | 29/01/2020

- 59. | 01/02/2020

- 60. | 12/03/2020

- 61. | 14/03/2020

- 63. | 14/05/2020

- 64. | 14/05/2020
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/venice-with-the-girls-t39284.html

- 65. | 17/03/2023
See: http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/pages/sub-lingual-tablet/venice-with-the-girls.html