2 x 4

 (1)

He was agin the rich
He was agin the rich
He was agin the poor
He was agin the poor
He was agin the rich
He was agin the poor
He wa agin the rich
He was against all trepidation

He was agin the rich
On the loose again
He was agin the rich

There's a new fiend on the loose
On the back of the exhaust clip (2)
Clipped on rich and poor alike
Come to roost again once more

Ol' Nick doesn't go from digs to digs no more (3)
Hit him on the head with a 2 by 4
Nowadays he has a Georgian glazed porch (4)

He was agin the rich
He was agin the rich/poor (5)
He was agin the poor 
He was agin the poor

There's a new fiend on the loose
On the back of the exhaust clip
Clipped on rich and poor alike
Come to roost again once more

He said, hit 'em on the head
With a 2 by 4
He said, hit 'em on the head
With a 2 by 4

He was agin the rich
He was agin the poor

Used a table leg to club son-in-law (6)

Hit me again, my friend
Fiend in your home again
Fiend in your home again
New friend in the home, my fiend

He said show me my quarters and glasses
He said show me my quarters and glasses

There's a new fiend on the loose
Jolting in his tradition
It's a fear of the obtuse
He's got patents on the moaning 

1. Dan reminds us that this song appeared under the title "Fiend With a Violin" on the 1996 Fall compilation of the same name, and provides a link to a fascinating article about the history of the association of the violin (or "fiddle") with the Devil. And of course, don't forget Johnny...

Paul Hanley, commenting at a Twitter listening party in 2020 (via Dan):

the Verse is in 4/4 but the chorus is in 5/4 - to make matters even stranger Steve plays the chorus over the verse at a couple of points. @jasonbrown001 out of the Extricated was the one who pointed out how weird that was. Never occured to us.

^

2. The "exhaust clip" line is odd--all I can imagine is a clamp on an automobile. The general idea seems to be someone (or something) who follows one around unbeknownst. Dan has found a manufacturor of exhaust systems called Devil Exhausts, founded in 1966 (the family's name is Deville).

From Karl b: "On The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall omnibus edition ('New Fiend [rough mix]'), Mark sings 'There's a new fiend on the loose/Haunted one star restaurant/It's a zip stream from up stairs/Come to roost again once more.'"

^

3. "Old Nick" is a common epithet for the devil (see also "there's a new fiend on the loose"). Here's a quote from co-writer Brix Smith, courtesy of the Reformation site: "'2 by 4' was my words. My mental reference point was an American cartoon like Road Runner, where he would take a 2 x 4 which was a plank and whack 'em on the head. Tom and Jerry with the frying pan."

In this regard, Dan has found something significant: Rob Waite's article, "Notebooks Out," in "The Biggest Library Yet" issue #18, January 2000, p7, draws attention to a lyrical borrowing from the Woodie Brothers' song "Chased Old Satan Through the Door" (1931), without specifying what had been borrowed. Turns out that it's a significant borrowing: "Now I run old Satan through the door/And I hit him in the head with a 2 by 4." Indeed, the cadence of the Woodie Brothers song suggests it may have been a musical influence as well...

^

4. Georgian architecture is not something from the southern USA or the Caucasus region, but is an 18th-19th century British style named after Kings George I-IV. A "Georgian glazed porch" is a small entry-way porch encompassed by glass. 

^

5. The double tracking on the vocal line splits here, with one MES singing "rich" and the other singing "poor." 

Dan:

According to Leckie in conversation with Brix, the main vocal here is a guide vocal. And there's a different MES take with different lyrical choices running through it as well (which explains the rich/poor thing).

^ 

6. It has been suggested somewhere or other that MES tips his hand here, and he's writing about Brix's (step)father (compare "What You Need": "And to meet your horrible new dad/with a grudge against me"). It could be (although I doubt the actual clubbing is factual), who knows? As usual, these background facts (if they are such) are interesting, but only mildly so.

In a Sounds magazine interview from 1986, MES briefly mentions Brix's stepfather:

I know Brix loves her stepfather and I get on really well with her real father, he comes out with sick jokes all the time.

^

2 x 4: Fall Tracks A-Z

I can't put Youtube videos in the Wayback Machine, but I'll put this here for as long as it lasts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOlwz6Cwr4g