And This Day
Lyrics
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
And this day
No matter what and never or who fills baskets or who's just there
You show me the bloody poor bores
You show me the bloody poor bores
And this day
And this day
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
So you even mistrust your own feelings
And this day
And this day
And this day
No matter what never who fills baskets or who's just there
The whole Earth shudders
And this day
And this day
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here, Jim Kidder? (2)
And this day
Who are the translators?
And this day
And this day
And this day
Seen from a bottom glass phutt cig (3)
And this day
The old feelings came back
[?]
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here Jim Kidder
And this day
[?]
And this day
The whole Earth shudders
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
You even mistrust your own feelings
And this day
The old feelings came back
Big basket full s'-park s'-mart (4)
And this day
The old feelings came back
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us John Kidder
And this day
And this day
No matter what and never or who fills baskets or who's just there
Who are the translators?
Who are the translators?
The body's like a US football player's
Blades make presence felt
Worked 3 weeks nearly full solid
And this day
And this day
My shoulder feels like it's got a socket and it [?]
It will soon heal up
And this day
The old feelings came back
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here John Kidder
And this day
The whole Earth shudders
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
You even mistrust your own feelings
And the greyer B-1 Glandel area (5)
Who are the translators?
Who are the translators?
[?]
And this day
The old feelings came back
Take a [?] area
Big fat skinful s-plug s-mart [?] brain slag
And this day
And this day
[?]
And this day
And this day
And this day
And this day
And this day
And this day
And this day
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here John Kidder
Notes
1. A controversial song among Fall fans; it is passionately defended by some but dismissed as boringly repetitive and too long by others. MES himself once remarked that it "finishes off a lot of audiences." The song is built on a repeating riff. The version on Hex Enduction Hour was reportedly edited from a 25-minute rendition to its current length of 10:18, which was calculated to make the album exactly one hour long. The 15-minute live version from the Hammersmith on the compilation Hip Priests and Kamerads (3-25-1982) is considered by some fans to be the definitive reading of the song; it is cleaner-sounding, and the lyrics are more discernable than on the studio version. The mysterious "rosso-rosso" makes an appearance in the lyrics to the latter version, which also features guest vocals from Alan (Alana) Pillay. Pillay, a gender-bending actor and musician, often supported the Fall in this period with his/her band, the I Scream Pleasures.
Robert: on the back cover of the album MES calls this track a "Desperate attempt to make bouncy good of two drum kit line-up."
Dan has transcribed the note from back cover of Hex:
Desperate attempt to make bouncy good of 2 drum kit line-up. "The 3 days I had off. Are just a bank of fog, seen thru a glass bottom phutt cig." Watch out for lyrically related video.
Paul Hanley, in Have a Bleedin Guess, tells us to have a bleedin guess:
(p.104):
The lyric is the aural equivalent of Hex's sleeve, its seemingly random non-sequiturs eventually building a complete picture that's probably saying something, but is in no mood to reveal exactly what. The whole lyric feels so fragmented it's entirely possible Mark's making it up as he goes along, an example of his previously referenced confession that sometimes 'the words just come off the top of my head'. But if he is ad-libbing, quite what such lines as 'The surroundings are screaming on the roads', 'the body's like a U.S. football player's' and 'no matter what and never who fills baskets' tell us about his preoccupations at the time is anyone's guess. 'Who are the translators?' Braver people than me, that's for sure.
Thanks to Dan for running down these passages, here and elsewhere.
2. I have not determined whom, if anyone, "Jim Kidder" may have been. Lee Thacker suggests, in a bit of a speculative leap, that MES may have been thinkin of the movie The Amityville Horror which features James Brolin and Margot Kidder. Of course, even if he was, there is no way to confirm something like that, but it's a thought where one was lacking...
And Dan has uncovered lyrics where it's given as "John Kidder"...
A copy of the press release/handout for Hex has turned up.
It contains the following, labelled a "text excerpt from And This Day:
And this day no matter what and never or who fills baskets or
who's just there, the whole earth shudders
You show us the bloody poor bores/The surroundings are screaming on the roads, so you even mistrust your own feelings
And this day, the old feelings came back,
Big basket full s'-park s'-mart
Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here, John kidder
And this day, it will soon heal up
And, as seen in the transcription below, it sounds like he sings "John" on certain interations.
3. From the Fall online forum, Aubrey the Cat's take on this lyric:
I took it to mean something like the bottom of a beer glass that had been used for putting out cigarettes (the phutt a cigarette will make when dropped into liquid). The person doesn't realise, and lifts the glass to drink, etc.
I can't remember (if I ever knew) the context, but it seems to be based on a real event.
4. Dan points out this may be "supermart" (an alternate term for supermarket) and the "baskets" may have to do with this...Bazhdaddy speculates that Sedgley Park Supermarket, whatever that is, could be our reference. And, he suspects a play on "spark/smart," invoking "Underground Medicin":
A spark inside
Ten percent that I hide
etc.
5. No place named "Glandel" seems to exist (or anything likely to be the reference with any spelling variations I tried), if that is indeed the lyric. There are roads designated "B-1" in Germany and Northern Ireland. There is a UK company that sells pre-cast concrete (since 1969) called "Glandel."
Martin points out that this seems to echo "the vitamin B glandular show" in "Fortress."
In this vein, Bazhdaddy suggests this may be a wrong/lazy spelling of "glandule," which denotes a small gland. And Mitt Dem points out that glandel is Swedish for gland.
More Information
Handwritten lyrics (presumably by MES) headed "And This Day" in the orange lyrics book:
The red chicken claw in snow (i)
Outside 'The Star of India'
Compounds the 'council's' lack of salt + sand,
Reminds of past blunders.
The body's like a U.S. football players
Blades make presence felt.
Worked 3 weeks nearly full solid
Got cut on finger from a steel tripod
There's a plaster on it and it will
Soon heal over.
And this day and no matter what and never
And who fills baskets or who's just there
The whole Earth shudders.
Who are the translators?
You show me the bloody poor bores
And this day the surroundings are
Screaming on the roads
So Y'even mistrust your own feelings
And in the greyer B.1 Glandel area
The ten days I had off are just a bank
Of fog.And this day seen from a glass.
i. This could refer to Bumblefoot, a condition which leaves red spots on chickens' claws (thanks to John Kedward).
Comments (58)
"the vitamin B glandular show..."
I've been googling various sites to see direct connections between vitamin B1 and various glandular disorders and will report back if anything conclusive comes up.
"And in the greyer B.1 Glandal area, the ten days I had off are just a bank of fog. and this day seen from a glass"
And even the updated one:
"You even mistrust your own feelings and (he might be saying "in") the greyer B-1 Glandal area"
Maybe Glandel was just a drunken scrawl typo on the lyric sheet.... Well, crackpot theory in any case!
Korsakoff's syndrome is an amnestic disorder caused by thiamine deficiency usually associated with prolonged ingestion of alcohol. It is rare among other people but some cases have been observed after bariatric surgeries, when deficiency was not prevented by use of nutritional supplements. This neurological disorder is caused by a lack of thiamine (vitamin B1) in the brain, and is also often exacerbated by the neurotoxic effects of alcohol.
Also, I always heard 'Prole art translators' rather than 'Who are the translators?', referring to people trying to interpret the lyrics to 'Prole Art Threat'.
There's an Alcoholics Anonymous questionnaire about the impact of alcoholism on families, in which one of the questions is "Do you mistrust your own feelings and feelings expressed by others?" But I haven't found a source for this that is older than the early 1980s.
Yeah, I can't hear anything other than "Who are the translators?"
"Jim Kidder", by the way, and I'm not certain that it is "Jim Kidder" at all, tends to sound more like a plural: "Jim Kidders".
It contains the following, labelled a "text excerpt from And This Day:
Maybe no quite what we actually here on record, but very interesting.
And, has no one noticed "B.1 Glandel area? What is that, and doesn't it seem awfully close to "Vitamin B glandular hour?" As in "glandular show"? Isn't B1 a B vitamin? I see a English "Glandel" concrete company, but no Glandel area in England, according to Google....
"Who fills baskets" - supermarket/groceries baskets?
"s'-park s'-mart" - "Supermart"?
From Chambers' Dictionary:
But, er, that's all I have.
cf comment 23, which partially quotes this.
Should be "drum kit".
"Drunk kit" seems appropriate, somehow.
Dan
Glandel = Glandule?
I tracked the source down, it's from the German monthly music magazine Sounds (1966-1983). It was originally published under the title Pink Proleten und psychologischer Purpur in issue #149, July 1981.
See my comment #83 in the entry for "New Puritan" here on Annotated Fall for some further info/images re magazine.
Anyway, if you listen to the lyrics to Cale's Sudden Death, you'll hear this:
That third line there is somewhat reminiscent of the various permutations of this line from And This Day:
At any rate, it feels reminiscent to me. Um.
seems like pillay had some of the lyrics either first-hand or written down from MES as they're delivered consistent with his own delivery earlier in the performance.
it could relate to the lyric:
"Everywhere just no fucking respite for us here, Jim Kidder?"
Latin:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
English:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnus_Dei)
Asking for mercy, but there is no mercy—"no fucking respite"—for them
To go further: if the name is "John Kidder" and "Kidder" was indeed slang for mate, then John Kidder could be a familiar-sounding aside to John the Baptist.
There is also a painting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnus_Dei_(Zurbarán) - and the note here about "Its repeated use is to symbolise the trussed nature of the guilty character who has put himself on the path to perdition", while referring to programs well after this song, would still have similar meaning when the song was written.
this rings true
+
'who fills the baskets or who's just there' - Christ feeding the 5000?
no respite from sin
One reading of the whole song is that it is Christ resurrected getting his head together in the here and now and thinking what a shitshow.
Crucifixion/resurrection - the whole world shuddered
Shoulder healed. Unhappy with the translators of his legacy (religions etc). Looking to feed the multitudes from Supermarket basket etc.
Old feelings come back - it was miserable and difficult pre-Crucifixion and its just as bad now