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The Annotated Lyrics
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- And Therein...
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- Bound
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- Breaking the Rules
- Bremen Nacht
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- British People in Hot Weather
- Bug Day
- Bury Pts. 1+3
- Butterflies 4 Brains
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- Cab It Up
- Calendar
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- Copped It
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- Disney's Dream Debased
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- Don't Take the Pizza
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- Fol de Rol
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- Get a Hotel
- Get A Summer Song Goin'
- Gibbus Gibson
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- Gut of the Quantifier
- H.O.W.
- Haf Found Bormann
- Hands Up Billy
- Happi Song
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- He Talks
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- Hey! Marc Riley
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- Last Commands of Xyralothep Vi
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- M5 #1
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- Muzorewi's Daughter
- My Condition
- My Door Is Never
- My Ex-Classmates' Kids
- My New House
- Nate Will Not Return
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- New Face in Hell
- New Facts Emerge
- New Formation Sermon
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- No Bulbs
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- No X-mas for John Quays
- Noel's Chemical Effluence
- Noise
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- O! ZZTRRK Man
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- Oleano
- On My Own
- One Day
- Open The Boxoctosis
- Oswald Defence Lawyer
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- Overture From "I Am Curious, O
- Oxymoron
- Pacifying Joint
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- Perverted by Language
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- Ponto
- Pop Stickers
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- Powder Keg
- Pre-MDMA Years
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- Psykick Dancehall #2
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- Rememberance R
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- Reprise: Jane--Prof Mick--Ey B
- Return
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- Systematic Abuse
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- The Acute
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- The Ballard of J. Drummer
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- The Coliseum
- The Container Drivers
- The Crying Marshal
- The Joke
- The Knight, the Devil and Deat
- The League of Bald-Headed Men
- The Littlest Rebel
- The Man Whose Head Expanded
- The Mixer
- The N.W.R.A.
- The Past #2
- The Quartet of Doc Shanley
- The REAL Life of the Crying Ma
- The Reckoning
- The Remainderer
- The Steak Place
- The Usher
- The War Against Intelligence
- The Wright Stuff
- Theme From Error-Orrori
- Theme From Sparta F.C.
- Time Enough At Last
- To Nk Roachment: Yarbles
- Tom Raggazzi
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- Totally Wired
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- Twister
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- Two Steps Back
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- Underground Medecin
- Unutterable
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- Various Times
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- What You Need
- Where's the F***in Taxi? C**t
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- Win Fall CD 2088 AD
- Wings
- Winter (Hostel-Maxi)
- Wise Ol' Man
- Wolf Kidult Man
- Words of Expectation
- Wrong Place, Right Time
- Xmas With Simon
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- Yes O Yes
- You Don't Turn Me On
- You Haven't Found It Yet
- You're Not Up To Much
- Your Heart Out
- Youwanner
- Zagreb
- Zandra
-
Arranged By Album
- Live at the Witch Trials
- Dragnet
- Grotesque (After the Gramme)
- Slates
- Hex Enduction Hour
- Room to Live
- Perverted by Language
- The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall
- This Nation's Saving Grace
- Bend Sinister
- The Frenz Experiment
- I Am Kurious, Oranj
- Extricate
- Shift-Work
- Code:Selfish
- The Infotainment Scan
- Middle Class Revolt
- Cerebral Caustic
- Light User Syndrome
- Levitate
- The Marshall Suite
- The Unutterable
- Are You Are Missing Winner
- The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)
- Fall Heads Roll
- Reformation Post TLC
- Imperial Wax Solvent
- Your Future Our Clutter
- Ersatz G.B.
- Re-Mit
- The Remainderer
- Sub-Lingual Tablet
- Wise Ol' Man
- New Facts Emerge
- 2014
- O! ZZTRRK Man
- New Facts Emerge
- Segue
- Ponto
- Smith and Mark
- Afternoon Disco
- Reece Stick
- Home /
- The Annotated Lyrics /
- Bingo-Master
Bingo-Master
Lyrics
Two swans in front of his eyes
Colored balls in front of his eyes
It's number one for his Kelly's eye
Treble-six right over his eye (2)
A big shot's voice in his ears
Worlds of silence in his ears
All the numbers account for years
Checks the cards through eyes of tears (3)
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
All he sees is the back of chairs
In the mirror, a lack of hairs
A light realm which he fills out
Hear the players all shout
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
A glass of lager in his hand
Silver microphone in his hand
Wasting time in numbers that rhyme
One hundred blank faces mime
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Came the time he flipped his lid
Came the time he flipped his lid
Holiday in Spain fell through (4)
Players put it down to
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Bingo-Master's Breakout!
A hall full of cards left unfilled
Ended his life with wine and pills
There's a grave somewhere only partly filled
A sign in a graveyard on a hill
Reads Bingo-Master's Breakout!
Notes
1. This was the first song the Fall released. Martin Bramah bursts onto the scene with some of the most ridiculously sloppy lead guitar I've ever heard on a studio recording (although in the age of punk this may not have been considered a sin), and MES starts penning inscrutable lyrics right off the bat. Una Baines claims to have written the music to this one. "Breakout" seems to refer to suicide here; why MES chose to write a song about a Bingo caller freaking out is a mystery, but it is a refreshing contrast to a lot of the less imaginative punk lyrics of the time.
Dan submits: From the press release for Bingo Master's Breakout (Song is credited "Smith-Baines"): "The words to this were written out of actual stoned experience, composed about a month before recording. The only number which is a 2nd. take - the mis/tuned guitar being a deliberate rejection of the 1st. take which was much more melodic. Martin's guitar did not sound the same before or after. The tension in the band was at an all time peak and this shows through. The lyrics tell a good story also."
Also from Dan:
From New Manchester Review, #53, dated 24 March 1978 to 6 April 1978, p8, interview with MES:
Mark: " 'Bingo Master's Break-Out' is about somebody who reads out bingo numbers, and how if it was me it would drive me round the twist."
From The Fall Stumble into the Void, by Ian Wood, Sounds 8 April 1978, p.26:
'Bingo Master's Break Out' for instance concerns a a visit Mark made with his parents to a bingo hall.
"It was incredible. There was this guy there with these balls going. It wasn't like a place you'd go for your leisure, it was a glorified works canteen. And people were going there straight from work..." In the song, the caller eventually goes berserk.
This is called "Bingo Master's Break-out" on the album Early Fall (otherwise known as Early Years 1977-1979) and "Bingo-Master" on the original EP, which covers more hyphen bases by calling itself Bingo-Master's Break-out.
2. "Swan" in Bingo parlance is 2, so two swans (but more commonly "little ducks") is 22, suggested by the shape of the digits; a "Kelly's eye" is a one, although the origins of this are murky, with some sources suggesting a vague connection to Ned Kelly, and a helmet he wore that had a single slot for his eyes. Bingo drawings are a maximum of two digits at a time, so "treble six" isn't really a thing. It is possible that, as the caller began to freak out, he started to notice sinister combinations of numbers, and the number of the beast in whatever combination (like 66-6) jumped out at him. On the other hand, "over his eye" seems to suggest that he actually bore the mark of the beast, rather than just seeing it, although that seems like a bizarre interpretation. Duncandisorderly notes that Damien in the Omen bore the mark '666' over his ear.
3. I hate to put in a note in just for the sake of editorializing, but this hilariously bathetic line is an early indication of MES's sense of humor and way with words. This simple and even trite line is so perfectly placed and executed that it becomes a standout here, perhaps rivalled only by "A hall full of cards left unfilled." Such lachrymose scenes remind me of Lewis Carroll...as if you cared.
4. Reported in the Daily Mail of 20 May 1974 is the case of John Goodall, arrested by Spanish detectives at a hotel on the Costa Brava on a request from Scotland Yard. He was wanted for questioning about a bank robbery, and was working as a bingo-caller in the Hotel San Marti Park. (Dan reporting)
Comments (39)
I've not seen the film in full yet.
Holiday in Spain fell through"
Reported in the Daily Mail of 20 May 1974,the case of John Goodall, arrested by Spanish detectives at a hotel on the Costa Brava on a request from Scotland Yard. He was wanted for questioning about a bank robbery, and was working as a bingo-caller in the Hotel San Marti Park.
I'm sure this is irrelevant as a lyrics source, but I like the echo. Goodall's Spanish holiday could be said to have fallen though, couldn't it?
Song is credited "Smith-Baines".
http://thefall.org/gigography/image/78jun_bingo-press/index.html
We know from Renegade that MES thinks highly of The Omen, and we know from a letter to Tony Friel dated 28 October 1976 that he read the novelisation which was released just before the film.
A light brown, which he fills out (i.e. the thinning hair)
Wasting time in numbers that rhyme
One hundred blank faces mime
All of those corrections jibe with my ears. Any objections?
By the way, the lyrics were in place from early versions of the song and are the same as the corrected version above.
Add Albert Finney, and author Neville Smith and a picture starts to form with some familiar elements.
Found when searching BBC Genome for Murder + Mayhem - first shown https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1985-01-14#at-22.25
Options Morecambe+Wise in That Riviera Affair, Man from UNCLE + older Gumshoes like Mr Magoo https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbctv/1963-03-10#at-16.45
Dan
I notice we haven't really got to grips with this line.
I think there's a tendency to assume it's all bingo related, but I'd suggest that this is taken from darts, where the "treble-six" (on the outer rim of the board) is (according to various glossaries) known as "the devil" (because it's "666" of course).
And if that's right, then to have "666" over your eye may be borrowed from Damian's birthmark in The Omen movies.
And then you have to wonder, is MES portraying the bingo master as satanic, or is he suggesting this is a delusion on the part of the bingo master. Or perhaps we need to sidestep what MES' intentions may have been (which we don't know), and any "literal" reading, and focus instead on the effect of the text, once understood, which is that it certainly points to something dark even if it's not hinting at anything 'demonic' at work per se. I mean, we can interpret it in terms of psychological horror rather than Lovecraftian horror, if you see what I mean.,
But just to take the occult/apocalyptic interpretation a bit further....
MES didn't ever explain the song in those terms. He just said it was a bingo caller who "goes berserk". And you interpret that fairly prosaically. And that still works.
But there are hints at something more. So the "666" bit for a start.
But then also lines like these:
"A big shot's voice in his ears".
A big shot? Not just any old voices, notice. A particular one.
"Worlds of silence in his ears"
This could suggest time before birth as one world, and after death as another. I don't know. But this could suggest nihilistic thoughts, suicidal thoughts.
"Came the time"
Came the time? What time? Might this mean the appointed time? A time he was expecting something to happen, or was expected to do something? Something commanded, perhaps, by the "big shot's voice"?
Anyway, so he kills himself ("with wine and pills").
And then:
"There's a grave somewhere only partly filled
A sign in a graveyard on a hill
Reads Bingo-Master's Breakout!"
A grave only partly filled? So are we to think, then, that the "breakout" is in fact a breakout from the grave? Has the bingo master escaped burial as some kind of zombie?
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/help-any-info-appreciated-t8911.html
So there is a possible "breakout from the grave" interpretation. But the lines can be read differently.
"A hall full of cards left unfilled"
and
"There's a grave somewhere only partly filled"
So while a "partly filled" grave could be taken as indicating the absence of a body, it could also just be a poetic device to correspond to the "hall of cards left unfilled". Which points, then, to the emptiness of the bingo-master's tragic life.
Source: "United they Fall", by Chris Brazier, Melody Maker, 31 December 1977, p.9.