City Dweller

(1)

Dictum: message of the euro-bore
Mannered
It's a good life, bowing to a tyrant (2)

Gone
Christian gang chants sweet 
Regional 
Keep your head down for the moment

(That now suit is now in bucket
It's a good life, Europe)

Avoid the dismantled
All heads stuck in bloody plant pots (3)
All looking at them
Forgetting the endless drive against nature
City dweller

Must we base ourselves again into organic mud?
You're well welcome to it
Get out of my city you mediocre pseud
And take those red-tie bastards
Who put up the olympic flag with you (4)
They walk around leering at young girls in packs
Worse than any yobs (5)

(.....Catalonian)

It's January 20th
Euro-bore: I support media
Keep olympic bidding

City dweller
Backwards
More than you can ever know
Mr. cab driver
What do you want
Mr. cab driver (6)

City dweller

This hillbilly cab driver
He has submerged himself into the psyche of the average 
Cab driver
They love me, they knock off 10 to 15 pence
This is wandering
Those casual days are over and dull
dull (7)

Agricultural gangs chant for sweet freedom (8)

Get out of my city 
You mediocre pseud 
And take those red tie bastards with you
City dweller

They should remember there's nothing worse 
Than a half-educated grim red dwarf 
City dweller
Cuts up
Cab driver, cab driver 
Oh Mr cab driver

(He's up there now, listening to us, I know he is)

Why do you leave a a poxy card? (9)
Oh, Mr. cab driver

What do about it?

Too much to drink
Too many drugs
Too much sex
Too young

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1. This originally appeared on the Behind the Counter single as "Cab Driver." The lyrics of that version are different, but they are hard to make out; at some point it would be good to put them up, so if anyone knows what they are, please contact me.

^

2. A dictum is an authoritative but not legally binding statement made by a judge or, in common usage, any sort of proclamation; the dictum here is presumably "It's a good life, bowing to a tyrant." 

djbawbag points out that there is a Twilight Zone episode called "It's a Good Life," in which the plot does involve bowing to a tyrant, in the form of 6-year-old Anthony Fremont, who has mental powers that make him extemely dangerous. Otherwise, he's about like any other 6-year-old, which means the people of the town have to make sure they don't displease him if they wish to survive. 

^

3.  Carl says "Manchester City Council hired people to wear costumes with plant-pots for a head, flowers coming out of the top, and walk around the Market Street/Piccadilly Gardens area." It is not certain why this happened, or if it happened in just this way, but Carl says he saw them himself. As yet we have no corroborating evidence of this.

^

4. Manchester bid for the 2000 Olympics, and this presumably would have already been going on in 1993 or 1994 when MES was writing this song (at whjch point, I'm told, the 1996 Olympics was already set). 

Manchester unsuccessfully bid for the Olympic games in 1992, 1996 and 2000, finally landing a sort of booby prize, the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

^

5. A "yob," in English slang, is a crass and aggressive young man from a working class background. A yob is somewhat similar to what is now called a "chav," I think, but the former is more likely to be violent, as far as I can make out.

^

6. It's not the most intuitive of connections, to say the least, but it does nevertheless seem possible that this is an allusion to Lenny Kravitz's 1990 hit "Mr. Cab Driver," about a young black man who has a hard time getting a taxi because of racial prejudice.

^

7. "Those casual days are over" is sung in such a way that it is reminiscent of "Your ballroom days are over, baby..." from "5 to 1" by the Doors. The same line is referencesd in "You're Not Up To Much."

^

8. Agricultural gangs, which were common in the 19th century (but still persist in some form), were groups of workers, mostly women and children, who contracted out as a group to do farm labor. Often they were organized by a "gang master" who would bid on jobs and coördinate the laborers' efforts. In the 19th cenury the practice was widely condemned as exploitative and began to be heavily regulated in the latter part of the century.  See comment 31below by MediocrePseud for a more contemporary account.

^

9. In English slang, "poxy" means of poor quality or worthless. It is possible he says "proxy." A "proxy card" is a card filled out, often by a shareholder of a corporation, instructing a stand-in or proxy how to vote in the absence of the voter herself. On the other hand, Niall comments, in favor of "poxy," "Having received plenty of them myself over time, I'm fairly convinced the line is referring to a cab driver's habit of leaving a calling card with the passenger at the end of a ride, to encourage them to use their service again. It typically lists the cab service name & phone number."

^

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City Dweller: Fall Tracks A-Z

Cab Driver: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1994 ("City Dweller")

The Story of the Fall: 1993 ("Cab Driver")