Crop-Dust

(1)

It is cruel and blind
And does not compensate
The brutal fracture
Leaves sprout all over
Out in the heart of the garden

Your liver is one
Your brain is a twelfth of thought off
Your liver is one
Your brain is a twelfth of thought off  (2)

A quarter of the brain is left
To seed in 25 lines   (3)
On your mindset
Infra-skunk structure  (4)

The editor bedraggled, stumbled
Some hurt, some dazed with film crew
Their equipment strewn on the new development
As the rain tumbles down over the riverside complex
Still not covering up the ominous thunder of the hymn

[backing vox: Deep in the cells of your mind
You feel there's lost time but there's no turning back
You've been counting those days... etc., through next verse]

Shattered by skyscraper, tall...
Skyscraper tall, World War One
Soldiers in green coats and Pickelhaube (5)
Joined by old...the old singer from Manchester
In the 1990s      (6)

Brutal fracture, leaves sprout in the heart of the garden
A quarter of brain is left to seed in 25 lines... 25 lines (7)

From the Touch Sensitive Box Set, Disc II:

 And 25 fractured in the garden

And the brutal fractured [take fall] 25 line
And the fracture is one quarter of your mad, parallax liver
And the endless forkout is not looking good in the garden  (8)

Sober [so step] and can fracture the brain
25 and a quarter
And the roses aren't too good in the garden  

Down on the new riverside, sober developers
As the rain hurtles down on the fleeing business project,
But still not covering up the ominous thunder
Of the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy”   (9)
Chanted by 12 foot tall
World War One German soldiers in green coats and Picklehaube
Materialize from the rubble
I had just received my second notice of bankruptcy 
It was in parts falling on the floor and getting messed up
I tried to read it but the rain-spattered envelope
Dissolved its myriad changes
Getting mixed up into scarves discarded by the fleeing executive
Through crop dust
Through crop dust  

The brain is eight twelfths of twenty five fractured
25 lines
25 fractured
One quarter 

And it’s not looking pretty good in the garden  

And a brutal fracture of 25 lines
And a myriad fracture clogging up the garden
And dust
Crop dust
Crop dust
Crop dust
Crop dust

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1. This masterpiece from Are You Are Missing Winner is built around the opening guitar strumming from the Troggs' song "I Just Sing," which appears here as an apparent (uncredited) sample. The lead guitar hook, furthermore, plays an eastern-sounding lick similar to the guitar solo on the Troggs number. Live versions, which were often much faster, omit the Troggs riff altogether. Crop dusting involves spreading fertilizer or pesticides on a crop via airplane. Although it is arguable that false and/or trick endings have been used ad nauseum in Fall songs and elsewhere, the temporary fade, return, and sudden cut at the end is nevertheless very effective. And, that's enough editorializing for now...

The Fall may also have written "Fiery Jack" around a riff from the Troggs.  

Some interesting comments appear below: Tom points out that "Immediately after 9/11, the US media was filled with all kinds of speculation about possible future terror attacks. One I remember getting a lot of play was that terrorists could use crop dusters to spread chemical weapons. Given that AYAMW was released just two months after 9/11, that seems like a reasonable source for the title (although the lyrics don't provide much support, apart from a reference to skyscrapers)." And Y. Rdrbilbst adds, "The annotation and [Tom's] comment together are suggestive, in that you could consider 9/11 as a fraction, and one that would have a relationship to 8/12, numerator and denominator each being off by 1, the other number figuring in the song, maybe giving a reason for using eight-twelths instead of three-quarters. 

Likely not, but maybe?"

These guys are probably wearing tin foil hats, but I dig it nevertheless. This kind of speculation captures something about the song, with its air of paranoid psychedelia; even if the content above is not exactly what MES had in mind, it's basically a tin foil hat type of song. But some cold water: Dan provides the following interview which seems to imply the song was already done by September:

From the October 2001 studybees.com interview by Penny Broadhurst:
 

What do you think of all the Nostradamus stuff that going round because of September 11th?]/b]

He actually did say bombers over Paris 2002. It's weird.

[b]Loads of people are buying books of his now out of paranoia. Does that amuse you?

Ha ha ha ha! On the new LP, yeah, it's quite frightening. 'Cause there's a track on it called Cropdust. Spencer the drummer wrote it. And what I'm saying on it...I can't, it's too weird...and there's another track as well where it says "You are flying, got to abseil into a foreign land". And you think about it and it's all a bit much. Because there's also one about twin towers...but it's too late now to change it because it's already pressed.

Does it scare you a bit?

It does scare me, very much. The band are like this (jaw drops).

Reformation comments: "To a lesser or greater degree the lyrics comment on the embourgeisement[sic]/repopulation of central Manchester as a result of the regeneration post the bomb attack outside Marks and Spencers on Cross Street. MES would return to this theme during Crop Dust on the same album (reflecting on the canalside developments at St Georges Island in Manchester and at Salford Quays.)"

Then there's the following ad-lib:

14 November 2001 The Knitting Factory, Los Angeles: 

"Strewn on the new riverside Salford development as the rain hurtles down." (thanks to Martin)

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2. This could possibly be "eight twelfths of thought off." Eight twelfths is an unusual fraction, since it would ordinarily be reduced to two thirds unless there were a reason for twelfths to be emphasized.

The cerebral cortex, which is wrapped around the outside of the brain, contains roughly three quarters of the brain's neurons, and is thought to be responsible for many of the brain's conscious functions. It has been speculated that this part of the brain contains or comprises the seat or organizing center of consciousness, but this has also been contested, and the thalamus is thought by some to play this role, to the extent that consciousness can be identified with a single part or region of the brain at all, which is very controversial. Whatever the scientific facts may be in this matter--a question far beyond my competence--one possible interpretation is that here Smith is identifying the cerebral cortex with conscious organization, and invoking the more primitive state of mind that this insistent, droning musical tour de force seems to be directly summoning, or even inducing. The liver, on the other hand, which is here said to be "one," is the only organ in the body which can make up for a significant loss of mass by growing new cells. Interestingly, the liver, unlike the brain, can grow back to its original mass after as much as 75% of it has been destroyed. Thus, the liver is not partitioned into specialized and more or less irreplaceable zones the way that the brain is (although many parts of the brain are very versatile and lost brain function in one sector can often be compensated for in others), and in this sense the liver is, in comparison with the brain, "one." In Greek mythology, Prometheus, punished by Zeus for giving fire to humans, was chained to a rock, and his liver was eaten by a vulture during the day; at night, it would grow back, and the process was repeated.    

Marc Balance points out that this may also be somehow (obliquely, given the math) referring to the myth that humans only use 10 percent of the brain...

The second time also sounds like "...fuck off."

^ 

3. Or possibly "to see it in 25 lines." "To seed," which is what it sounds like, seems to suggest the brain is destroyed, but part is left from which a new one will sprout...compare with the sprouting leaves in the garden of the previous line (thanks to microplastering in the comments below).

^
 

4. I'm not prepared to say what "infra-skunk structure" means, but it remainds me of the following remarks MES made in an interview with Pitchfork:

[T]here's a lot of skunk damage in Manchester, I'll tell you that.

Pitchfork: Skunk damage?

MES: Yeah, skunk. The weed, yeah.

Pitchfork: Did you say skunk damage, though?

MES: Yeah, there's a lot of damage there.

Pitchfork: How do you mean, "damage"?

MES: Well, I've got a lot of young mates, and the skunk is like 30 times more powerful, isn't it... I'm not a pothead, you see, so I don't fucking know about it, I'm just commenting on it. It's weird, that thread, though.

^

5. A Pickelhaube (literally "pointed headgear") is a spiked helmet designed by Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm (1795-1861) and originally worn by Prussian infantrymen, and later adopted by other German forces and by the militaries of numerous other countries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Such headgear is sometimes referred to with the more generic term "pith helmet," but a pike on top is not a necessary feature of the pith helmet, which is named after the substance of which it was originally composed (pith is material from the stems of plants).

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6.  Dan: "First world war: the Battle of the Somme started on 1 July 1916. So 2001 was the 85th anniversary, and was marked by various events. I haven't found anything specific in Salford/Manchester, but the lyric may not be realistic in that respect anyway."

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7. As I've transcribed it above, the lyrics sung by MES comprise 25 lines (in other words, not counting the backing vocals). Of course, I don't know how Smith wrote it down, and thus the line breaks are somewhat arbitrary. In any case, the song is at least roughly 25 lines long, so it is not unreasonable to speculate that this lyric refers, at least on one level, to the song itself. 

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8. The "endless forkout" recalls the "eternal forkout" in The Last Commands of Xyralothep Via MES, and is also echoed in "Jim's 'The Fall'" where the lyric is "The next fork is endless/Fork out--I can't cover..." 

MES repeatedly draws out the word "garden," melismatically stretching it over several beats. Zack points out that the melody here is borrowed from "Evil Hoodoo" by the Seeds, and is the same melody that appears in "Ten Houses of Eve." 

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9. "Holy, Holy, Holy" is a 19th Century hymn by the Anglican Regnald Heber extolling the Trinity:

Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man, Thy glory may not see:
Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise Thy name in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

MES sings the title words more or less to the melody of the hymn.

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Crop-Dust: Fall Lyrics A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 2001