Cyber Insekt

Martin, "Duly knowing" makes perfect sense to me: "knowing, as might be expected of a cyber surveillance insect" for instance, vs. "jewelry knowing" which makes no sense to me at all.

Too late to be a source, but amusing nonetheless:

Pentagon plans cyber-insect army
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4808342.stm

Comment #10: yes, I think that's very plausible. The "cyber" bit doesn't really fit the book, but that doesn't matter if it's just the inspiration for some of the lyrical imagery.

I'm not sure being understood was always top of his list, no.

The lyric is plainly not "yellow on the inside".

Paul Go:

'moth fly' is random, distractingly bad, and means nothing in the context of the metaphors or the subject.

Except that Julia Nagle has said it's "yellow moth fly", and it could be a reference to the cover of the book The Silence of the Lambs, as covered in the notes.

it's about a de-individualised swarm of blind insects following their baser instincts

That's an interesting interpretation, but bear in mind Julia's account of the genesis of the song.

And who the hell doesn't want to be understood?

If MES always wanted to be understood, why did he almost never explain his lyrics or print them on his records?

And since when has 'accessible' art ever been good art?

I'm not sure what this means, to be honest.

Does anyone here ever take a step back, ever, and wonder why he is might be using trains in a song about the internet? Then appreciated the frequency of the chorus, how fast it comes around, how hurried it is compared to the more convention and fairly jolly train rhythm beneath, And then realised what a fuck me sideways clever device that is, like a super highway traveling over an a old infrastructure? Anyone from the UK here?

I'm from the UK, but I don't think about trains much. If the song is partially about "the virtual world of communications" (or the internet) as Julia said, then "cyber insekt" might represent "bugs", perhaps.

Or is it really the 'raging' debates over words you can never hear, but refuse to work out, that interests everyone?

Those debates are very interesting, but I've generally been more into lyrics archaeology.

Just listened in the car, trying to hear planes and trains, So I hear the 't', but still hear the 'ee'. Luckily I only ever sing along in the car on my own.

'yearning over all plains of trees'

which is definitely better.. keeps it land based, trains can still yearn for what's beyond escarpments,while the internet can now covet all paper knowledge. Thanks for the 'T' on this one.

I don't think we should substitute our "better" readings for what we can hear, as a rule. In this case, I think you can make a case for "plains of trees". I'm not sure, need to listen more. But it's not implausible.

still 'jewelly'

I think this is very plausible. It sounds more like that than "duly".

'film of book with soundtrack' surely, rather than 'book of book...' ?

I support this.

Does anyone have thoughts on the main repeating words in the song? Those three punchy red blooded Germanic ones, Book Film Rack and then Track. He says them a lot, and in different combinations, almost like he's saying don't take them at face value, or reconstruct their meanings in some way.

Hm, well you could argue with just as much justification that their repetition is almost like he's saying we should take them at face value.

Paul Das:

Never listen to band members for precisely the same reason the boss doesn't publish lyrics or ever directly explain or detail anything about his intentions.

"The boss"? Oh dear, oh dear, one of those.

Artists make their art.

"Discuss"

With Mark E, you'll only ever get what you expect to get. How people characterise him is shameful, but they are appropriately rewarded.

Anyone?!

My general point is listening is different to hearing.

Mmm. Golly. I wonder what other different things we can think of?

In this particular thread, so called 'inaccessible' art requires the listener to engage, and that means improving your understanding, perhaps over years, looking for a better understanding. The only motivation for this is the anticipation of enlightenment, not just over 'depuzzling' it.

Or you could just make stuff up and insist it's right anyway.

It has trains in it. Thinking about trains is required.

No, I don't want to think about trains. It's also got the colour "purple" in it. I'd rather think about that.

HS2 has been in the news for years.

It has. But what's the oldest reference to HS2 you can find?

Part of the justification for it...

You probably need "annotatednetworkrail" for this kind of stuff.

Just to underline the relevance of this

But what has it got to do with the song?!

Perhaps if you thought about literal trains and the concept of progress, you might at least *hear* one of the qualities in 'come on back'.

I just had a think about literal trains and the concept of progress for a couple of minutes, but I still couldn't hear any of that.

Sorry if it seems I'm picking on you, balls will always get you into trouble.

Trouble? Bless.

No one has a single thoughtful defense for yellow moth fly, even when they are apparently as sure as sure can be,

All there is, is a suggestion it could be something to do with the picture on the cover of The Silence of the Lambs. The more you go on about the concept of progress and literal trains, the more I like the book cover suggestion.

The sublimity is monumentally dark

And the darkness is monumentally sublime, probably.

I mean "one of them" as in the type of person who calls MES "the boss". <shudder>

Paul Go, comment #30:

Trains are in the song, cyber-ness is in the song, facts you refuse to connect

But who says they are connected? This is the crux of things. So far as I can see, trains are mentioned only in so far as a train station is the location of the book rack. Context is contextual.

I'd be no less justified in saying to you:

Trains are in the song, cyber-ness is in the song, facts you refuse to disconnect...

Listening to the live version from the Crocodile Cafe, Seattle, 20th November 2001.

There are some variant lyrics there, which suggest to me that a more coherent narrative (maybe not just one narrative) got somewhat chopped up for the album.

Note this variant lyric:

It is purple escarpment
Over the north (something) of the English Lake District
Something something over fields and seas

A purple escarpment likely refers to either a purplish stone formation, or the colour of heather on hillsides, something like that.

Other live lyrics refer to the "plains of Norfolk" (Concorde2, Brighton, 17 April 2001).

Over fields

Comment #33:

I have given an *abundance* of reasons why I think they are connected.

You've developed that interpretation and those connections. I don't have a problem with that, I think it's good to do. But you haven't shown that those connections are in the text

You realise your logic, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean nothing can ever be connected to anything?

Yes, but why would I take it to its logical conclusion in that case?

Note 37:

I backed up a connection, you didn't back up a disconnection.

I backed up the disconnection merely by challenging the connection.

But let's be clear what is and what is not being said.

We have in front of us a text. It is not clear whether that text completely accurately reflects what is sung on record, but it's mainly pretty close.

There are a couple of things to do with this text, other than trying to make it accurate in relation to the record. First of all, what is it saying? And secondly, how is it saying it?

On the first question, there are two aspects - what was it intended to say, and what does it mean to us the listeners?

On the first aspect, we have information from Julia about where the song's origins lie, which would seem to help a bit. The rest is speculation and interpretation, which may be well or ill-informed, and firmly grounded in the text or freely elaborated. The second aspect arises because meaning is not constrained by intention, even when intention is clear and known.

So if a listener can find meaning in the song, regardless of whether that was the intended meaning (assuming there was one), they are free to do so. The connections you have made cannot be said not to exist if you perceive them to exist. Quite often such interpretation casts new light on songs.

But I say two things. First of all, what is sauce for the goose, etc. Your interpretation exists alongside other interpretations (remember interpretation is free even when intended meaning is known), and it is not on for you to insist that all other interpretations are wrong, and only yours right. That cannot be so. Secondly, you cannot expect to offer an interpretation without it being interrogated. Although interpretation is free, so is critique. If I think an interpretation is not grounded sufficiently in the text, then I will say so.

To make an obvious and non-controversial point as an example, someone might find that the song contains elements they can recognise in their own life. And so that may give them a particular personal interpretation of the song. Those elements would evidently not be intentionally there, and they may not be shared with others, but it would not be appropriate to deny that interpretation is possible.

Unless that person is just wrong about what the song says. So if someone says, this song makes me think of my grandma, who had a yellow mop, it wouldn't be out of order to observe that the lyric actually is "yellow moth", not mop. That probably won't stop that association for that individual, but it's an important caveat.

As for Silence of the Lambs, I've only gone as far as saying I think it's a plausible suggestion. Which it is, because The Fall have a song on the soundtrack, and the cover of the novel features a moth answering the description in the lyric, which also talks about "book of film".

We do not know that MES intended that connection. But it's there. And those are the reasons it's there.

Your thing - it's just an interpretation. That's fine. But it's only an interpretation. Better than some, perhaps. Worse than others. Either way you can expect to be challenged on its grounding in the text if you're going to claim it represents intended meaning as opposed to something more subjective.

Paul, it does not sound like "Yellow Moth Fly" to me, too many syllables. However, Julia Nagel (Adamson) told me that is definitely what she sang. I think the other backup singer is Japanese and maybe pronounced it strangely to Anglophone ears, or else maybe even sang something else, although that would be a whole other can of worms. In any case, "Yellow Moth Fly" is direct from (one of) the horse's mouth(s).

"Jewelly knowing" maybe. But that would sound just like "duly knowing," which is a recognizable phrase, so I feel like there would have to be some confirmation from somewhere were I to feel comfortable changing it to that.

"And who the hell doesn't want to be understood? And since when has 'accessible' art ever been good art? "

This juxtaposition is funny...Paul, please try to read some of the notes before commenting sometimes.

I don't know how much of this has been worked over and how much just comes from Lyrics Parade. I'll take you guys' word for "Film of book" for now (I'm going to listen and check though) but it's a shame since I like "Book of book," it conveys redundancy de re with redundancy de dicto. Anyway I meant to say about "jewelly," which I like, that I'm not sure that's not how MES would pronounce "duly" as many people from England do. That would be a conundrum. But since you're both English maybe I'm missing something and that's not how many people there pronounce "duly"?

Paul, Julia is telling the truth that she says "Yellow Moth Fly" because, as I mentioned in the notes, on the Testa Rossa version where she's the only backing vocalist you can clearly hear her saying "Yellow Moth Fly." If there's anything in there that's not YMF (as there does seem to be), it's coming from the other vocalist.

Ok, the first line is clearly and distinctly "film of film"

But the second one was "book of film," changed. I do hear "planes and trains," I can't get anything else out of that right now.

Paul, the only "internet" connection is the single word cyber. Yes there is talk of trains and stations, which imply rails, movement, communication, but to say the song "references" the internet is to give an interpretation. I do put my interpretations sometimes, but if I stick to puzzling out the trivial stuff sometimes that stops no one from coming up with interpretations and frankly, such trivial puzzling is a more important function of this site since everyone is competent to interpret and my interpretations do not hold any special weight or legitimacy over yours.

Lots of things could be adduced to your interpretation, the song is about communication and replication, thus as much and as little Gutenberg as the internet, not to mention the film industry, all of which related by the banality of replication and repetition without creativity or understanding, hence MES's favorite hobby horse "plagiarism," which means to recycle ideas rather than to appropriate them, as the latter is genuinely creative even if you are repeating a Spinal Tap riff and singing over it. Books are made into films and turned back into books and sold again. We could say the internet accelerates and democratizes this process, so everywhere is a book of a film of a book of a film in the form of the same lifeless content sent around the world at lightning speed through wires that are an extenuation of the rails that brought the traveler to the book and the book to the traveler. There is nothing wrong with riffing on ideas in the songs, in fact for the listener this may be the most treasured part of the experience. But in general my job is not to insist on an interpretation but to get the lyrics straight and tease out allusions and connections that put the song before us and allow us to come up with out own interpretations. I am on the one hand informing people--we actually, as Dan does as much as anyone in this regard--but on the other, when it comes to interpretation, the ones we devise here are no more important than the ones anyone else comes up with--you don't need a web site to tell you how to understand the songs, which all--all--are multivalent when it comes to their meaning.

"we actually, as Dan does as much as anyone in this regard-"

Sorry, it's not just Dan either, I don't mean to slight anyone, there are a lot of contributors here.

Anyway, I don't think "cyber" means its about the internet. But, "insekt"=bug; "cyber" bug=computer virus; a virus is meaningless empty content, or better content whose purpose is indifferent to its own meaning or lack thereof, replicating and crowding everything else out, like a film of a book of a film of a book, banal entertainment fodder crafted for the sake of sales, replicating endlessly. Here we might think of something like Heidegger's Das Man, one says what "one says," human beings are in a sense programs that exist as a means for the world of the everyday to replicate itself. One possible interpretation.

Paul Go:

There are NO interpretations here, nothing. And I haven't told you my interpretation. I was just establishing the patently obvious.

No, you're interpreting like billy-o.

Trains, internet, infrastructure, progress, anonymity monikers and insekts.

Most of which is contained in what Julia said about the song, which you wanted us to disregard. The themes of the song can be said to be severalfold: mass transport and communication in the modern world, the absurdity of the New York court case, Silence of the Lambs. All of that is there, and possibly more.

But is there a single coherent narrative? That's interpretation.

A moth is a symbol used all over the place for lots of things for millennia.

But to urge that we understand the moth symbolically rather than literally is interpretation.

I've already said what yellow means in its context

No, you've interpreted its context. You said it was a reference to what you take (interpret) to be the liberal politics of the internet (which I would challenge), and you interpret liberalism as in some sense cowardly (yellow).

the words stand on their own, with or without it

I don't know how to begin with the idea that words - any words, let alone Fall lyrics - "stand on their own". I just think that's nonsense. I don't even think you believe it, which is why you're interpreting.

As far as process goes, I'd recommend moving into the song, not sideways around it.

"Moving into the song", however, is mere metaphor (which itself requires interpretation - we need an annotatedpaulgo.doomby.com). It's not actually a process.

As a final point, derailing meaning from intention is only required with shit or confused art.

Incorrect. Not even wrong, really.

Unless you are saying The Fall's music is about nothing

According to MES, some of The Fall's songs are about nothing. That does not mean they don't mean anything, even if he was telling the truth (and here on annotatedfall we are notorious for our skepticism even of MES).

But in this case we have one of the song's composers making statements about what the song was written about. But that does not exhaust what we can find in it, and nor does it mean that the song is narratively coherent (maybe it intentionally muddies the water) - in fact you could argue that some of the live versions add text which casts light on what may be "missing" from the album version. For example, when we're contemplating what "purple" means, I've already drawn attention to meanings of purple to be found in a live version. So that needs noting, even if it doesn't allow us to complete the song, were we to regard it as a lyric boiled down from a longer text.

I wasn't expecting such an uphill struggle to be honest

You just don't know us very well. But that's OK, you weren't to realise.

I'm not taking ownership of an 'interpretation', as far as I'm concerned, this is all simply what's there already. There's so much more to it.

Whether there is "more to it" is interpretation.

does anyone here really care whether it's 'duly' or 'jewelly'? 'plains of trees' or 'planes and trains and automobiles'?

Yeah, I do. But we may never know what was intended.

Purple gold and jewels are so strongly associated I regard this as common sense.

Which is a big mistake.

It simply requires someone to make a qualitative decision based on 'what Mark would have wrote'.

Which is interpretation. It's you substituting what you think MES should have written.

Even without the mention of stations or tracks it's obviously a train song.

I don't know what "train song" represents to you, but I don't see any particular reason why a song that mentions trainy things must be a "train song".

I think you've gone a bit weird about all the "cyber" stuff. Nobody is questioning the "cyber" stuff, just your rather over-elaborate and all-encompassing interpretation.

You probably say 'ta-mate-ah' too, (wrongly I might add), but we at least see smell and taste the same juicy fruit.

This was directed at bzfgt, but if I may... Actually you have to ask yourself how you know whether you are seeing and smelling the same fruit. It also ought to be pointed out that tomatoes are a particular kind of fruit - a berry, in fact - but that it is treated as a vegetable in cooking/culinary contexts. In other words, even tomatoes are interpreted.

I never said "cyber" appears once, I said it's a single word. It could be said 30,000 more times without making the song more obviously about the internet.

I don't think the song has anything at all to do with the liberal politics of the internet and whether liberals are cowards.

"I don't know you, but enough to know you rationalise the socks off everything and, again I don't know why, but you are weirdly allergic to anything right brain. That's fine in your job or whatever, but I fail to see what use over-rationalising music and art is."

How does this jibe with your comments about not interpreting? Isn't just stating what's already obviously there a fairly left-brain approach? I'm not sure what you mean by over-rationalizing either, what specifically has he over-rationalized, and what does the word mean with regard to the example you provide? Insistiing there's only one way to read the song seems more over-rationalizing than anything Dan has said...

""Purple in its glowingness
golden, roasting in its jewelly knowing" is referring to... no, not cooking up an interpretation, actually referring to, as in, intended by the writer, to conjure in the listener's imagination... you are simply not qualified to participate in discussions about 'meaning' of poetry."

I'm not sure you are qualified to participate in discussions about the meaning of "referring"...

Who said it was completely unintelligible? And now we're not taking the Fall seriously enough? What exactly do you want to happen?

Comment #65.

I think Paul Go's problem is no so much that we don't take The Fall seriously, but that we don't take Paul Go seriously.

"...enough," Dan, which I know is what you mean. Of course we don't not take him seriously tout court . We perhaps have a difference of opinion as to how much of him to take without salt.

Its jewelly knowing isn't any better grammatically

"Valid"? Meaning grammatically correct? Or ...? If "His shiningly bell" is "valid," I'm struggling with the concept of "valid"...generally it's said of an argument, and you can't mean "correct" if that's your example...

Yes you're right about that, my mistake..."jewelly" would be correct. It could be the lyric, I wish we could get more evidence on this. I disagree about reason vs. ears, don't mistake me for a Humean but I definitely think ears are a more important source...the problem here is it could be either

Which edition was current when the song was written? Different editions have different cover images.







The artists's web page specifies the second edition. And the image there is copyrighted 2005.

https://www.salwowski.com/Gallery1

But I like the connection. What's the story in that anthology the image is illustrating? Any clues in it?

I feel further research coming on.

This the 1991 hardback, first edition:

https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0513/17/state-art-iain-banks-signed-first-uk_1_d478a1309742be548c2668cb50dc7e77.jpg

The purple one is the 1989 first US hardback edition.



So the 1991 hardback above is the first UK edition.

This edition is a 2005 hardback from Nightshade books.

This one is the 1993 Orbit edition:

Ah. This is confusing.

The 1989 Mark V. Ziesing edition is the novella on its own.

Which means I now need to check whether subsequent editions are the anthology or the novella on its own.

Damn.

OK, yes, so the Mark Salwowski cover was the current cover of the paperback anthology published by Orbit Books at the time the song was written.

The work was done for me:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?39183

From a preview commentary on some of the album tracks by Julia Nagle:

http://thefall.org/un/unutterable.html

[Internet Archive version]

The album starts with Cyber Insekt, written by Julia, which is about the virtual world of communication. There was a plan behind this: to work it live, rather than program it. It's bubbly.