Eat Y'Self Fitter
Lyrics
Couldn't stick the cretin (2)
On the number-three lathe (3)
Went down the town
To a HM club (4)
The sign had a cross
Through a couple well-dressed
They looked at my coat
They looked at my hair
An Easy Rider coot
Grabbed the edge of my coat
Said: 'You're too smart for here' (5)
I said: 'I'll see the manager'
He was the manager
Eat y'self fitter
Up the stairs, mister! (6)
Eat y'self fitter
Analytics have got
My type worked out
Analytics on me
Their poison render (7)
I grope about
And when I go out
My mind splits
My eyes doth hurt
The musical chairs
Have been swallowed up
By a cuddly group
Who land and rub off
Hoping that
Whatever it is
Will land and drop off
I met a hero of mine (8)
I shook his hand
Got trapped in the door
Felt a fool, I'll tell ya
Charmed to meet ya
Eat y'self fitter
Up the stairs, mister!
Eat y'self fitter
Became a recluse
And bought a computer
Set it up in the home
Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear
On the screen
Elusive big one
On the screen (9)
Where's the cursor?
Where's the eraser?
Where's the cursor?
Where's the eraser?
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
H-O-9-O-G-O-H-O (10)
What's a computer?
Eat y'self fitter
What's a computer?
Eat y'self fitter
The Kevin Ayers scene (11)
South of France
Crushed velvet
Are back! Are back!
Are back! Are back!
Levis Fridays (12)
Greek holidays
Barratt heritance
Barratt heritance
Barratt heritance (13)
Mit-Dem!
Don't wanna be a mit-dem! (14)
Pick the fleas, mister!
Eat y'self fitter
Eat y'self fitter?
Eat y'self fitter
Who tells you what
To tape on your vid. chip
How do you know the progs you miss
Are worse than those you single out?
And what'll you do when the rental's up?
And your bottom rack is full of vids
Of programs you will nae look at
The way they act is, oh, sheer delight
Cardboard copyright
Make it right
Panic in Sudan
Panic in Wardour
Panic in Granadaland (15)
Panic all over
By the wretched timesheeters
Of my delight
One starry night
The powers that be will have to meet
And have no choice but to...
Eat each other
Eat y'self fitter
Eat each other?
Eat y'self fitter
(Eat y'self fitter)
Portly and with good grace
The secret straight-back ogre entered
His brain aflame
With all the dreams
It had conjured
It had conjured
It had conjured
It had conjured
Mit-dem
Don't wanna be a mit-dem
The centimeter square (16)
Eat y'self fitter
Said it purged fear
Eat y'self fitter
Notes
NOTES
1. "Eat Yourself Fitter" is a slogan used to sell Kellogg's All-Bran breakfast cereal. This particular ad campaign seems to have begun sometime prior to 1982: "The TV campaign for All-Bran, in area test at the time, went national from July 1982" (Twenty Advertising Case Histories, second series, edited by Charles Channon, Cassell, 1989; thanks to Dan).
See More Information below for a couple of versions of the ad.
From Dan:
From Obsession fanzine, interview with MES at Reading University, 15 October 1983:
'EAT YOURSELF FITTER'??? ARE YOU ATTACKING HEALTH FOOD FREAKS (laughter in the background)
-MARK E. SMITH:- Its like a journal, really. A very 'me' journal, all sorts of things I had a go at on that.
YOU DIDN'T GET THE NAME OFF THE BACK OF AN 'ALL BRAN' PACKET?
BRIX:- No.
MARK E. SMITH:- I didn't write it like that, no, I'd never seen that until I'd written the song, I must have seen the television advert or som'at to get the name, I thought it was a unique name, strange that, isn't it? Somebody showed me, I hope they sue us. (laughter)
2. Cretonne, a kind of cotton fabric used for upholstery, has also been suggested. Ex-worker man suggests that it's "Can't stick the cretin on the number three lathe," i.e. the singer dislikes or can't stand one of his co-workers. It's not a word one sees in songs often (although surely more so than "cretonne," but consider "Cretin Hop" by the Ramones.
3. Perhaps this refers to the size of the lathe: "Numbers 3 and 7 are Bent and straight cut-off tools."
4. Presumably a "heavy metal" club. Reader Georgec submits: "Per 'HM Club,' as is often the case, MES clarifies obscure slang for a foreign audience. At Larry's Hidaway, Toronto, 4/21/83, he sings 'Went down the town/to a Heavy Metal club.' It doesn't scan quite as nicely with the added syllables, but there you have it."
It has also been suggested to me that the letters HM commonly stand for "His/Her Majesty's" in many abbreviations.
Dan points out that the video for "Eat Y'Self Fitter" features the group and associates walking down Whitworth Street West, in Manchester, towards the Haçienda nightclub, which seems to represent the "HM club" in the video.
On "I Feel Voxish" from the album Austurbaejarbio (05/06/1983), at 2:16 MES says "those dirty little weirdos/wouldn't let me in their HM club." This seems to me to suggest that these lines may be based on an actual event. Thanks to Jeff Lewis for pointing this out.
5. For the sake of Americans, it may be necessary to add that this is "smart" in the sense of well-dressed. In a 1998 interview with Vox, MES remembers getting bounced for being too darn smart:
Vox: So did you used to strut your Travolta stuff on the dancefloors of Manchester?
MES: I never really went to any of the disco places in Manchester, I could never afford to. Places like Pips, they'd have four or five floors, a soul floor, a Roxy floor, a Bowie floor, and so on - and you had to have the right haircut. It's getting like that again in Manchester. They won't let you in if your hair's too long, or too short, or even if you're dressed too smart. I've had that recently!
6. Gustopher: "Up the stairs mister will refer to the fact that many, if not most, Manchester clubs of the era were in warehouse basements Iincluding the Hacienda, although that was massive) and so you weny doen to get in and when being barred would be told 'up the stairs.'"
7. Psychoanalysis is the reference here, presumably some kind of group therapy, as evidenced by the references below to a "cuddly group" and "musical chairs."
From Paul Hanley's book, Leave the Capital, p.176, note 167:
The 'met a hero of mine' verse tells the tale of when Mark met John Cale after the latter's gig at the Haçienda on 10th March 1983. Legend has it that Cale's set was so quiet, Peter Hook and Marc Riley had to walk through the crowd telling them to stop talking.
An extract from Peter Hook's book, How Not to Run a Club (2009). This could be Paul Hanley's source, but since he says "legend has it" he may of course have been aware of the story from personal contacts.
I like The Fall. Always have, and they played at the club loads of times. I remember when OMD played, they sounded great because they had a huge PA and blasted the bad acoustics out of the place. Their lights were stunning, too. John Cale comes to mind. One of my heroes. His evening at the Haçienda was a fantastic performance, but just 40 people turned up. And most of them talked all the way through the show. Cale played piano and acoustic guitar, and the music was very quiet. All of the chatter drove me insane. Marc Riley from The Fall was as incensed as I was and we walked through the crowd, poking them telling them to shut up.
9. In the video for "Eat Y'Self Fitter," a lyric sheet is briefly held up which indicates this line is "elusive fig. 1." A contemporary Melody Maker advertisement includes this passage of the lyrics, and the line is recorded as "Elusive Big L." The lyrics are often messed with when they get written down (see the two lyrics books), and it sounds to me, on both Perverted by Language and The Complete Peel Sessions, like "big one," so I have left it that way above. But this alternate rendering should be kept in mind.
10. These obscure lines possibly refer to computer keys. They may have just been floating around, too--in the Blue Lyrics Book, MES includes a piece called "Amsterdam," which reads, in part:
CUT!!
The Amsterdam Office
Bertlan Van Diggaboom;
"Print!"
"We know what we want!"
Printed
"G.O.H.O.F. unplot"
"On G.O.H.O."
"Lets service and recall"
"And Plus Power"
"Newline Answer"
"We want.............."|
Cut!!
Zack has discovered that MES read this on his 1983 Greenwich Sound Radio Creatures What You Never Knew About appearance (along with one "Centimeter Square," see note 12).
11. Kevin Ayers is a British musician who founded the psychedelic group Soft Machine in the 60s.
12. Probably a reference to "casual Friday," where business people are allowed to dress down on Fridays. The practice goes back to the 1950s in the US, when employees of Hewlitt Packard were expected to work in the warehouse on Fridays. Casual Friday may have been influenced by "Aloha Friday" in Hawaii, promoted by a group called the Hawaiian Fashion Guild, which encouraged people to wear "aloha shirts" (often called "Hawaiian shirts") to work on Fridays.
13. Barratt Homes is a major property developer in Britain, sometimes criticized for shoddy workmanship. In any case, a contrast between the archaic "heritance" and the new money implications of Barratt is doubtless intended.
14. "Mit dem" means "with the..." in German, with the definite article "dem" in the masculine dative case. At times Smith is likely saying "victim," and there may also be a pun on "amid them." In the video to the song from Perverted by Language Bis, at 5:29 (about 5:29 and a half, really) the screen displays the words "don't wanna be a victim (MIT DEM)" (thanks to Dan).
Clay refers us to the Varukers' "I Don't Want to Be a Victim," which came out in 1982 ("Eat Y'Self Fitter" debuted on March 21, 1983).
15. The Second Sudanese Civil War, which lasted for a horrifying 22 years, was just to begin shortly after this song was recorded, although the Peel session (which already has the "Sudan" line) was in March, and Martin, who was in Sudan at the time, says the line is probably just random and doesn't reflect the situation there in the Spring.
Wardour is a street in Soho, London, which was for a time a major center for British filmmaking. The Marquee club, a venue for many famous rock acts, was located on Wardour Street. And, the Jam had a song called "A-Bomb in Wardour Street." Gustopher says "Wardour is the HQ of the British record industry and can be used as shorthand (much like Fleet St refers to the newspaper press)."
North West England was called "Granadaland" in reference to Granada television, centered in Manchester. Also, around this time (1983) the United States invaded the Carribean island nation of Grenada, ostensibly to liberate American medical students who were being held captive after a coup. The coup took place on October 14th, 1983; the US invasion ensued on the 25th. On the Peel version in March, Granadaland is not mentioned, so it is possible that MES intended the lyric to have a (possibly ironic) resonance with the recent events in Grenada (Perverted By Language was released on the 12th of December, although I'm not certain when the song was actually recorded).
16. This is may be a reference to LSD, which is often sold on squares of blotting paper roughly a centimeter on each side (in fact, E3 has just informed me that in the video what looks like a hit of blotter is flashed at this point). The psychedelic element adumbrated by the appearance of Kevin Ayres in an earlier verse here joins the banal account of the harried narrator, suggesting a possible secondary meaning to the title phrase "eat y'self fitter"... the song ends here, however, so whether things get better, or just weirder, is left undetermined.
Zack sniffed this out: MES recited a short poem called "Centimeter Square" on his 1983 Greenwich Sound Radio Creatures What You Never Knew About appearance. And Dan provides a transcript:
"The rouge smeared on the agèd profile of the local THF cologne branch chairman was sore and inched well away from prints. The centimetre oblong lipstick compounded fear. For him I did not care a jot. The centimetre square purges fear!"
More Information
Eat Y'Self Fitter: Fall Tracks A-Z
egg has transcribed the poem recited by Lana Pillay after "Eat Y'Self Fitter" on the promotional video for Perverted by Language:
"There may be errors in this, it's just what I hear:
'The Confidence of Henry Glaspance
Good evening. I’m a Sudan Arab agent in the pay of Bazhdad. Kim Wilde doesn’t get out to see many gigs. For the son eats low-fat spread. Crazy normal about the Stray Cats, after feast of tinned tomatoes and cod. The ginger radio bully sausage spitefully refuses to play us. Mark E. Smith.'
I think it's pretty clear from this that the connection between MES's use of 'Sudan' and contemporary world events is limited; he just liked the sound of the word and/or thought the place sounded exotic. To me this song has a pretty clear story. Our hero starts off as a dutiful worker, gets no respect from others, and as a result retreats to the TV, computer, and hallucinogens — with consequent scary visions at the end. A slice of realism if you ask me!"
[bzfgt: Note that "Bazhdad" seems to make a lot of appearances, whatever the hell it is...]
Comments (175)
"Granadaland" presumably refers to the commercial TV region (North West, ie. Manchester) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada_Television
"Sudan" presumably refers to the country Sudan, where there was a lot of bother at the time (not sure about specifics, just lots of bother on lots of fronts).
According to Wikipedia, Ayers was a recluse in South France in the late 90s, and in fact died there. However, I don't know if he made it there before the song--he very well may have, which would explain the lyric--but I haven't found any documentation of it, and since I'm not a fan of "pre-cog" notes I will remain silent about it until I find something out.
Or is it "Barrett heritance", linking Kevin Ayers to Wild Willie Barrett?
1) it's "elusive fig. 1"
2) it's "are back are back" instead of "aback aback"
MES is notorious for making lyrics that are sound-alikes for sensical words. Also he's notorious for changing lyrics to match what the audience mistakenly hears, so the mit-dem/victim thing has a lot of layers.
Tim: I'm not a Brit myself, and I have no idea...if any Brit thinks it likely, chime in and give reasons...
"The first violations occurred when President Gaafar Nimeiry attempted to take control of oil fields straddling the north-south border. Oil had been discovered in Bentiu in 1978, in southern Kurdufan and Upper Blue Nile in 1979, the Unity oilfields in 1980 and Adar oilfields in 1981, and in Heglig in 1982. Access to the oil fields meant significant economic benefit to whoever controlled them.
Islamic fundamentalists in the north had been discontented with the Addis Ababa Agreement, which gave relative autonomy to the non-Islamic majority Southern Sudan Autonomous Region. The fundamentalists continued to grow in power, and in 1983 President Nimeiry declared all Sudan an Islamic state, terminating the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region."
Now, I declare a semi-interest in this, as I lived in Sudan from 1983 to 1988. Although there were rumblings of war before I arrived, there was certainly no sense of panic in the country, as far as I could see and was reliably informed. Methinks that MES plucked a name out of his head which sounded good to him in the lyrics, nothing more than that.
As for Sudan, I went through newspapers looking for articles about Sudan in 1983. There were plenty of things that MES could have picked up on, thoughout the year.
But ultimately, it's not really *about* Sudan, so the details probably don't much matter.
Interestingly there's an interview from years later where MES talks of having the same problem - being too smart for a club:
Mark E Smith remembers the 70s [1998]:
http://gcoleman.tripod.com/eleven.html#70snight
"MES: I never really went to any of the disco places in Manchester, I could never afford to. Places like Pips, they'd have four or five floors, a soul floor, a Roxy floor, a Bowie floor, and so on - and you had to have the right haircut. It's getting like that again in Manchester. They won't let you in if your hair's too long, or too short, or even if you're dressed too smart. I've had that recently!"
From "History of Granada Television" (http://www.manchesterhistoriesfestival.org.uk/whatson/historygranadatv):
"But the ethos of Granada was always rooted in the north west, to the extent that the area became known as ‘Granadaland’."
http://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/2014/07/dockers-and-the-birth-of-casual-fridays/
I really think so, Martin--in fact I thought I already had it in a note. I don't want to go back and renumber and tag them all now, so for now it will suffice that it's been mentioned down here. If I haven't put a note in in one year's time, remind me again...
There was an earlier ad, with a couple of joggers in it, which ended with "Eat yourself fitter" written on the screen. Couldn't find it on YouTube but it might be there somewhere. That would have dated from 81 or 82, I think, certainly before this song had been written.
(It seems he chose to "Drink himself Fitter" - which wasn't so successful )
In any case, it's all recorded here, between the transcription, the notes, and the comments...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWfqAk8SQyStywP-tK8CQyQ
found a web site that had posted an MP3 at one point but it's gone, unless a different IP or whatever can get to it, so I link: http://pessimistclub.blogspot.com/2009/08/mark-e-smith-greenwich-sound-radio-1983.html. I don't know if that is a nonsensical hope or if there is some way it could work like that.
They also link to "the Fall website" but that link doesn't go anywhere either.
I wonder if there is a transcript anywhere? Dan, can one just contact people at radio stations and ask for transcripts? Does this radio station still exist?
But I think I have the recording somewhere...
Not sure I'm hearing "prints" right, mind.
"THF cologne branch" - is this cologne as in perfume, or Cologne as in the German city?
I think it was also printed in the Sinister Times broadsheet.
Panic in Wardour
Panic in Granadaland"
Hard not to see an echo of Bowie's "Panic in Detroit" (off Aladdin Sane, 1973).
Would still be nice if there were real world connections, but I've never managed to find anything particularly significant.
I know MES hates them, but this is surely a reference to The Jam's "A-Bomb in Wardour Street"?
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/liza-strike-mn0000227240
But if we're going to dredge up "Barrett"s, Syd seems more likely in this case, as MC points out.
The Confidence of Henry Glaspance
Good evening. I’m a Sudan Arab agent in the pay of Baghdad. Kim Wilde doesn’t get out to see many gigs. For the son eats low-fat spread. Crazy normal about the Stray Cats, after feast of tinned tomatoes and cod. The ginger radio bully sausage spitefully refuses to play us. Mark E. Smith.
I think it's pretty clear from this that the connection between MES's use of "Sudan" and contemporary world events is limited; he just liked the sound of the word and/or thought the place sounded exotic.
To me this song has a pretty clear story. Our hero starts off as a dutiful worker, gets no respect from others, and as a result retreats to the TV, computer, and hallucinogens — with consequent scary visions at the end. A slice of realism if you ask me!
Mit-dem perhaps, but there are definitely some victim lines too.
I always thought the Goho nonsense was Smithsonian reference to computer programming (BASIC?) at the time - lots of GOTO this and that.
Sterling work everybody!
Nah, entry is clearly blocked because of the dress code, which can indeed be about being too smart sometimes.
Mit-Dem/Victim is plausible, there are other songs where the way words are pronounced changes like that.
Programming - I think we've talked about this on the FOF somewhere. I dunno, what's in the lyric isn't much like BASIC. On the other hand, MES might just have twisted it. Anyway, at this point I guess we don't know what it means so it's a question of collecting associations.
While we were all freeze framing bits of the Eat y'Self Fitter video from Perverted by Language Bis, we seem to have neglected the brief image which has both sets of wording on it.
Watch from here, it's only for a second:
https://youtu.be/pjf4Uilg0Kc?t=5m29s
From Paul Hanley's book, Leave the Capital, p.176, note 167:
Some fans reproduced the scene in September 2010: https://youtu.be/9I0udFEBJvE
This doesn't mean we should necessarily think the Haçienda is the "HM club".
From Womens Weekly, 1983.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv6C9Ikz_R8
From: Twenty Advertising Case Histories: second series, edited by Charles Channon, Cassell, 1989.
http://www.thevarukers.com/discography.htm.
I'm not convinced that the "G.B.H." in Smile is a reference to the band of that name, and nor am I convinced by this. But your mileage may vary.
Interviews in fact suggest that MES was not impressed by that kind of punk. As he says in Renegade: "A lot of that punk stuff was heavy metal to me." And somewhere he makes a comment along the lines of "I won't have it in the house". Which i'm now going to have to hunt down.
Just for the avoidance of doubt, I didn't intend to suggest that the Haçienda is the "HM club". In the video, however, it substitutes for the "HM club".
Difficult to understand. "Easy Rider" seems to reference the film. But "coot"? "Coup" is suggested in a comment above, but it does sound like "coot" to me. "Coot" can mean "fool or silly person" - as in "old coot". Kind of strange as used here, but it would make sense.
Through a couple well-dressed"
I've been hearing this all wrong, and wasted hours looking at Manchester club signage.
But just this second, in a blinding flash of inspiration which has literally sent me reeling, I've realised that what is being described here is a pictoral representation of one of those signs you get on venue doors which read "no trainers, no shorts, etc" - in this case I guess it would be "no suits, no ties". So it would be a picture of two well-dressed people, with a big thick red or black line through them.
This kind of thing, only with two people:
I expect this has been obvious to everyone else all along, and I'm just an idiot who overthinks everything.
None of which precludes him hearing the song and the phrase sticking in his head. It's tricky though because if so even he might not know the extent to which it inspired his own phrase here.
"Not because the Definitive Punk Group (as I call them) were good"
so this is not a good refutation of Varukers (not that we have much reason to think there's a relation, on the other hand).
Cale and Ayers recorded a live album with Nico and Brian Eno, from which Cale came up with his solo track 'Guts' in response to his then wife going off with Ayers on the evening before/of the live gig - I forget which - and which has the immortal opening line 'The bugger in the short sleeves fucked my wife: did it quick and split'. Not relevant maybe to Eat Y'Self Fitter, but an interesting connection between 2 other artists mentioned to different degrees in it.
They apparently also played at the Manchester Palace Theatre on 28 June 1974.
"can't stick the cretin on the number 3 lathe" i.e. can't stand/don't like him https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/can-t-stick
Listening to PBL first time a in while and realised the first three songs name succesive days of the week, Fri, Sat, Sun - probably means nought but subliminally induces the weekend feeling.
Also side two spells SM(ile) I (feel voxish) T(empo house) H(exen definitive)S(trife knot)
whadyer mean whats it mean whatis it mean?
As for side two, I imagine it is a tribute to Morrissey's outfit?
OK damn it, Peel isn't clear enough to be dispositive, it sounds like "coul'nt stick" but he again swallows it. Anyone fancy checking some live versions? For now I'll just put a note suggesting it.
The Peel Session sound like "but" too. But it also sounds like the focus shifts. So "I'm in the furniture trade", but "he's got a new job"... so "he" might be the cretin. The PBL version is different. There's no "he's" type sound.
"Not sure whether anyone's brought this up before but I'm pretty sure the "GOHOHO90" bit in Eat Y'Self Fitter is a reference to ZX81 error codes.
G:0 - No room for line (the BASIC command currently being edited is too long)
H:0 - Stop in Input - The user has broken out of the programme while the program's expecting a value to be inputted
9:0 - STOP statement - the programme has been exited because the loop has encountered a a STOP command
It's commonly assumed that he's just making up random computery-sounding messages but they are all actually valid"
https://indiethroughthelookingglass.com/2019/05/28/the-fall-interview-and-photos-1983-previously-unseen/
MES often hinted at "strangeness" with such "coincidences". Me, I don't think it's strange at all.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZXBasicManual/zxmanappb.html
The ZX Spectrum was released in April 1982 and since this song was first played live in March 1983, the timing is pretty much perfect. It was a hugely popular computer in the UK.
Of course it could be something else, but there must have been a lot of people who bought a computer for the first time in 1982 and found themselves baffled by the Spectrum's confusing user interface. You can try it at http://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/ although you need to select Spectrum 48K to get the authentic experience.
Yeah, I think it's always "Bazhdad"....it seems to be creeping into every song lately
Above is what the user interface looked like. You entered BASIC commands using the keyboard so when you pressed "P", "PRINT" appeared. Note also the cursor (the white C on a black background), which changed depending on the command you were entering. Also, to erase anything you'd typed, you had to press CAPS SHIFT and the 0 key, making "where's the cursor? where's the eraser?" very common questions.
If, for example, you entered the erroneous line of BASIC displayed above, you'd get this error:
The error messages are not exactly in the form of G0, H0, etc., but they all involve a single number or letter (as per
For me the combination of the confusing interface, the hard-to-find cursor and eraser, the letters and 0s in the error messages, and the sheer popularity of the Spectrum as a first home computer when the song was being written make it pretty likely that it is specifically being referred to. Perhaps there is a better explanation, but MES pinpoints many idiosyncrasies that the Spectrum had which other computers didn't. (If you take the BBC Micro as a comparison, you'll see a more obvious cursor, a dedicated "erase" key, and fewer letters and numbers in the error messages.)
Dan
Got a new job today
Stick the cretonne*
On the number-three lathe"
*cretonne: a heavy cotton fabric with a usually floral pattern printed on one or both sides, used for upholstery.
They seem to work in preview mode!
The thing is that it's become (fairly) clear to me MES was inspired by the earlier home computer, the ZX81, rather than the ZX Spectrum. I hadn't noticed it before, but MES's use of the word "unplot" in the poem listed in footnote 8 suggests he was looking at the ZX81 keyboard (it's on top of the W).
The comments I made above about the hard-to-find cursor and eraser still apply, and the error codes are even more like the lyrics of the song. There is a list here, and if you try the emulator below you can see they take the form of "X/0" where X represents one of the codes. Assuming you're typing the BASIC commands for immediate execution and not as part of a program with line numbers, you can have "G/0", "H/0", and "9/0".
There is an online emulator at http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html for anyone who is interested.
By the time the song was written, the ZX81 would have been out of date, but lots of people must have had one around the house.
Until someone stops me if this is madness, I am going with "cretonne"--it seems like it has to be that, with a pun on "cretin"
By the way, a "covered lathe" (and maybe the covering could be cretonne, I have no idea) is something to do with curtains - see the annotatedfall thread on the FOF.
Well, I've just been through every issue of Woman's Weekly for 1982 and 1983. The only issue with an "Eat Yourself Fitter" All-Bran advert that I can find is dated 24 December 1983. And it's not the same picture. So comment #66 might be later than 1983, or else is from a US edition or something. Or not from Woman's Weekly. Mind you, i had it as "Women's Weekly", so maybe there's a different but similar title.
And yet, the internet seems sympathetic with your theory:
https://www.renaissancewoodworker.com/rww188-barnes-no-3-lathe/
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/morey-no-3-turret-lathe-buy-or-not.35327/
This seems the most informative, in a rather obscure manner:
http://mindworks.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Cutter_Types_(Lathe)
and because he "became a recluse" he is frightened by himself and his appearance ("Set it up in the home
Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear, On the screen, Elusive Fig. 1.")
Mit-Dem!
Don't wanna be a mit-dem!
I always thought that this perhaps has a double meaning (which are quite similar): "mit" is German for "with", and as we all know MES loves a bit of bastardised German. With that, it could be read as "With them, don't wanna be a-with-them".
[i][/i]At the same time, though, "a mit dem" sounds like "Amid them", so the whole thing could be read as a sort of play on words between German and English, in which he's saying "With them, don't wanna be amid them", with "mit-dem" effectively swapping languages between lines for a bit of clever cross-language wordplay.
127: yeah, I added "with them," that's a defensible construction also.
Not sure about the Levi’s Fridays line being anything to do with “dress down Friday”, which is a 90s thing in England. Is it not just a reference to “get your suits off, get your jeans on” on hassleshmuck last and the cover of Hex?
I'm not sure I believe the lyric is just a reference to another lyric....don't know, though
Similarly the reference to Wardour is the HQ of the British record industry and can be used as shorthand (much like Fleet St refers to the newspaper press)
"If there was a Holy Grail, Mister Smith would be the only one allowed to pick it up."
Tony Wilson, O.S.M.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygQmJ59E4Q)
Since Simon Ford misidentified the cereal brand in question ("Cornflakes" being another produce entirely), perhaps this bit needs removing or contextualising?
(This is the advert I linked to in comment #36, and which is cited in note #8)
There isn't a computer I can identify called an XL-81. There was the ZX-81 and Atari had an XL range. Apple did produce a Macintosh XL, but that wasn't released until 1985, after the release of this song. So I think MES is obfuscating there.
In 50 Year Old Man, the lyric goes:
And in Uncut, 5th March 2015 (Link, we find this:
So that's two reference to Sinclair, several years apart. Maybe that's where to start?
There was indeed a Sinclair QL, which was a high end successor to the ZX81, but it seems it wasn't launched until January 1984 and not actually physically shipped until April, after this song. That Sinclair produced ZX81s and QLs is suggestive given the mention of a "XL", but the chronology doesn't seem to work. Maybe MES used more than one computer.
http://thefall.org/news/990426.html#guard
Best version appears to be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fpVfyRMaUE uploaded by Cherry Red. Even though it's missing a fair chunk off the end, the lyric sheets are far more legible. (Where it goes off the edge of the screen I've marked with a ] at the left of the legible words.)
3:05 shows ']ldn't stick the cretin' - and that reading "new job, one of the guys was horrible" seems pretty reasonable. I'd assume it's 'couldn't', which is what I hear anyway, with the ldn swallowed. Given that this bit of the lyrics doesn't change much I see no reason not to see it as 'couldn't' off the basis of the lyrics sheet.
2:31 shows 'their POISON / RENDR' - small change for 'the'
2:28 shows 'crushed velvet' and not 'plush' - easy to see him not enunciating the -ed
Also, as comment 5 said, it shows 'are back are back' which fits with other 'groups' in the Kevin Ayers scene being 'back' like 'divine noncholance [sic]' and 'crushed velvet', even though I know the lyrics definitely aren't 'divine nonchalance' there.
2:29 gives 'nae look at' which makes more sense - 'nae' can mean 'not' whereas 'nay' is just 'no'.
"Their poison render". Again, it's not obviously "the poison render", so I agree we can render (clever, cheers) the line as "their poison render" in line with the lyric sheet in the video.
"Crushed velvet". Yep, again, it's not clearly "plush", and "crushed velvet" is a thing, so in line with the lyric sheet I would agree with that.
"Are back" is better than "aback!" definitely.
He definitely doesn't sing "divine nonchalance" (your 'correction' is still wrong!). An example perhaps of the point I made earlier about how MES would depart from what was written down.
"Nae" vs "nay". I agree with going with what is written down, may as well. But I don't think you're quite right that the difference in meaning between "nay" and "nae" is as clear cut as that. According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary "nae" is either an adjective meaning "no" or a Scottish/Northern English (it doesn't specify a dialect for the adjectival meaning) adverb meaning "not". And "nay" is a verb meaning "refuse" or an adverb or interjection or noun meaning ("arch. and dial.", OED says) "no" or indicating refusal or denial, or "not", or "on the other hand", or - as a noun - a denial or a refusal.
In other words, "nae" and "nay" can both mean "not". But if "nae" is written down let's have that, I reckon.
I shall amend my concordance text in line with these changes.
There are a few other minor differences with the lyrics sheets where it's clearly not what's on the record, and I didn't mention those because I didn't feel they merited even consideration. Only even mentioned 'divine nonchalance' as a suggestion for sense but mentioning the south of France (either as location or band name) works just fine for that too.
'Are back' is probably the only one of those which is clear enough in the lyrics sheets in older VHS-sourced copies of this part of PBL Bis, As with the mit-dem/victim switcheroo, though, every chance he's saying/meaning both of those at the same time/at some time during the song.
"
->134. bzfgt (link) | 30/08/2020
Yes but there have been tons of claims of this nature, the sequence has been said to have all kinds of significance for early computers and no one has ever come up with documentation or photographic evidence of any of them, and it's highly unlikely they are all true. If someone gets a screenshot, or something from an Apple manual, or some kind of evidence for one of these theories I'd be (more than) happy to run with it.
Firstly, scanned old computer manuals are well represented on the internet. The evidence in fact exists, so the toilet paper analogy does not work. I've looked through lots of these manuals, and the specific claims that are made about the "code" simply do not check out in reality.
Secondly, while a few people have made specific claims about what the code sequence (if it is a code sequence) represents, they haven't made the same claim.
So, thirdly, I think it's reasonable that someone with a memory or a theory provides some support for their memory or theory before it is accepted. That's not the same as not giving it "a moment's notice". That's saying, well we've been looking for evidence of this for years and haven't found it, despite the existence of tons of documentation, so help us out.
One of the things I like about bzfgt's site here is that he does try to document facts where he can and doesn't usually just take someone's word for it. One of the problems with music writing in general, to me, is its cavalier attitude to evidence.
And fifthly, and to my mind crucially, this song was debuted in early 1983. Apple of course had been making computers since 1976, but the specific claim here is about the Mac. The first "Apple Mac" computer on the market, the Macintosh 128k, wasn't launched until January 1984 .
Therefore, not only is there no evidence for the notion that early Apple Mac computers would print "GOHO90.. etc" in error, it's wildly implausible (even if you think MES has psychic abilities, which I don't) to believe that a yet-to-be-manifested computer error with an un-released model would somehow be referred to in a song lyric.
Sixthly, well, I don't think I need a sixthly.
140: maybe the Sinclair wrote the GOHO stuff...
1. I have given it a moment's notice,
2. There are plenty of images of toilet paper pre-dating 2011....what about Mr. Whipple?!
The point is I need it documented, if I accepted everything here that people claim to remember, the notes would be full of all kinds of stuff. And at this point numerous people have all claimed to remember tons of things about GOHO that cannot all be true.
GOHOHO90 et al simply refers your logon password and being unable to remember it. Why look further?
Also (14) the interchangeability of 'don't wanna be a 'mit dem' & 'victim' is delicious, as is my oftentimes used vocalisation 'don't wanna be evicted.....'
Also, I've read through all the 100+ comments here and no-one makes what seemed, back in 1983 when we played the Peel session version constantly, to be by far the most obvious interpretation of 'Up the stairs mister'. All Bran is roughage, right? Helps you to...
Eat Y'Self Fit-ah.
So if the advert started in 1980 (or even earlier), we might wonder whether it also influenced the writing of Fit and Working Again. The timing is certainly right, and if that was indeed the case, lots of things fall into place:
1) There are references to LSD in both tracks:
I just ate eight sheets of blotting paper (Fit And Working Again)
Centimetre square (Eat Y'Self Fitter)
2) LSD sometimes acts as a laxative.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/comments/jw2d3s/lsd_a_laxative/
3) All Bran is of course a source of fibre, which helps us to you know what.
4) There are references to going to the toilet in both songs:
I used to think this bog was the domain (Fit And Working Again)
Up the stairs, mister (that, at least, is my reading of it) (Eat Y'Self Fitter)
There also seem to be references to psychoanalysis in both tracks, though how that fits in is not obvious.
Analysis is academic. Some thoughts can get nauseous.
(Fit and Working Again)
Analytics have got my type worked out. Analytics on me their poison render.
(Eat Y'Self Fitter)
Weird!
Sometimes we need to move away from Lovecraftian textual analysis and the like and recognize that Mark can enjoy simple juvenile toilet humour.
A Kellogg's peace
The best firms advertise the least
Take the chicken run - to the toilet!
You might recognize the lines. There's one each from the other three tracks recorded at that Peel session, respectively Hexen Definitive Strife-Knot / Garden / Smile. Seems like there was quite a bit of thematic leakage (sorry) going on. Nothing new for Mark, of course, but fun to analyse.
I'm not sure the toilet interpretation of "up the stairs mister" is quite so obvious in the context of the actual lyric, which is about an encounter with a manager at a (probably underground) club.
Also, at the time MES was living in a flat where the toilet would not have been upstairs.
But good work, Ivan.
Cheers. Just to point out that he retains the 'Up The Stairs, Mister' line through to the 3rd chorus in the original (BBC) version, when the context has moved on to computers, so the night club line doesn't need to be our guide. In any case, there is no connection between the title and the night club.
Yes - and you can almost imagine that the 'musical chairs' and 'cuddly group' in the lyric are Mark's nightmare vision of the corporate-u-lent Kellogs meeting where they spent hours refining the slogan.
When I learned to touch type, we certainly did lots of interminably repetitive exercises.
But GOHO9 is not difficult or knotty or finger-twisting in any way. You don't even have to move your left hand very far to reach the G from your starting point.
out in tha furniture trade
got a new job today
just stick tha cretin on the #3 lathe
went down tha town
to a HM club
sign had a cross: no cop or well dressed
they looked at my coat, they looked at my hair,
an easy ryder coot grabbed the edge of my coat
said ya too smart for here
i said ill see tha manager
he was tha manager!
(eat y'self fitter)
up the stairs mistah!
(eat y'self fitter)
furniture trade = carpenter
cretin = sinner
#3 lathe = holy trinity
HM Club = Holy Mary Club, Church
no cop/well dressed = blessed are the persecuted blessed are the poor
too smart for here isn't smart in the well dressed sense, its smart as in too intelligent
you don't belong here cuz you know better, test of faith
manager = God
up the stairs = entrance to The Kingdom
eat y'self fitter = communion, flesh and blood of Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfAn-bo_2pA
“Oh 'tis my delight on a foggy night when the coppers aren't about”.