Everybody But Myself

Lyrics

(1)

(vocals from live audience:)
Mark E Smith
Crowd control
Crowd 
Crowd 
Crowd control
Crowd 
Crowd (Is that all you can say?)
Crowd 
Crowd 
Crowd control
Crowd control
I can't seem to plug myself in
Plug myself in
Plug myself in
Appliances are broken
I don't want to know
Fix them
Do me a favour - cut your lip and shut up

(MES vocals:)
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Myself
Everybody but myself
Myself
Myself
I can double that (2)
C'mon - yeah yeah
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Instant transfiguration
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Nobody but myself
Everybody but myself
Transfiguration
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself
Everybody but myself

Notes

1. This is a somewhat jazzy number that was retooled a year later on The Marshall Suite as "On My Own." Some of the lyrics are taken from "Plug Myself In."  The piano riff sounds a lot like "Strings of the Strings of Life" by Derrick May.

 ^

2. And he does, as Zack points out below.

^

More Information

Everybody But Myself: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1997

Comments (8)

Zack
  • 1. Zack | 25/08/2013
"I can't double dare"? I've always heard that line as "I can double that." After that line, the vocals are double-tracked - clever!
Zack
  • 2. Zack | 15/02/2017
He says "Nobody but myself" at least a couple times.
bzfgt
  • 3. bzfgt | 18/02/2017
I don't know where these lyrics are from or if they track, exactly, but its confusing so I don't know if I can improve them. So I heard one "nobody," so I stuck one in approximately around about where maybe it goes.

The track is doubled before "I can double that" also. It might also be "I can double dare," I'm not sure, but yours is plausible.
Hun
  • 4. Hun | 20/11/2020
'What happened with Simon then, did he jump...?

I don't know. He wrote that song on the album Everybody But Myself and he wanted it to be a bit dance, a poppy single... he thought it was going to be a big hit single. We had a lot of discussions about it, but I think he'd generally had enough. He'd been in for ten years, so...'
dannyno
  • 5. dannyno | 21/11/2020
Comment #4, the quote there is from an interview with Steve Hanley in The Biggest Library Yet, issue 10, although somewhat paraphrased:


What happened with Simon then, did he jump...?

He left, yeah. Right in the middle of recording the album.

He was there for the gigs in May...

Yeah, then July, when we went in the studio, he'd just had enough. 'Musical differences' (DIW scoffs). Believe it or not, it's true. He wasn't really happy with what other people were doing with his songs.

What sort of direction was he wanting to go in?

I don't know. He wrote that song on the album Everybody But Myself and he wanted it to be a bit dance, a poppy single... he thought it was going to be a big hit single. We had a lot of discussions about it, but I think he'd generally had enough. He'd been in for ten years, so...


http://thefall.org/news/980125.html

Steve Hanley and Simon W have both written books since then, so for more we might want to check in those.
dannyno
  • 6. dannyno | 21/11/2020
Yeah, nothing specifically about this song in either book. While Simon no doubt wanted more in relation to this song, the way he tells the story of his departure it is clear there was much more to it than that, unhappiness that had been building up for a while.

The proximate trigger he says was this:


One morning, Julia swept into the studio and announced to me and Steve, ‘Mark says to forget what you are doing and to start recording all my songs instead.’

This was now the final straw.

Mark walked in pissed and started rubbishing everything, per usual. I was out of money and patience.
Jonny G
  • 7. Jonny G | 17/01/2022
A good friend of mine from Salford who is a Fall fanatic assures me the opening lines at the beginning are him and his brother at Jillys Rock World in Manchester, taking the opportunity to use Marks abandoned microphone. I was at the gig but don’t recall although I only got to know the brothers in later years. I can confirm they sound exactly like the voices at the beginning.
dannyno
  • 8. dannyno | 13/03/2024
The person whose vocals can be heard quoting from Plug Myself In in the live snippet at the start of this track on Levitate popped up on the Fall subreddit to note that it was him and his brother than we can hear.

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