Exploding Chimney
Lyrics
Got rat poison In my workshop
In my vicinity
I've got rat poison
In my vicinity
And I'm beyond redemption
And my chimney
Is exploding
My Chimney
Is exploding
Listen to me now
Herpes, scabies and AIDS, kids
Believe me kids I've been through it all
You've gotta believe me kids
I've been through it all
Universal Wax Solvent
And my chimney
Is exploding
My Chimney Is exploding
I've got a Universal Wax Solvent
Got rat poison
Outside
In my vicinity
Listen to me now kids
A Universal Wax Solvent
Is exploding
Imploding
Exploding
Exploding
Believe me kids I've been through it all
More Information
1. For some reason, the Fall took to allowing a roadie named Nikkie or Nikki (both spellings are given) to take over vocals on some of the new songs around 2008; in addition to this one, he would get up and sing "Tommy Shooter" while MES took a breather. Whereas his vocal line for the latter was pretty much the one we know from Imperial Wax Solvent, apparently some of the lyrics he sung for this song were quite different than the ones on the album. Reformation has helpfully recorded some of them for posterity:
"Hideous, evil album. You will try and remember songs and you can't. You strain. In an inside flash, they come in one-third segments that will not leave your mind free. I can turn on the TV. Someone's moving, penetrating down into the long, long... into the giving sun. Etcetera. Etcetera. Extra: this is your worst, terrifying gig. Gig! I am the impressario of The Fall and the so-called compere grand. I am Alan Wise."
Now, admittedly, these phrases sound supspiciously like the work of Mark E. Smith, although the possibility cannot be ruled out that working in proximity to the man allowed Nikkie/Nikki to develop a Pierre Menard-like ability to produce MESian lyrics. For more on Alan Wise, see "An Older Lover Etc."
MES enumerates some venereal diseases in the second verse, and I thinki that's basically what this song is about: the narrator's "chimney" is exploding in all directions, as a result of Herpes, scabies, AIDS, and, as Bon Scott once sang, "who knows what else?"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!! points out that on the latest issue of Imperial Wax Solvent, there is an earlier version with different lyrics ("Smith and Mark") which contains the line "What about that guy who died chewing tobacco?"
More Information
Comments (16)
- 1. | 26/08/2013
- 2. | 26/08/2013
Dan
- 3. | 28/11/2015
MES seems to refer to hospitals more in later songs - signs of treatment for blood clots perhaps?
Told you it was a flier!
- 4. | 06/12/2015
- 5. | 17/11/2016
- 6. | 12/08/2017
Dan
- 7. | 22/04/2019
MES I did Reformation, and I did Fall Heads Roll, and the album before that, and I wanted
something that would glue it altogether, the fourth LP of the tryptych (sic).'
- 8. | 14/11/2020
- 9. | 09/02/2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SoICqXUgMM&feature=emb_logo
https://www.foxtons.co.uk/local-life/imperial-wharf/
- 10. | 13/02/2021
- 11. | 07/04/2021
- 12. | 11/04/2021
- 13. | 11/04/2021
Totale will not be captured, never
His spectre of knowledge
Cannot be encapsulated
Within the confines
Of it's ? (Sounds German)
Remember Culloden
The workmen yellow-fettered
Appear at the openings of upmarket shops and streets
Their earrings dangling merrily
With drills that batter
Meanwhile estates battle the pavements
Silence you smoker
You hedonic imbecile
Silence you smoker
How old is he?
The guy with the video camera
Twelve?!
Remember Culloden
But do they think about the guys
Who died to bring tobacco?
Totale will not be captured, never
His spectre of knowledge
Cannot be encapsulated
Within the confines of its ?
Remember Culloden
Standing outside in the rain endlessly
- 14. | 17/04/2021
For the record, I think S&M is superior to Exploding Chimney....should have been the version that made the album
- 15. | 17/04/2021
http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/pages/smith-and-mark.html
I tried an English construal of line 4, sounds kind of like "two-bit scale" the first time and "two-but skin" the second, but the second was clearer so I went with "skin." You may be right and it's German.
Sounds like it may be "spectrum knowledge," but I like "spectre" better....we'll see what sticks. There's a good note about Blake in the latter, but I'm not going to write it (at least yet) since I'm unsure about the lyric. If a lot of people weigh in saying "spectre" is clear to them I'll write a note.
- 16. | 06/06/2022
I've always heard the first line as "I've got Rat poison in my BLOODCLOT"
Workshop is a mistake.
My granny always used to tell me that she had to remember to take her rat poison (meaning warfarin)
To my mind MES is talking about (or playing a character who is talking about), almost bragging about all the illness he's had. And all the medicines, which are now a concoction in his body causing his chimney to explode!
Dissolving the bloodclots just like the Riddlers universal wax solvent?! (thanks dannyno)
Universal Wax Solvent"
A punning reference, as has been pointed out on the Fall forum a few times, to episodes 23 ("Ring of Wax") and 24 ("Give Em The Axe") of series 1 of the 1960s Batman TV series. Ep 23 first broadcast March 30 1966, Ep 24 first broadcast the next day.
In the show, the Riddler has got hold of a corrosive "universal wax solvent", that will dissolve through anything.
http://youtu.be/L-s-rd6sttI