Feeling Numb

Lyrics

Post-festivities
I'm feeling numb now
From remedies and Prozac
I'm kinda two-tone

I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
Prozac (1)

Don't touch that phone dial
Stick with kindred
Welcome in (2)
I'm on automation
And family
Is cerebral caustic (3)

I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb

(I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb)

Everything is broken
because of grist that curtails
Get the Western on
Stick with family
At the lodge
At the lodge
At the lodge

I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
I'm feeling numb now
I'm feeling numb
I'm feeling numb now
Don't touch that phone dial
I'm feeling numb
Stick with kindred

(Feeling numb now)/At the lodge
(Feeling numb)/At the lodge
(Feeling numb now)
The grist that curtails 
will make us strong
(Feeling numb)
And you'll be dead
before I'm born

PUH!

 

Lyrics

1, Prozac, a trade name (the actual drug name is Fluoxetine) is an anti-depressant, and is indeed reported to make people feel emotionally numb. Prozac hit the market in the late 80s and was still a topic of much discussion when Cerebral Caustic was released in 1995.

^

2. MES actually says "velcome in" here; on the Peel version (called "Numb at the Lodge") the line is "willkommen in."

 

^

3. A caustic burns, corrodes, or destroys organic tissue; "prozac" may be considered, figuratively, a cerebral caustic in this context.

Jim Sullivan of the Boston Globe claims to have handed MES the phrase in his review of [i]Middle Class Revolt[/i] (9/8/94), which reads:

What's winding up the Fall's Mark E. Smith now? Hard to tell, as this rapping/singing/slurring Mancunian's vocalizing style renders many of the lyrics on"Middle Class Revolt" impenetrable. As always. But we'd guess the usual petty grievances and societal injustices that has fueled the Fall since the mid-'70s. Enough caustic barbs and wry witticisms snake through the dense mix to provide cerebral fun for those who like to carp along.

It's a little less than a smoking pistol, since Sullivan doesn't actually use the phrase. It is possible that if it wasn't a direct lift, MES got it sumbliminally somehow, or that it's a coincidence, although I don't see how the question between those could two options ever be settled...

^

Comments (11)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 18/06/2014
"The grist that curtails":

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gristmill, for a little enlightenment
Joseph Mullaney
  • 2. Joseph Mullaney | 05/07/2014
`Cerebral caustic' could also serve as a pretty good description of MES himself.
Ian Edmond
  • 3. Ian Edmond | 30/12/2015
I note that this article - https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8357630.html - includes a claim by the author that the title Cerebral Caustic comes from a review he wrote of Middle Class Revolt.
bzfgt
  • 4. bzfgt | 05/01/2016
Great catch, Ian. I wish there were a source for the original quote but I can't find it online....
dannyno
  • 5. dannyno | 05/01/2016
I can help you with this.

The review Sullivan is referring to is this, from the Boston Globe of 8 September 1994 (p19):


What's winding up the Fall's Mark E. Smith now? Hard to tell, as this rapping/singing/slurring Mancunian's vocalizing style renders many of the lyrics on"Middle Class Revolt" impenetrable. As always. But we'd guess the usual petty grievances and societal injustices that has fueled the Fall since the mid-'70s. Enough caustic barbs and wry witticisms snake through the dense mix to provide cerebral fun for those who like to carp along. Smith's vocals are surrounded by this expansive spread of crazy sound -- grinding guitars, floating keys, relentless rhythms, giddy pop hooks, pounding percussion. "Hey! Student" is riotous, hectic punk 'n' bile; the title track is a meandering agit-prop sneer; "The $500 Bottle of Wine" expresses a certain distaste for said subject. The Fall still finds joy in repetition and bliss in bizarre juxtaposition. Again, the Fall lays a rickety rackety bridge over the melody/abrasion chasm. It's nasty, it's gleeful, it's the Fall still twisting the ironic/angry knife.


So the word "cerebral" is there, and the word "caustic" is there, just not as a phrase.

But Sullivan likes the word "caustic" (and other words beginning with 'c'), and uses it about The Fall whenever possible:

Boston Globe 6 August 1993, "The Fall: The Crankiest Band From The UK", which refers to "the crankiest, most caustic band the United Kingdom has ever produced."

Boston Globe "The Fall remains true to the slacker creed", 10 September 1994, p71: "a cacophonous mix of wily cynicism"; "convoluted".

Boston Globe, Review of Axis gig, 23 August 1993, p31: "a clattering wall of riff-based guitar rock"; "Still caustic and brutally minimal";

Boston Globe. Sound Choices, 20 August 1993 [preview of Axis gig], p 53: "Cranky, crabby, caustic and cantankerous"

Boston Globe, Review of The Infotainment Scan, 3 June 1993, p6: "10 tracks of caustic wit"
bzfgt
  • 6. bzfgt | 19/01/2016
Yeah, I could see that warranting "Did he get it from me?" more than "he got it from me."
dannyno
  • 7. dannyno | 14/05/2020
Another song where Brix sings the lines she wrote,I think. She says on twitter that she wrote the song :

https://twitter.com/Brixsmithstart/status/1239207750883840002?s=19
Marcus Garvey
  • 8. Marcus Garvey | 11/06/2021
Lunar C[i][/i]austic was the title of a Malcolm Lowry novel about a man in a mental hospital.
dannyno
  • 9. dannyno | 31/05/2022
From an interview with Brix in The Biggest Library Yet fanzine, #4, dated July 1995, pp.3-11, quote on p.8:


Feeling Numb was my catchphrase. I didn't mean for it to be about Prozac really. I'm really into feeling numb because I was going through this really hard patch where I just wanted to sleep, and feel numb. I didn't want to feel the pain any more and I can't take any opiates cause I'm allergic to them, and I can't drink cause I'll puke. So the idea came to me. And I knew Mark hated Prozac, thought it was [the] most evil drug. And it does numb you out, it takes the edge off things. It sends people psychotic.
Chris
  • 10. Chris | 12/02/2023
On 'Shaman's Blues' from 'The Soft Parade' LP by The Doors, Jim Morrison sings "you'll be dead and in hell before I'm born" so Smith just chopped 3 words out of this sentence. This follows him amending "your ballroom days are over" from 'Five to One' by The Doors on 'Waiting for the Sun' LP to "her ballroom days are deceased" on 'You're Not Up to Much'.

'The Soft Parade' is widely-considered the worst Doors LP by far! Perversely, Smith says it's their best; similar to how in that NME interview with Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan he opined that Elvis Presley recorded all of his best songs after he left the army whereas MacGowan argued the opposite.

I can't find any more Doors connections yet...
dannyno
  • 11. dannyno | 20/02/2023
Comment #10. Good call.

Doors connections. See also the riff of Gut of the Quantifier, which The Doors borrowed from Junior Walker.

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