Fiery Jack

(1)

My face is slack
And kidneys burn
In the small of my back
Will never learn
Well I'm not going back
To the slow life
Cos every step is a drag   (2)
And peace is a kite of materials  (3)
You never catch
Come up for a snatch,
Up from hell
Once in a while

Cause I am Jack
From a burning ring (4)
My face is slack
And I think think think

I just think think think
Too fast to write
Too fast to work
Just burn burn burn

I sat and drank
For three decades
I'm 45    (5)
Cause I am Jack
From a burning ring
And my face is slack
And I think think think
I just drink drink drink
Too fast to work
Too fast to write
I just burn burn burn

I eat hot dogs
I live on pies
I'm 45
Cause I am Jack
From a burning ring
My face is slack
And I think think think
Just think think think
Too fast to write
Too fast to work
Just burn burn burn

And put down left-wing tirades
and the musical trades (6)
And/or free trade  (7)
I say eat this grenade
To defend free trade
I said eat this grenade

Cause I am Jack
Some men from the docks (8)
They are smart
Their brains are half

They never end
Just follow trends

But I am Jack
From a burning ring
My face is slack
And I think think think
Just think think think
Too fast to write
Too fast to work
I just burn burn burn
I am Jack
And put down left-wing tirades
and the musical trades
And/or free trade
I said eat this grenade
I said eat this grenade
And all free trade
I said eat this grenade

1. From Renegade: 

I've always written from different perspectives, but that one seemed to have more weight to it. I still see "Fiery Jack" types like that. They're quite heartening in a way. Manchester has always had men like that, hard livers with hard livers; faces like unmade beds.

Even though they're clearly doing themselves damage, there's a zest for life there. And that's a rarity. They're not as oblivious as you might think. Drinkers have a good sense fo the absurd. I like that. (89)

Drinkers or not, the song clearly seems to be about a speed freak. The character may have been a heavy drinker, but here he proclaims himself "too fast to drink." The burning kidneys also suggest speed use.

From a 1980 interview:

One of the points of "Fiery Jack" is ageism. People go round and think they're smart when they're 21 but these old guys you see have been doing it for years and a lot of them have more guts than these kids will ever have. It's like the skinheads throwing cans, they know fuck all. I know twenty times more than them and I could knock them over in a pub if I wanted to. Everybody's as good as each other, there is no tough figher, there is no 'young' thing, everybody's as good as each other. Everybody KNOWS that, but everybody keeps living it out and it makes me sick...in a mystical way, Fiery Jack is the sort of guy I can see myself as in twenty years...In a 2003 interview, MES mentions that the title character used to attend meetings at the Christian Psychic club that inspired "Psykick Dancehall," but "he wasn't that much into it."

Dan says:

"There are strong indications in the lyric that Jack is demonic, at least. But another echo is of - not Wearside Jack as above, but the 19th century Jack the Ripper: the infamous 1888 "From Hell" letter."

This is a letter sent from someone purporting to be Jack the Ripper, and posted along with half a kidney (the author claiming to have eaten the other half!) to the head of the voluntary Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, a George Lusk:

From hell

Mr Lusk
Sor
I send you half the
Kidne I took from one women
prasarved it for you tother pirce
I fried and ate it was very nise I
may send you the bloody knif that
took it out if you only wate a whil
longer.

signed
Catch me when
you Can
Mishter Lusk.

(Note "My kidneys burn/In the small of my back...")

The title probably comes from the muscle and joint balm called "Fiery Jack" which was probably not an altogther unknown commodity in the home of 45 year old laborers in 1980, although it was discontinued some time in the early 21st century.

rom Huckleberry:

"Fiery Jack is a 'deep heat' rub used to relieve muscle aches. I think it was popular in the north of England (the first time I heard about it was in a magazine about Yorkshire and I've never seen it on sale in the south) but it has apparently been discontinued in the UK."

This is in keeping with the song's portrayal of Jack as an aging character, as such an ointment would probably be used by older people, who tend to have more muscle aches.

Duncandisorderly points out that pranksters would apply the substance to toilet seats in order to give unwitting customers a burn.

Apparently there was an English circus clown named Fiery Jack (thanks to jensotto).

Some readers have suggested a connection to Jack Keruoac; the following quote from On the Road gives a little fuel to this view:

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

^

2. From harleyr:

After running this song round my head for thirty years, it has just occured to me that "every step is a drag" has a double meaning:
1) walking is tiresome for FJ
2) he takes a drag on a cigarette with every step.

^

3. Dan:

"An echo, perhaps, of initiatives like the Kühlmann Peace Kite, as it is known, of September 1917 (the timing is obviously significant in relation to what was happening in Russia)."

The "Kühlmann Peace Kite" was a nickname for the proposals put forth by Germany's foreign secratary Richard von Kühlmann in an attempt to negotiate a separate peace with Britain, in part in order to more vigorously pursue war against the new regime in Russia. The only connection to be made here is that it is a phrase MES may have heard; the complex details of peace negotiations between the warring powers seems unlikely to have any bearing on the case at hand. A "kite" is here intended to mean something, as one says, "floated," a kind of "trial balloon," which is a more or less synonymous phrase that is a bit more common. 

^
 

4. The reference to a "burning ring," and the line "I burn burn burn," is reminiscent of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." MES has frequently proclaimed himself an admirer of Cash, and the song recalls the sound of Cash's 1950s Sun recordings like "Hey Porter," "Cry Cry Cry" and "Big River" more so than "Ring of Fire" itself, although the chugging rhythm section and bouncing bass is still in the same ballpark. The reference to Cash was often rendered explicit when the Fall performed the song; in at least one performance, "Ring of Fire" was interpolated into the Fall song. Esther also points out a strong resemblance to "Nothing Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Trees)" by Eddie Fontaine (and widely covered, including by the Beatles). And the main riff, on the other hand, is almost identical with the opening riff of "Lost Girl" by the Troggs. But this seems to be a riff that by some point had become more or less generic in rockabilly...

^

5. Peter Monk points out that this was released as a 45 RPM single--i.e., a "45"--so there is a pun here (which may or may not have been intended). 

^

6. This literally refers to music trade magazines, but there is an implied reference to Rough Trade Records, whose left-wing politics were beginning to annoy MES (see note 4 below).

^

7. From the interview quoted in note 1: "I mean that song's about twenty things. It's about anti-left wing. Also the Transmitters did a song called 'Free Trade,' saying 'this is mine,' which is so hypocritical." It's hard to reckon up exactly what's going on here. The Transmitters were a somewhat obscure New Wave band, with jazz fusion and psychedelic elements, who did a song in 1979 called "Free Trade." Judging by MES's remarks, and what I can make out of the lyrics, they were agin it. The song has a repeated refrain of "It's mine!" In any case, a quick perusal of the material available at the price of a click of the above link shows MES at the moment, in 1980, when he seems to have permanently found his interview voice: belligerent, digressive, indifferent to facts or reason, and beneath it all (but above all) very humorous. Perhaps it was the "Fiery Jack" character(s) who inspired MES to adopt this particular persona, which suggests nothing so much as an aging and loquacious barfly.

^

8. MES was a clerk on the Salford docks when he was around nineteen. 

^

Fiery Jack: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1980