Fol de Rol

(1)

Waiting
Human dung
To start playing
Homeric Fol de Rol (2)

She glides, she strides
In kitchens Homeric
Giant Homeric
Fol de Rol
Fol de Rol

Homogeneous (3)

Check waistband, laughing
With helper in high-vis yellow coat
With nothing
Heigh Ho metal! (4)
Hiding
Homeric metal (5)
Fol de Rol
Generic
Dreamer...


With gibbering infants
She strides
Horrible facts
You block hotel area
With metal wedge potato
Dreaming

Fol de Rol
Fol de Rol

Christian
With, with green and yellow 
So-called wheels
Cogs
There he stands
Homogenous bone and head

Fol de 
Heigh Ho (6)
Fol de 
Fol de
Rol
Rol
Fol de Rol
de Rol
Rol
Yeah
Ho
Meric

Homeric cogs of steel
Imaginary
Excite plastic wheels
Cogs of steel
Homeric
You block
You block
The glides
He rides
Homosapien
Electric  (7)
Fermenting 
Imaginary hung
Electric
Electric wheels out
We can't efface it
We can't efface it
Cogs of steel Homeric!
Cogs of steel Homeric!

1. It seems that with every album that goes by, transcribing becomes more difficult. The above lyrics are highly speculative, and are the result of my intently listening and making revisions to a transcription by Buy Kurious!, whom I heartily thank. 

Fol de rol--or folderol, fol-de-rol, falderal, etc.--seems to have originated as a nonsense refrain in English ballads. It subsequently came to mean nonsense, or fuss or ado about something trivial, or a bangle or useless trinket. 

I found a very helpful, and helpfully short, account of the origin of the word which I will quote in full:

There are many traditional rhymes and songs with variants of “fal-de-ral” in them somewhere. For example, Robert Bell noted these words of an old Yorkshire mummer’s play in his Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry Of England of 1857: “I hope you’ll prove kind with your money and beer, / We shall come no more near you until the next year. /Fal de ral, lal de lal, etc.” And Sir Walter Scott included a few lines of an old Scottish ballad in  The Bride of Lammermoor (1819): “There was a haggis in Dunbar, / Fal de ral, etc. / Mony better and few waur, / Fal de ral, etc.” Charles Dickens had gentle fun with this habit in his Sketches By Boz of 1836-7: “Smuggins, after a considerable quantity of coughing by way of symphony, and a most facetious sniff or two, which afford general delight, sings a comic song, with a fal-de-ral — tol-de-ral chorus at the end of every verse, much longer than the verse itself.” It was around 1820 that this traditional chorus [sic] is first recorded as a term for a gewgaw or flimsy thing that was showy but of no value, though it had to wait until the 1870s before it started to be widely used.?

I hope the reader will indulge me here, as I was not able to convince myself to forbear from including the entirety of this wonderful entry in the Yale Glee Club songbook, certified a "Traditional Yale Song" (I think SATB must mean "Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass"):

Eli Yale

The solo is traditionally sung by the Glee Club president.
The following is the original version.

(SATB) Arr. Fenno Heath ‘50

As Freshmen first we came to Yale,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
Examinations made us pale.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Chorus:
Eli Eli Eli Yale,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
Eli Eli Eli Yale,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

As Sophomores we have a task;
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
‘Tis best performed by torch and mask.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Repeat Chorus.

In Junior year we take our ease,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
We smoke our pipes and sing our glees.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Repeat Chorus.

In Senior year we act our parts
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
In making love and winning hearts.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Repeat Chorus.

And then into the world we come,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
We’ve made good friends, and studied—some.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Repeat Chorus.

The saddest tale we have to tell,
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!
Is when we bid old Yale farewell.
Fol de rol de rol rol rol!

Repeat Chorus.
Repeat Chorus Molto Allegro

And from Paul G:

"Another possible origin of fol de rol is from a once popular children's song, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." Originally recorded by Frank Luther in 1947, a repeated phrase is 'I'm a troll, fol-dee-rol, I'm a troll, fol-dee-rol
I'm a troll, fol-dee-rol and I'll eat you for supper.'"

Gappy Tooth on the Fall Online Forum points out that this song's riff is more than a little reminiscent of "On A Rope" by Rocket from the Crypt. This may or may not be a coincidence--the riff feels somehow inevitable--but it wouldn't be the first time the Fall has repurposed an already existing riff.

It has also been pointed out that both riffs may derive from "Zero the Hero" by Black Sabbath.

Some people feel strongly about this sort of thing--Google search "Led Zeppelin, plagiarism" and you will encounter some real invective--so I wish to say here that I think it is entirely legitimate. Essentially the entire history of music would not exist if artists did not borrow riffs and melodies, and to condemn this as unoriginal is to confuse the artistic value of a piece with its monetary value as legal property. MES has always rightly insisted that originality of any merit does not mean simply hitting on a hitherto unsuspected combination of notes.

Marvell78 on the Fall online forum points out that this is possibly an allusion to Captain Beefheart's "Big Eyed Beans from Venus," with its line "Ain't no SNAFU/No fol-de-rol."

Plastikman comments that "Fol de Rol" is phonetically somewhat similar to "Fall Heads Roll," and the album does coincide with a departure, as Eleni left the band not long before its release. 

Nairng submits: "I first heard the phrase 'fol de rol' in a song my family used to sing when i was a wee bairn(g): 'I am a troll, fol de rol (x3) and i'll eat youuuuu for supper,' which made me link it back to Facebook Troll on SLT. Obviously I know now how widespread this nonsense phrase is in folksongs, but possibly worth a mention.

Rusty emphatically reminds us that both Hatfield and the North ("Fol de Rol") and Robert Wyatt ("God Song/Fol De Rol") have used the phrase in the title of a song. 

^

2. Although I am not sure of "Homeric," it does seem to appear in a draft of "Brillo De Facto," according to Mojo:

"'You wanna know my problem? (reaches into his man-bag for a green manila folder of lyric sheets: visible on one are the scrawled words, "Homeric night, second one today, brillo-nilo").'" 

^

3. Harley hears "Homer J. S.," which he takes to be a reference to Homer J. Simpson (the 'J' means this would seem to refer to the television program The Simpsons, rather than Nathanael West's short novel The Day of the Locust, in which the central character is named Homer Simpson--sans 'J.'). I suspect we are on a path in the woods here, but to see it through, I shall include the following information from Dan:

The Simpsons, "Once Upon A Time In Springfield":


Mr Burns: Gentlemen... Please don't leave me!
Lenny Leonard: Sir, I'm afraid it's too late.
Mr Burns: Oh, I imagine Cap City's been wooing you with trips to the seashore, a Christmas goose, Spanish lemons, folderol I can't afford to match.

(Season 21, episode 10, first aired 10 January 2010)

This needs to be included because it would be congruent with "Homeric," which refers to yet another Homer, he of no "J." and no "Simpson." 

^

4. Heigh Ho (or Heigh-Ho, Hi Ho, Hi-Ho, etc.): According to Wikipedia, "The phrase "Heigh-Ho" was first recorded in 1553 and is defined as an expression of 'yawning, sighing, languor, weariness, disappointment.' Eventually, it blended meanings with the similarly spelled 'hey-ho.' The phrase 'hey-ho' first appeared in print in 1471, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which says it has nautical origins, meant to mark the rhythm of movement in heaving or hauling."

"Heigh Ho metal" is reminiscent of the "Hiyo Silver, away!" with which television's Lone Ranger used to motivate his horse. Some render this as "Hi Ho, Silver!" (although the former is apparently, despite my memory and maybe yours, better attested--if you want more, Google it yourself). As silver is of course a metal, MES's lyric may be a humorous paraphrase--and may be this while being other things besides, I hasten to add. 

On "Couples vs Jobless Mid 30s" the backing vocals say "Heigh Ho!" and also "Eagles of Death Metal."

^ 

5. Homer's works are thought to be set in the Bronze Age, when copper and bronze (a mixture of ten parts copper and one part tin) were the primary metals with which weapons and tools were made. See "Defensive Weapons in Homer" in Science and Technology in Homeric Epics (edited by S.A. Paipetis). However, don't sleep on "Iron in the Homeric Epics & Homer, a Sensible Ecologist" from the same volume...It is sometimes claimed that between the composition of the Iliad and that of the Odyssey, the transition to the Iron Age had gotten under way.

^

6. The backing vocals on "Couples vs Jobless Mid 30s" seem to give a "heigh ho," so there's a link here, presumably.

^

7. From Andy:

As a minor aside, HomoElectric is a long-running and widely-postered gay night in Manchester with roots running to Flesh at the Hac and the sensibilities (if not the music) of that post-punk scene in general. In the tradition of MES alluding to or even just reciting evocative things he's seen and heard, it's what comes to mind here.



 

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Fol de Rol: Fall Tracks A-Z