God Box

Lyrics

MES: It's good that one innit. What is it?
BES: It's something I'm working on
MES: Right

Couldn't comprehend what happened to me
I turned on US TV
Early, empire sleeping, Pacific time Three
Redhead skinny with back leg-brace, he
Danced behind a singer
Who sung just like me

God box
God box
God box
God box

Gimme god box
I say god box
God box, early
Tube stop, lazy
Cut off, early
God box
Gimme God box
I said
God box
Narco tube stops
Gimme god box

I was taken under the sea
Water, water coming in over me
I'm gulping water under the lake
Oh my god give me sleep, inundate (2)

God box
God box

Gimme god box
I say god box
God box, early
Tube stop, lazy
Cut off, early
God box
Gimme God box
I said
God box
Narco tube stops
Gimme god box

Thousand evils indefinitely
Womb shaped by a cold sea
At 9, UK time
We dropped off before god box documentary (3)

Notes

1. The Story of the Fall summarizes the apparent story here:

The press release for this one, announces Brix's full-time debut as a member of The Fall. And, indeed, there she is chatting with her hubby at the beginning of the song. Utilising 'I've Gone Mental' by The Ramones, this one was apparently inspired by Fall-ing asleep in front of the telly - a method of inspiration I'm sure informs many a Fall ditty, judging by the amount of televisual references in their songs. Onywise, on this occasion, the programme in question, from an American religious channel has induced a womb-like dream. Again, MES takes a well known phrase (God Box), and, like when you repeat a word and it becomes nonsensical or strange, revitalises it.

In fact, "God Box" is not merely a common phrase; the title of the contemporary documentary that MES and Brix presumably saw is God-in-a-Box (see note 2 below).

From Dan:

According to Brix's autobiography, The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise, this song started life as "Can't Stop the Flooding" - a song Brix wrote for her band Banda Dratsing, but "Mark rewrote the lyrics".

From Sounds magazine 9 June 1984, p.24. "Rough Justice", interview with Brix and MES by Edwin Pouncey: "Mark: 'God Box,' the music is something we took from Brix's last band and I rewrote the lyrics. What the lyrics are about is religion on TV. At Christmas we went to visit Brix's grandparents and like American TV, you have it on all of the time. I watch these religious programmes forever, they're fantastic I think. What I found though was every time I put a religious programme on, no matter how much I wanted to watch it and laugh at it, I'd fall asleep. I thought it must be staying up late or something, but when we got back to England they had a documentary on TV about these American religious shows, we were watching it half past eight at night and I fell asleep again with my tea in front of me. That's the appeal of these shows, that's why they're successful, they comfort people. That's what 'God Box' is about really, it's not criticising or anything.
I mention one show I saw in the song. This man, he had my voice, he sang exactly like I do. He had these really weird bell-bottom pants and a jacket that was too short on and he had an afro haircut, a moustache and he was dead fat. Behind him he had this red haired lad in a red jumpsuit holding one of those braces you wear when your spine's broken. And he's dancing around, obviously after being cured, waving it behind this singer with my voice. It took a while for it to sink in."

From a press release for the "Oh! Brother"/"God Box" single, included in the box set book (thanks to MES Sage):

hey nar - 7" 12" WITH!
Oh! Brother
/GOD-BOX The real monty
A TIGHT TOURNIQUET TWIXT WETPOP
AND BRAINY POP LIES : THE FALL
SAY TO POP IN 'SHOP OF POP' HEY;
POP NOT THAT POP OR THAT incl:
PAPPY POP, POP OVER THE COUNTER : splinter
Sleep
ANTI- The group
QUEEN sound!
OH! BROTHER
WHILST: APPEALING TO BASEST FAMILY INSTINCTS MOTIVE : REVENGE

2. According to Brix, this was written off a Banda Dratsing song called "Can't Stop the Flooding." Dan suggests that some of the nautical lyrics could be left over from that song, and thus they may have been written by Brix.

3. From Dan again:

At 9:25pm on 10 January 1984, BBC 2 showed the following documentary (from The Guardian): "GOD-IN-A-BOX: In America salvation is available at the flick of a switch 24 hours a day through the hundreds of cable TV stations that specialise in evangelical material - and which collect millions of dollars a week in donations from grateful sinners. Is the coming of cable going to mean a similar message for Britain? Colin Morris, the BBC's Head of Religious Broadcasting, reports from the States."

Colin Morris wrote a book also called God-in-a-Box, published in September 1984.

More Information

God Box: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1984

Comments (22)

1. dannyno | 04/05/2016

2. dannyno | 14/07/2016

"Redhead skinny with back leg-brace
He danced behind a singer
Who sung just like"

Vague shades of the 1959 Danny Kaye movie, "The Five Pennies"? Not quite, but... must refer to some film or TV programme or other.

3. dannyno | 14/07/2016

Leg braces in movies:
https://sites.google.com/site/abasioinfo/Home/movies

4. dannyno | 27/09/2017

From Sounds magazine 9 June 1984, p.24. "Rough Justice", interview with Brix and MES by Edwin Pouncey.

Mark: "God Box", the music is something we took from Brix's last band and I rewrote the lyrics. What the lyrics are about is religion on TV. At Christmas we went to visit Brix's grandparents and like American TV, you have it on all of the time. I watch these religious programmes forever, they're fantastic I think. What I found though was every time I put a religious programme on, no matter how much I wanted to watch it and laugh at it, I'd fall asleep.

"I thought it must be staying up late or something, but when we got back to England they had a documentary on TV about these American religious shows, we were watching it half past eight at night and I fell asleep again with my tea in front of me. That's the appeal of these shows, that's why they're successful, they comfort people. That's what 'God Box' is about really, it's not criticising or anything.

"I mention one show I saw in the song. This man, he had my voice, he sang exactly like I do. He had these really weird bell-bottom pants and a jacket that was too short on and he had an afro haircut, a moustache and he was dead fat. Behind him he had this red haired lad in a red jumpsuit holding one of those braces you wear when your spine's broken. And he's dancing around, obviously after being cured, waving it behind this singer with my voice. I took a while for it to sink in."

5. dannyno | 27/09/2017

Tsk, that last line of the quote should be "It took a while for it to sink in."

6. dannyno | 27/09/2017

A breakthrough discovery!

So bearing in mind the title of the song, "God Box", and remembering that the first airing of the song live was in March 1984, and bearing in mind what MES says above about the UK documentary, and bearing in mind these lines:

"At 9, UK time
We dropped off before god box documentary"

I think we can say a bit more than that MES was adopting a "well known phrase" as "The Story of The Fall" has it in note #1.

At 9:25pm (followed by Newsnight at 10:40pm) on 10 January 1984, BBC 2 showed the following documentary (info from The Guardian for that date):

GOD-IN-A-BOX

In America salvation is available at the flick of a switch 24 hours a day through the hundreds of cable TV stations that specialise in evangelical material - and which collect millions of dollars a week in donations from grateful sinners. Is the coming of cable going to mean a similar message for Britain? Colin Morris, the BBC's Head of Religious Broadcasting, reports from the States.

Colin Morris wrote a book with the same title, published in September 1984.

See also: http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/33e912b14ea14818bce52b810f125401:

Presented by Colin Morris
If you want to be healed, have the nuclear arms race justified, belong to an extended family, or are in need of a quick psychotherapy fix, just tune in to the Electronic Preacher who performs on American television. He promises to fulfil all your personal needs, guarantees you instant salvation, and for a small contribution - millions of dollars pour in every week - you can help him save the world. That is, if you live in the United States. However, very soon, thanks to cable and satellite, these commercial religion pushers could be selling their God-in-a-Box in Britain.
COLIN MORRIS, the BBC's Head of Religious Broadcasting, went to the States and visited five of the top evangelists to give us a preview of what is to come.
Production assistant SUE PERCY Film editor PAT O'GRADY Producer OLGA EDRIDGE

7. dannyno | 07/10/2017

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51WSf6rChlL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

8. bzfgt (link) | 11/11/2017

Thanks Dan, you've done near-miraculous work once again.

9. ex worker man | 10/04/2018

1st verse;
Couldn't comprehend what happened to me
I turned on US TV
Early a.m., past sleeping, Pacific time three
Redhead skinny with back leg-brace, he
Danced behind a singer who sung just like me

In the last verse;
Womb shapes by our cold tea (see note 1)

The phrase "kerb drop-off" occurs a couple of times amongst the multi-tracked chorus

10. bzfgt (link) | 22/04/2018

I'll listen and I'll bet you're right because the first verse as typed seems a bit clunky for MES

11. bzfgt (link) | 22/04/2018

I have a bit of a hybrid now, but you may be entirely right, some is too unclear

12. Factory Jerk | 15/03/2020

“He will never be free. He doesn’t realize that things don’t happen, that nobody is really himself, that man is God in a box.”

Taken from C. Wilson’s “Ritual In The Dark”, presented here only as curiosity.

13. bzfgt (link) | 20/03/2020

Yeah probably no direct connection, but it is a worthy curiosity given MES's citing that in Deer Park

14. dannyno | 16/05/2020

Anything to do with Wilson is worth a look, definitely.

But it should be pointed out that there's a whole bunch of phrases about "god in a box" as a kind of theological objection that predates Wilson (that's presumably why Colin Morris chose it as his title - it's got a history).

A couple of earlier usages in google books just as examples:

GW Foote (an English freethinker, c1922):
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IugwAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22god%20in%20a%20box%22&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q=%22god%20in%20a%20box%22&f=false

Francis Lightbourn (1953):

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tWTkAAAAMAAJ&lpg=RA3-PA8-IA1&dq=%22god%20in%20a%20box%22&pg=RA3-PA8-IA1#v=onepage&q=%22god%20in%20a%20box%22&f=false

15. dannyno | 25/05/2021

Comment #10. re: clunkiness. Bear in mind that the song started life as a Brix composition, Can't Stop the Flooding and so some of her lyrics may have been incorporated into the finished song by MES.

Given the title of Brix's original, I'd suggest that the survivals are the lines about water and the sea, and that therefore "womb shapes by a cold sea" is likely from her lyric rather than "womb shapes by our cold tea".

On the other hand, the latter does exactly fit the circumstances quoted in note 1 in which Brix and MES watched the documentary, so maybe MES could have taken Brix's original line about the sea and twisted it to be about his tea (i.e. evening meal) instead.

Our ears are the test here.

16. bzfgt (link) | 05/06/2021

It sounds like "sea" to me, and I think it's "shaped"

17. Mark Oliver | 08/09/2023

Good old Goddy..He'll tell us what to do.

18. Xyralothep's Cat | 12/01/2024

Whoop! A small but vital breakthrough

I've never been happy with "Thousand evils indefinitely" in the last verse but this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZaXVGtfECo at last gives a clear rendition of the line at 6:05;
"Spouse and me dozed indefinitely"

Same version also supports my previous assertion re "early A.M. past sleeping" and "womb shapes by our cold tea"

19. dannyno | 24/03/2024

Comment #18, yes that's much clearer. I agree with "spouse and me dozed indefinitely". And with "cold tea". There's a recording at Buster Brown's, Edinburgh, dated 19 March 1984 where it is "TV" rather than "Cold tea", but it sounds like "cold tea" on most recordings.