Hip Priest

(1)

He is not appreciated.
He is not appreciated.
He is not appreciated.

Drink the long draught, Dan,
for the hip priest. (2)

I said drink the long draught, Dan,
for the hip priest!

He is not appreciated
He is not appreciated

White collar hits motorway services (3)
It's the hip priest
From the eyes he can see, they know
It's the hip priest

He is not appreciated.

It's purple psychology. (4)
Not just an old lady's.

That's hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip priest

That's hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip priest

And he's gonna make an appearance.
He's gonna make an appearance.

Was shown in a freakshow early on.
And drunk from small brown bottles since I was so long. (5)

Cause I'm a hip priest
Cause I'm a hip priest
People only need me when they're down and gone to seed.
Cause I'm a hip priest
Cause I'm a hip priest

It's appreciation half won    (6)
And they hate their allegiance to hip preacher one.
Hip Priest

I got my last clean dirty shirt outta the wardrobe (7)
I got my last clean dirty shirt outta the wardrobe
And all the good people know

That's hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip priest

All the young groups know
All the young groups know
They can imitate but I teach, because I'm a Hip Priest.
I'm as clean as a packet of chocolate Treets. (8)

One-time feast was tray o'grease, hip priest
I practise bad unafeared art 

(9)

That's hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip priest

And if the good people knew they would say
He is not appreciated
He is not appreciated

So drink the long draught, Dan,
for the hip priest

1. This song has variously been interpreted as a sarcastic screed about a journalist or muso and a commentary on Mark E Smith himself. Like many Fall songs, either interpretation works. It seems to be about a character type which we may plausibly conclude MES both participates in to a certain degree, and also has a bit of contempt for. A snippet of the song was included in the 1991 movie The Silence of the Lambs.

Paul Hanley, in Have a Bleedin Guess p. 55 (thanks to Dan):
 

The 'Hip' part of the title is a pun, referring both to the hipster-priest type that Mark casts himself as, and also as an acronym for 'hypnotic induction process', a phrase , referring to the act of putting someone under hypnosis, that Mark uses in the lyric to 'Just Step S'ways' and on the version of 'Hip Priest' captured on A Part of America Therein. This is possibly also the source of the made-up word 'Enduction' in the album's title.

For The Record submits:

"The Hypnotic Induction Profile was first outlined in Spiegel & Spiegel's "Trance and Treatment" in 1978. The 2004 edition says;
'Structured to reflect the flow of a typical evaluation and treatment session, this fascinating work focuses on how to use the authors' Hypnotic Induction Profile (a crucial 10-minute clinical assessment procedure that relates hypnotizability to personality style.'"

Courtesy of Reformation:

MES, from a Rock on BBC Radio I interview; 1982:
 
" It was a bit of a joke on the group cos they're all like catholics...it's meant to be a bit of  a funny song...I have an image of Johnny Cash or somebody, I don't know why...or South America."  

Zack supplies a very suggestive tidbit:

"From Wikipedia's article on Prestwich, where MES lived most of his life:

'Prestwich is possibly of Old English origin, derived from preost and wic, which translates to the priest's farm. Another possible derivation is priest's retreat.'"

Dan: (Posted by someone called David Abdy to The Mighty Fall facebook page)

From The Easter Parade by Richard Yates, page 234 (1976, first published in 1978 in the UK):
 

'Jesus, Peter. I hope you do better than that in your sermons.'

'Better than what?'

'Using phrases like “outmoded sociological concepts.” What are you — one of these “hip” priests?'

'Oh, I guess I'm fairly hip, yes. You have to be, if you're working with young people.

p222 of the linked edition, which is published by Vintage 2008. It seems to have been regularly republished over the years. p224 of the original edition, I think.

Hexen Blumenthal points out that this song owes its origin to "Hotel Me," written by Gil Evans and Miles Davis and recorded on the 1963 album The Individualism of Gil Evans. The opening drumbeat and the descending melody of the "He is not appreciated" refrain seem to come from Evans's song...

^

2. It is not clear whether "Dan" refers to anyone in particular, or is just a placeholder like "Mack" or "Bub." On the other hand, a reader suggests the following:

 'Dahn' - pronounced darn - is Yorkshire dialect for 'down'. The line is 'Drink the long draught dahn' (drink the long draught down). There is no Dan.

In MES' draft in the orange lyrics book the word is both written and typed "Dan." It is possible that this is for phonetic reasons, and the lyric means "down," but this is a bit of a leap. On the other hand, a young reader going by the name Kriss Draynepipe--clearly a punk rock pseudonym-- quite plausibly suggests, "Do you think, going with the Yorkshire suggestion, that MES is just fucking with the 'drink the long draught Darn' expression by inserting 'Dan'? You say its a bit of leap to think he means 'down'-- maybe its both the expression and his classic alteration." This seems entirely possible, and disposes me to think favorably of the Yorkshire hypothesis... The line in fact sounds something like "Drink the long draught, damn!" to me. 

Bob has suggested it may refer to Danny Baker, who championed the Fall very early on. Nick points out a couple of potentially significant phrases--in a review from ZigZag (February/March 1978, pp. 7, 8, 38) he writes "There is no anger on the band's part just a sort of dry disgust. Nothing to do with 'you should appreciate us' thinking but a sort of what is the fucking point?" and "We are managed by Kay Carroll who feels insignificant amongst those 'hypnotic merry innovators' and whose main aim is to fend off bullshitters" (see note 4 above). Maybe I'm really stretching now, but I'll add "Maybe the only thing is to appeal to your sense of cultishness (!) and say it's hip to see them before they get BIG."

Dan (our Dan, that is) points out that the phrase appears in some translations of Vergil, for instance in John Conington's 1866 translation Aeneas's father, Anchises, says to him "There are spirits to who Destiny has promised new bodies, there at the side of Lethe's water, drinking the wave of carelessness, and the long draught of oblivion."

Dan sums up: "In Greek mythology the Lethe is one of the five rivers of Hades; it is the river of forgetfulness or oblivion. To drink from its waters is to forget your past life."

Paul Hanley Have a Bleedin Guess p. 56:
 

'Drink the long draught Dan' has more than an echo of a line from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre - 'I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught'.

^

3. British "motorway services" are the equivalent of "rest areas" in the United States. See note 8 below. A white collar, of course, is worn by a priest.

^

4. The poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph begins: "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple" (see More Information below for the rest).

Jenny Joseph died on January 8, 2018, a little over two weeks before MES did (thanks to Dan). She was 85, but it's unknown whether she was in the habit of wearing purple. At least, it's not known to me...

From A Part of America Therein:

"It's purple psychology leech / hypnotic induction process"

Grottyspawn points out "Hypnotic Induction Process" (and of course the first syllable of "hypnotic" makes the allusion multiply to almost fractal dimensions...or something). 

See note 9 below.

^

5. Why "small," when the draughts are presumably long? Zetetic suggests the bottles may have contained liquid LSD, although if you "drank" that from the bottle it'd be a long draught indeed...

Dan: If these are not ale bottles, or miniatures of some other beer or spirit, then I think it's more likely they are medicine bottles of some kind - cough mixture? - than LSD. But it could also be a reference to amyl nitrate ('poppers'), except you don't drink that - you sniff it.

I am pretty sure, however, that MES is talking about beer bottles.

Dan points out the line in "Cowboy George" that runs:

I had two brown bottles
And a white nose as I entered
Five years of confinement

My first thought would be speed and beer...note that the bottles in "Cowboy George" are also said to be "broken."

^

6. Thus the orange lyrics book, but on Hex Enduction Hour it sounds like "It's appreciation hard won." On A Part of America, Therein, on the other hand, "half" sounds relatively clear. 

^

6. This probably derives from "Sunday Morning Comin' Down," written by Kris Kristofferson and recorded by Kristofferson, Ray Stevens, and, perhaps most notably, Johnny Cash: "I fumbled in my closet through my clothes/And found my cleanest dirty shirt". "Fiery Jack" also echoes Johnny Cash, for whom Mark E. Smith has expressed admiration (see note 1 for more). Also, Dom points out that R. Dean Taylor recorded the song; the Fall recorded two of his songs, "There's a Ghost in my House" and "Gotta See Jane." So I think we can conclude that MES almost certainly knows the song.

^

7. Treets are a chocolate candy similar to M&Ms, and also sold by Mars. The famous advertising slogan "Melt in your mouth, not in your hand" has been used for Treets, as well as for M&Ms, and this may explain why MES calls them "clean." On the version of 9/12/81 at Austurbaejarbio in Iceland, MES sings: "I'm as clean as a packet of Treets--M&M Treets," removing any doubt as to the reference of the lyric.

^

8. A note from Dan:

In the context of motorway services, an echo here (intentional or not) of Roy Harper's song "Watford Gap" from his 1977 album Bullinamingvase. Watford Gap being a famous, or infamous, service station. The lyrics included these lines, among other disparaging ones. You'll see why I'm quoting these in particular: "It's the Watford Gap, Watford Gap/A plate of grease and a load of crap." The owners of the service station, Blue Boar, objected. Stories vary, but either they sued or threatened to sue, or one of their directors who was also on the EMI board applied pressure. At any rate the song was dropped from the album and not restored until a 1996 re-release. The Kinks also bemoaned the food at motorway services in the 1972 song "Motorway," as Martin points out:

Motorway food is the worst in the world,
You've never eaten food like you've eaten on the motorway.
Motorway food is the worst in the world,
The coffee tastes weak and the cakes taste stale
And gasoline fumes are the worst to inhale,
Your stomach rolls over and your face turns pale.

^

9. At around this spot on some live versions, we learn of the Priest's "hypnotic induction (enduction?) process." See note 4 above.

^

Hip Priest: Fall Tracks A-Z

Warning by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

From Dan:

From the Dutch pop/rock 'paper Muziekkrant Oor, #5, 12 March 1983, pp.8-11
 

De teksten zijn erg belangrijk, bij The Fall?

Ja, ja, ja.

Toch zijn ze soms erg moeilijk te volgen.

Ledereen mag er van mij uithalen wat hij kan, zo beIangrijk zijn ze nu ook weer niet. Bovendien is het een vorm van zelfbescherming: Ik wil niet dat mensen alles van mij weten. Daar hou ik niet van. Niet al mijn werk is persoonlijk, maar een deel ervan wel. Begrijp je wat ik wil zeggen? Ik schrijf veel objectieve dingen, zoals Lie Dream of a Casino Soul. Er zijn mensen die denken dat dat over mezelf gaat, maar dat is niet zo. Hip Priest idem dito, dat is vaak verkeerd begrepen. Het zijn gewoon sterke beelden, die mensen aan het lachen maken. Er zitten ook persoonlijke dingen in Hip Priest, vrij dualistisch. Verbazingwekkend hoeveel nummers er sindsdien zijn uitgekomen met het woordje "hip" erin.

Translation, based on translate.google.com
 

The lyrics are very important, in The Fall?

Yes Yes Yes.

However, they are sometimes very difficult to follow.

Everyone can get what he can from me, they are not that important. Moreover, it is a form of self-protection: I don't want people to know everything about me. I do not like that. Not all of my work is personal, but some of it is. Do you understand what I am saying? I write a lot of objective things, such as Lie Dream of a Casino Soul. There are people who think it is about myself, but it is not. Hip Priest ditto, that's often misunderstood. They are simply strong images that make people laugh. There are also personal things in Hip Priest, quite dualistic. Amazing how many songs have been released since then with the word "hip" in them.