I African Mancunian

Lyrics

(1)

I, Manichean (2)

It's on approach
fine honed stories

Lines becoming tents
All people who left out form wires
Torso, optimal
Bear with me


Altered to run
Perfection

I, Manichean

Back and forth
to the swing of them with nets
Runic, Greco, alabaster, green

musical phrase

This is the construction

I, Manichean
Mancunian

Brush the colors

my body is lower
expedient


...and well pleased with it
It is excellent and cleans out
Poetic form

I, Manichean

And in of contempt

To the motion

Manichean
I, Manichean

Plus he's given a bad time
I could cut down his tendrils, neck wires
its core a beautiful ...
Young plants surrounding
Breed, play, love, make reference to
Equal ... colors
Black levy channels
Black levy channels
Rose red
Bred eyeless head
(can always ...)
My system is fantastic and absolute

I Vengean Manichean
 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes

1. This track, recorded in 1987, first saw the light of day on Beggar's Banquet's 2013 box set 5 Albums.

^

2. MES often seems to be saying "Manichean" with a "ch-" as in "chop," although it's usually pronounced with a hard 'k' sound. Manicheans were followers of the 3rd century prophet Mani, who believed that the cosmos is characterized by a struggle between the forces of light and darkness, or good and evil. St. Augustine was famously a Manichean before he became a Christian. It's chief doctrine was considered heretical by Christians because of the parity it suggested between good and evil (or God and Satan).

^

Comments (4)

Martin
  • 1. Martin | 10/05/2014
I'm rubbish at lyrics deciphering, but is there something along the lines of "all people who left out become"? And then maybe "torso" and "bear with me"?

After, continuing with the snatches, I hear something like the word "contempt", "young plants surrounding", "...'s head...penultimate...My system is fantastic and absolute..."

Probably none of the above bears any resemblance to the real lyrics, but I often find that wrong assumptions/guesses often lead to the right answer...in the end!
dannyno
  • 2. dannyno | 07/08/2014
Worth noting, in connection with the "I African Mancunian" title, that Manchester was host in 1945 to a significant conference of the Pan-African Congress. It was attended by people like William Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, Hastings Banda and Jomo Kenyatta. The key contact in Manchester was T.R.Makonnen, who had been in the city since the late 1930s owned a restaurant on Oxford Road - significant in getting around discrimination by providing jobs, a meeting place etc. It was a centre for US troops stationed there too, especially black American servicemen. He had links with the local council and was able to book rooms around the city too. He employed Kenyatta at one point.

Another link is to Saint Augustine, who was born in Algeria to Christian parents but who became a convert to Manichaeanism for a decade before returning to Christianity.
Binyi
  • 3. Binyi | 12/04/2020
(0:14 - 0:19)
It's on approach
find owned stories

(0:19 - 0:32)
Lines coming tents
All the people who left out form wires
Torso? optimal
Bear with me

(0:25) [continued from verse 1]
Altered to run
Perfection

(0:42 - 0:53)
Back and forth
to the swing of them with nets
Runic, Greco, alabaster, green

(0:43)
musical phrase

(0:54)
This is the construction

(0:58)
Brush the colors
...
my body is lower
expedient

(1:12)
...and well pleased with.

(1:14)
It is excellence and cleans out.
Poetic form

(1:28)
and in of contempt

(1:31)
to the motion

(1:55) (Right channel)
She
Manichean
I Manichean

(1:55 - 2:30)
Plus he's given a bad time
I could cut down his tendrils, neck wires
its core a beautiful ...
Young plants surrounding
Breed, play, love, make reference to
Equal ... colors
Black levy channels
Black levy channels
Rose red
Bred eyeless head
(can always ...)
My system is fantastic and absolute

(3:03)
I Manichean, Vengean, Mekh--
mitch, Mensch
Meedgi-- Maniche [written as spoken]

Sorry for the heavy punctuation; it shows where words from a phrase were omitted or highly dubious. At 3:03 he abruptly cuts himself short in a way that warrants hyphens. I know the timestamps are intrusive, but they will help us order lines while we're figuring them out.

Throughout the song he chants a few phrases, particularly one you'd expect to be "I, Mancunian" but for some reason sounds like "Manichean" pronounced phonetically (which is wrong). In fact I couldn't hear "Mancunian" once, although it could certainly be there.

It wouldn't be the first time the Fall distorts a lyric into an unspoken, disassociated title: see Plastic Man/Elastic Man and Fibre Book/Facebook, although those also kept trademarks out of the titles. Nor would it be the first time MES chews up words into component phonemes.

Variations on the title include:
"I Mercurian" (repeated often)
"vengean" - unlikely explanations include: vengin', V engine, vengeance with the "ce" removed or transposed. (repeated often)
"to the motion" (only once)
Something with an "f" sound that I can't begin to guess at. Occasionally it sounds like "fects" or "Fecurian".

Much like "sludge-hoi-hoi cho-son" we're probably supposed to hear all of these words and be mystified.

The cod-African atmosphere, xenochrony and cut-up multitracks intoning "I this, I that" remind me of Ibis-Afro Man. It came out a couple decades later and this one doesn't seem to have anything to do with Iggy Pop.

There are three "types" of vocal mixed into this song: tracks where he drawls variations on the title, tracks where he delivers conventional MES lines, and a few tracks mixed very very low, full of deep quiet mumbles that I doubt anyone will ever decipher.

For simultaneous lyrics like this it would be neat to place multiple lines in adjacent columns - as it is we'll never represent this song in an attractive, accurate order. Of course that opens its own little hell of aesthetic and maintenance problems, so I'm not seriously suggesting you look into this.

MES seems to consistently refer to philosophy and purity, but what he meant by placing this in an exoticized "tribal" context, I have no idea. What a great song.
bzfgt
  • 4. bzfgt (link) | 17/04/2020
I used some of that, I have to come back and check the rest. Good job. "Manichean" definitely seems to be happening...

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