Just Step S'Ways

Lyrics

When what used to excite you does not
Like you've used up all your allowance of experiences
Head filled with a mass of too-well-known people
(This is an important aspect of Big Priest.
His hypnotic induction process.
His commercial last chance) (1)

Just step sideways from this world today
Just step sideways round this place today

Just step sideways round this world today
Just step outside this grubby place today
Don't ever hit that vulgar cave
The joker says: 'Go the opposite way'
Just step outside this futurist world today (2)
Just step right round this...today
The Eastern Bloc rocks to Elton John. (3)
So just step sideways from this place today
To be a celebrity you've gotta eat the past, nowadays
But who wants to be in a Hovis advert, anyway? (4)
Just step right round this futurist world today
Just step outside this grubby place today
Just skip out miss the ice bricks of Bacardi (5)
Just step outside this future world today

Don't let it beat ya
Don't let it whip ya
Jump on the back of nicotine
Hit those lung worm back rays (6)
Just step outside this future world today
Today today today today today today
...world today
Just step sideways from this place today
Jump on the back of nicotine  (7)
Hit those lung worm back-rays
Just step outside this future world today
Today today today today

Notes

1. This is evidently a reference to the title character of "Hip Priest" from the same album.  The words in parentheses overlap with the main vocal line. Dan reports that Paul Hanley indicates (Have a Bleedin Guess p. 55) that "Hip" in the title "Hip Priest" can be read as an acronym for "Hypnotic Induction Process."

^

2. This at least partly, I think, alludes to Italian Futurismo, an artistic and social movement which celebrated technology and the increasing speed and violence of modern living. The founder of the movement, Filippo Marinetti, founded the Futurist Political Party, which later merged with Mussolini's National Fascist Party. While I'm unaware of any other references to Futurism, MES was significantly influnced by Wyndham Lewis, who was a founder of Vorticism, an art movement that was in some respects similar to Futurism, parcticularly in its attempt to forge a modernist aesthetic reflective of the form and motion of a world immersed in technology, as well as, unfortunately, the admiration of some of its adherents (particularly Lewis and Ezra Pound) for fascism. While the allusion to Fututismo is probably intentional, in context "futurist world" seems to be a more general statement about the character the age; the next time the line comes around, MES associates the "futurist world" with advertisements that play on tacky rural nostalgia (see note 4 below).

Raging Ostler, however, has pointed out that there was a scene called "Futurism" in the early 80s, at least sort of, as this "history of goth" has it:

The Futurist scene, such as it was, is very hard to pin down, even more so than goth. Essentially, though, it was a short-lived media-defined musical scene centred around avant-garde electronic music. It's worth mentioning here as there was some degree of musical crossover with the emerging goth scene.

The "Futurist" tag appeared in September 1980, as follows:

From George Gimarc's Post-Punk Diary for Monday September 15 1980:

STEVO the DJ at Billy's club and general provider of the soundtrack to the new scene brewing in the electronic underground, has his top 20 current records list published in Sounds under the heading "Futurist Playlist". Top tracks are Joy Division "Isolation", Gary Numan and "I Die You Die", Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes", Bauhaus with "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" and Gina X and "Do It Yourself". At #6 is Fad Gadget and "Fireside Favourite", B-Movie with "Soldier Stood Still", Gary Numan's "Aircrash Bureau" and "Telekon", and a demo from Blancmange of "I've Seen The Word". Other groups present are Modern English, Pere Ubu, Throbbing Gristle, Human League, YMO, Iggy Pop and Last Dance. Several months from now Stevo will confess to the NME that "...the tag Futurist is a bunch of crap. I took a chart of the most popular electronic music I was playing as a DJ into Sounds and said to them 'put it in but don't call it 'Eurorock' or anything like that'. I grab hold of the paper a week later and it says 'Futurist'. I hate all this stopid tagging."

Despite Stevo's disclaimer, "Futurist" was seen by some as a useful tag for an emerging movement, and there were actually "Futurist" nights at some nightclubs. The movement was seen by some as an avant-garde version of/reaction to the "pop" New Romantic scene, with the most important bands being John Foxx-era Ultravox and Gary Numan. However, the movement seems to have suffered from the lack of a coherent identity and never became a subculture as such.

The tag, however, became popular for a while- in an interview in Sounds in January 1981, Blancmange denied being Futurist ("I'm not a Futurist. I hate that word. What we do is more like experimental new music") whilst Depeche Mode laid claim to the term in an attempt to evade a worse one ("OK, we're Futurists. We've always been Futurists. For me, Futurusts were an extension of punk rock. We never had anything to do with New Romantics. They all looked the same. Bunch of flaming sissies! But call us what you like. Ultra pop. Futurist, Disco. Anything so long as it's  not New Romantic").

And, we have the following helpful comments from Dan, with the caveat that the lyric in question has yet to be dated:

"I can help with this, I think. The song was first played live on 21 October 1981. Were the lyrics more or less complete by then? Because if they were... On 20 October 1981, The Daily Mail published a review by Simon Kinnersley of Ultravox at the Hammersmith Odeon, with the heading, "Facing a bleak futurism". (p26) It begins: "Futurism is already last year's thing. It's decline is due partly to frills and brocade looking rather foolish in winter, but more to the failure of the bands to progress." It's *possible* - I put it no stronger than that - given the proximity of publication to performance, that this is the inspiration for the line. At the very least, the use of the "futurist" word in the Daily Mail does suggest that its use in a musical context was fairly established."

"On 15 March 1981, the Guardian printed a piece by Dave Gelly entitled, "Enter the electronic Futurists" (p34): "A new chart has recently made its appearance in the pop music press, alongside 'Disco', 'Reggae' and the rest. It bears the heading 'Futurist' and lists the weekly fortunes of records with a style fast growing in popularity and self-confidence." <SNIP> "Leading Futurist bands include Spandau Ballet, Visage, Ultravox and Landscape..." The article also notes that they are also known as "New Romantics" - which of course is the name that stuck."

 

^

3. Elton John had played in Leningrad in 1979, and this is as likely as anything to have been in MES's mind when penning this lyric, although for all I know he may have had other reasons to suspect the Blocsters of digging the plumed piano plunker. Danny has rightfully chastised me for leaving an incorrect note here for so long, in which I mistakenly claimed that John hadn't rocked the Bloc until after the release of Hex Enduction Hour. But don't despair, pre-cog lovers: MES predicted 9/11, after all, didn't he?

^

4. Hovis (see also "That Man" and "H.O.W.") is an English brand of bread. A 1973 television advertisement (directed by Ridley Scott) depicting a boy delivering Hovis on a bicycle accompanied by Dvorak's New World Symphony is one of the most famous spots of all time in Britain. The ad played on nostalgia for rural and village life to move bread, and MES seems to have taken notice.  

^

5. Bacardi is of course rum, but I'm unsure what "ice bricks" means exactly.

 ^

6. Lung worms are parasites that attack the lungs, although here they are perhaps a metaphor for cigarette smoke.

A Voyage to Arcturus, an early (1920) science fiction classic by David Lindsay, mentions "solar back rays" which can be captured, and which fly back to the sun when released. There are also "Arcturian back rays" that return to Arcturus (thanks to djbawbag!).

^

7. Bobbins submits:

"On the line 'Jump on the back of nicotine' I always thought, because of the way he sang 'nic-o-tine', that he meant the character Nick O'Teen from the Public Health Info films that ran on British TV from 1980 - 82. These short animations featured the sleazy villain Nick who would creep around wholesome kids and offer them cigs, trying to get them hooked, and his enemy Superman, who would swoop down and grab him by the scruff of the neck and save the day. He'd then explain how he could 'see the harm cigarettes do inside your body' using his x-ray vision."

^

Comments (56)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 27/04/2013
"Ice flicks".

Given the mention of adverts later in the song, I always presumed it was "flicks" in the sense of "films". Bacardi adverts have lots of ice in them, you know.
dannyno
  • 2. dannyno | 27/04/2013
""Pre-cog" buffs may be interested to know that Elton John played in Eastern Europe for the first time two years after the appearance of this song on Hex Enduction Hour."

Incorrect.

He actually played in Leningrad in 1979: http://russiapedia.rt.com/on-this-day/may-21/, and http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/05/21/retro-action-may-21-1979-elton-john-peeks-behind-iron-curtain, and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245509/, and http://www.eltonography.com/cgi-bin/find_concerts.cgi?LOC=Russia
dannyno
  • 3. dannyno | 27/04/2013
""Pre-cog" buffs may be interested to know that Elton John played in Eastern Europe for the first time two years after the appearance of this song on Hex Enduction Hour."

Incorrect.

He played Leningrad in May 1979.
Mark
  • 4. Mark | 16/06/2014
"Ice flicks" = "ice bricks", Shirley?
bzfgt
  • 5. bzfgt | 24/06/2014
I am not certain but I think that's what I am hearing now. I changed it and we'll see if anyone complains.

Any idea what it means? Danny had a theory for "flicks," but I found it unconvincing so I'm not too concerned about changing it...but it still is a mysterious line, to me.
Raging Ostler
  • 6. Raging Ostler | 01/02/2015
"Futurist" had a double meaning in the early Eighties: http://www.scathe.demon.co.uk/future.htm
bzfgt
  • 7. bzfgt | 28/03/2015
Thanks, RO. I put something in the notes, but I'm not sure to what extent that was what MES had in mind, I'd still think the Italian thing more likely considering his interests (i.e. most famously, Wyndham Lewis) and what seems to be the nebulous and obscure nature of 80s futurism. The Italian futurists were tapped into the interwar zeitgeist, i.e. burgeoning modernity, whereas the 80s futurists seem to be really obscure--I can't find anything about them beyond the link you gave (admittedly only about a 34-second search on Google, but that in itself is telling--you can get the Italian ones in all your top results). If there's anything linking MES to the 80s futurists that would make the link seem more significant. Nevertheless I put that whole entry on them in the notes, I'm not saying it's irrelevant, I just wonder if it's possible that he hadn't even heard of them? Were you around, and had you heard of them?
dannyno
  • 8. dannyno | 31/03/2015
I can help with this, I think.

The song was first played live on 21 October 1981. Were the lyrics more or less complete by then? Because if they were...

On 20 October 1981, The Daily Mail published a review by Simon Kinnersley of Ultravox at the Hammersmith Odeon, with the heading, "Facing a bleak futurism". (p26)

It begins:

"Futurism is already last year's thing. It's decline is due partly to frills and brocade looking rather foolish in winter, but more to the failure of the bands to progress."

It's *possible* - I put it no stronger than that - given the proximity of publication to performance, that this is the inspiration for the line.

At the very least, the use of the "futurist" word in the Daily Mail does suggest that its use in a musical context was fairly established.
dannyno
  • 9. dannyno | 31/03/2015
On 15 March 1981, the Guardian printed a piece by Dave Gelly entitled, "Enter the electronic Futurists" (p34):

"A new chart has recently made its appearance in the pop music press, alongside 'Disco', 'Reggae' and the rest.

It bears the heading 'Futurist' and lists the weekly fortunes of records with a style fast growing in popularity and self-confidence."

<SNIP>

"Leading Futurist bands include Spandau Ballet, Visage, Ultravox and Landscape..."

The article also notes that they are also known as "New Romantics" - which of course is the name that stuck.
dannyno
  • 10. dannyno | 31/03/2015
Just on Elton John again, I've just noticed something which makes me feel better about the otherwise unusually anachronistic reference to him playing the "Eastern Bloc" in the lyrics, which is that in December 1980 a documentary was screened on UK TV about Elton's trip to Russia, called "To Russia With Elton" (you can get it on DVD now). It had been shown in cinemas in the Spring of that year.

I like this because it brings it closer to the first appearances of this song.
Martin
  • 11. Martin | 17/04/2016
With reference to note 2 and comment no. 8: since these were published, it's come to light that the song was played at an earlier gig than otherwise thought, namely the one at Groningen on 17 May 1981 (recently downloaded onto Dime and Dropbox by a contributor to The Fall Online). There's no mention of "futurist" (nor of David Bowie).

Caveat time: in the version supposedly played at Groningen, we have the familiar cry "We are The Fall" (almost always included in the first song, or occasionally the second one). It doesn't seem to me that it comes from the same gig. And why go through a whole German followed by American followed by half a British tour without playing it again? Apart from some missing lyrics, the song appears fully formed musically, and not one of those rehearsed in concert (as it were). But maybe I'm mistaken. (I have a similar problem with the so-called Groningen version of I'm Into CB, by the way). Any thoughts?

Problem time: due to a complete failure of computer and standalone CD systems I am unable at present to check the lyrics on the versions starting from the 21 October 1981 gig. But watch this space...Unless anyone gets there before me, that is!
Martin
  • 12. Martin | 19/04/2016
Back in action again, and from the recordings I have of 1981 performances of the song, there's no "futuristic" (only "future") and no Elton John.

As far as I can make out, that is. Ageing ears, dodgy recordings, Smith's accent.

Hovis is always there, though.

1982 gigs to listen to still...
Martin
  • 13. Martin | 20/04/2016
Many of the tracks on Hex Enduction Hour were recorded in Hitchin in December 1981 [although Steve Hanley in his book "The Big Midweek" (page 107) recalls the sessions as taking place in January 1982]. So by the time The Fall embarked on their next set of gigs in March 1982 the track had already been committed to vinyl. The first use of the word "futuristic" occurs on 24 March in Leicester. "Elton John" had been mentioned two gigs earlier on 12 March (Bristol): Unfortunately there are no extant recordings of the Dublin gig on 16 March. I haven't listened to all the recordings of Just Step S'Ways around this time, but the futuristic" and "Elton John" lines are frequently omitted in these live performances.
Zack
  • 14. Zack | 28/06/2016
Hex liner notes re: "S'ways":

"'Lie-Dream' 80% of 10% OR 6% over no less than 1/4 = ??????"

So that clears THAT up.
djbawbag
  • 15. djbawbag | 13/04/2017
His HERMETIC induction process.

Back rays: surprised no one has mentioned A Voyage to Arcturus.
[url]/https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Voyage_to_Arcturus[url]
bzfgt
  • 16. bzfgt (link) | 13/05/2017
Oh yeah, I love that book! I'm due to read it again too.
bzfgt
  • 17. bzfgt (link) | 13/05/2017
Dan, if you haven't read that you'd love it.
bzfgt
  • 18. bzfgt (link) | 13/05/2017
It's been a long time though, I don't remember the back rays, so I just used the info from Wikipedia...let me know if I missed anything relevant, or got it wrong.
dannyno
  • 19. dannyno | 13/05/2017
Yeah, I bought it the other week after reading about it either in djbawbag's post or on the FOF. Haven't got round to it yet though.
bzfgt
  • 20. bzfgt (link) | 18/05/2017
It's an absolutely tremendous book. It's pretty Buddhist, I think, which may put you off. But it's a mind-bender, I will say that. "Early sci-fi" might have you expecting a clumsy sub-HG Wells job, but not at all, it stands alone and is very satisfying in its own right.
Mike Watts
  • 21. Mike Watts | 01/12/2017
Those Bacardi ice bricks might just be when you pour alcohol into an ice tray and freeze it to prevent your booze from getting watered down by regular ice?
farty
  • 22. farty | 13/04/2018
seems like hes talking about like the day or days after a wild trip when you feel like youve lived it all and youre just like damn ive seen all there is to see and life after seems dull or empty
Paul G
  • 23. Paul G | 18/05/2018
Could the 'vulgar cave' be Nick Cave?

He'd have been causing a stir around this time.
bzfgt
  • 24. bzfgt (link) | 15/07/2018
I wonder, yes I suppose some sort of allusion could be intended there, although of course that wouldn't be the primary literal meaning...
Mark
  • 25. Mark | 16/09/2018
I had this down as "The Eastern Bloc bops to Elton John" and "To be a celebrity you gotta eke the past, nowadays."

The former is pretty clear and the meaning is interchangeable but the former seems to me a comment on lousy celebs living off past glories or ripping off past forms. E.g. mod revivalism, cod-50s lookback artists. (we know MES took issue with Shakin' Stevens etc.)
bzfgt
  • 26. bzfgt (link) | 13/10/2018
"Bops" it's hard to say, could be. Any live versions tell the tale?

to me the other sounds like "eat"
dannyno
  • 27. dannyno | 30/11/2018
Comment #10, "To Russia With Elton"

Might be worth watching the documentary in case there's anything relevant. It's on youtube now:
Don Deyesta
  • 28. Don Deyesta | 25/04/2019
Thought it was Volga cave not vulger cave.
bzfgt
  • 29. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019
Maybe, why Volga though? He does mention the eastern bloc next...
joincey
  • 30. joincey | 01/11/2019
I thought 'elton John in Eastern Bloc' was something about the manchester record shop of the same name playing 'naff' music but , ah , the shop didn't open until 1985 . Eastern Blocs of ice in Bacardi !
joincey
  • 31. joincey | 01/11/2019
Also , the world of BATMAN and Gotham City could perhaps be described as 'futurist' and he DOES mention a cave, albeit a vulgar one not a BATCAVE, and , the JOKER says , go around the other way.
bzfgt
  • 32. bzfgt (link) | 09/11/2019
Pre-cog again
djbawbag
  • 33. djbawbag | 16/11/2019
It's a small thing, but I'm sure it's hermetic rather than hypnotic.
It refers to self-hypnosis. Stuff like this :
https://www.amazon.com/Autohypnosis-Franz-Bardon%C2%B4s-Initiation-Hermetics/dp/1291023615

Smith's pronunciation is problematic however.

Sounds more like He-mAtic or HermAtic.

https://youtu.be/mCzqucGw_Y8
bzfgt
  • 34. bzfgt (link) | 23/11/2019
Isn't there another song we were hashing out a weirdly-pronounced variant of "hermetic" with? hey! Luciani maybe? I'll go look.
Yes, not sure if it's relevant.
bzfgt
  • 35. bzfgt (link) | 23/11/2019
Yeah it sounds a bit more like "hermetic" to me, but I don't feel confident...I'd like to get a third opinion...
Bobbins
  • 36. Bobbins | 29/11/2019
On the line 'Jump on the back of nicotine' I always thought, because of the way he sang 'nic-o-tine', that he meant the character Nick O'Teen from the Public Health Info films that ran on British TV from 1980 - 82. These short animations featured the sleazy villain Nick who would creep around wholesome kids and offer them cigs, trying to get them hooked and his enemy Superman, who would swoop down and grab him by the scruff of the neck and save the day. He'd then explain how he could 'see the harm cigarettes do inside your body' using his x-ray vision
https://youtu.be/uOOyD5ayrrk
bzfgt
  • 37. bzfgt (link) | 21/12/2019
Brilliant!
bzfgt
  • 38. bzfgt (link) | 21/12/2019
You'd think with that name Nick would be a teenager applying peer pressure, but he's ancient...
dannyno
  • 39. dannyno | 27/12/2019
Paul Hanley, in Have a Bleedin Guess, has it as "hypnotic induction process", which he says is "referring to the act of putting someone under hypnosis" (p.55)
bzfgt
  • 40. bzfgt (link) | 04/01/2020
Hmf, not very informative
bzfgt
  • 41. bzfgt (link) | 04/01/2020
Although good to clear up that he has the lyric as we have it
dannyno
  • 42. dannyno | 20/06/2021
Note 7, "Nick O'Teen":

https://comicsflixorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/img_2764.jpg
dannyno
  • 43. dannyno | 02/07/2021
From Walter Bowart's Operation Mind Control (1978) (p.75), later a likely lyrical source for Riddler!:


That statement was the tip of a vast iceberg of mind-control research using drugs as an aid to hypnotic induction.
Steve69
  • 44. Steve69 | 03/10/2021
My editor at Route, Ian, has this to say:

The sleeve notes reference seems pretty explicit to me, it looks like some sketch of what Rough Trade were offering them for ‘Lie Dream’, hence they left and went to Kamera. It opens the song up immensely if you see it in those terms – it becomes crystal clear and uncharacteristically direct. He’s demob happy, pointing out the bad guys, and imploring us all to follow suit.
dannyno
  • 45. dannyno | 08/01/2022

Just step outside this grubby place today
Don't ever hit that vulgar cave
The joker says: 'Go the opposite way'


Given we have the Joker in the next line, could perhaps the "vulgar cave" be Batman's Batcave?
dannyno
  • 46. dannyno | 08/01/2022
And I wonder if the reference to "ice bricks of Bacardi", if that's what the line is, might also link to Batman, somehow.

After all, the Bacardi logo is:

https://d323g1xugy1rkz.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2020/07/28090738/footer-bacardi-logo.png
dannyno
  • 47. dannyno | 08/01/2022
Oh, re: my comment #45, I see user joincey made the bat cave connection in comment #31 already.
Steve Chandra Savale
  • 48. Steve Chandra Savale (link) | 12/05/2022
Anyone agree that a lot of these lyrics have a real bite when applied to the world of 2022. I'm sure a lot of us want to step sideways from THIS futurist world. And for me I 'm often feeling that what used to excite me doesn't and I've used up my allowance of experiences. It's a great comfort that MES had dealt with this before. I think at this time he was thinking of jacking music in altogether?
Alex Dennis
  • 50. Alex Dennis | 23/06/2022
I thought lungworm back rays referred to the X-ray a vet would give a cat to see if the parasites were present. Cats and dogs can both develop lung cancer from smoky environments. Perhaps this is about one of Mark’s cats?
dannyno
  • 51. dannyno | 27/06/2022
Comment #50 by user Alex Dennis: I do like the suggestion that those lines may be derived from feline veterinary experiences, but it seems a push to say that the whole song is about a cat. And the most plausible inspiration, given mention of "Nick O'Teen", would still seem to be Superman's x-ray vision. But new readings can lead us in new directions, so it's good to think about cats too.
dannyno
  • 52. dannyno | 27/06/2022
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyOzcDXVcAAAFGN.png
Alex Dennis
  • 53. Alex Dennis | 05/04/2023
I reckon nicotine is Nick O'Teen from the anti-smoking adverts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oljZbk9qsMM&feature=youtu.be

These were on telly all the time, and the org behind them ran for years (its not the Californian outfit).
Alex Dennis
  • 54. Alex Dennis | 06/04/2023
Ignore/delete last one. All covered already by faster brains than mine
The Smart Hedonist
  • 55. The Smart Hedonist | 08/02/2024
Not coptic baby bot, but not for all the heshers in PA is MES rebel Yale material. So, 9/11, absolutely not. Bill and Hilary, on the other hand.
Shawn White
  • 56. Shawn White | 08/02/2024
Also, vulgar cave is likely a slang reference to a vagina. Just ask LEN lol.

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