Mexico Wax Solvent

Lyrics

This is an extension of George - Mexico (2)
And I tell you this, I tell you this
It is Aqua Rosa
Aqua Rosa
Aqua Rosa (3)

The holy broke and the hanging thirties ex-pat is owned on Quality Street (4)

There goes old Gillio
There goes that Yorkie
There goes old Archibald Yates (5)

Mexico

X is the third, consonant (6)
They love their government in Mexico
Winner of Britain's lowest prices

Trimidine is kicking in
And the barbituates are kicking in (7)
It's the winner of Britain's lowest prices
I dont make rice with screwdrivers
Or fried chicken with a trowel
Where's the pus-huh-ho? (8)
Hand me a wrench or sachet of sick
In this marvellous empire
It is winner of Britain's lowest Empire
And the lowest prices is Mexico

Clicky shoulders make me wince
And 12 year old doctor
A fresh faced physician (9)
Gives a note based on lies
So I don't have to stand at a door
Staring at odd people and mothers

Extramentally drawn
Double placard draw

I know it was my Aqua Rosa
I know it was my Aqua Rosa
I know it was my Aqua Rosa
I, I know it was my Aqua Rosa

I know it was
Surely again, look
In Mexico
For an obtuse Yates
And a burnt lid
Just want a yellow limo
I know
Maggie would have too strong government to know (10)
Got me in the taxi, Mark
Always want to mute the infant here
He isn't here
He isn't here
He promised me
I don't make chicken with rice screwdrivers
I don't blind people with a trowel
With some Bisto (11)
Hand me a wrench
On a sloppy seat
I'm invincible
I'm in...

Notes

1. The title of this song from 2010's Your Future Our Clutter alludes to the title of the previous album, Imperial Wax Solvent from 2008. According to MES:

Cumming: There seems to be a crossover between LPs – you have the track "Mexico Wax Solvent". Is that picking up from Imperial Wax Solvent?

MES: Well, I like to do that. It’s a bit of a joke, that. I wouldn’t have put that on the LP, but the record company liked it and the producer liked it so I thought okay. It’s nice, isn’t it? I would’ve taken it off because of the Mexico thing, the Mexican flu thing. Looks like I’m trying to make an LP out of all these things.

Cumming: Swine flu.

MES: [Laughter] Yeah. It’s not about that at all. It’s about expats really. Do you know this? After Spain, Mexico is the next place for retirement expats. Spain is getting too crowded. I think I’ve been there. On a cruise. Yeah, yeah. I went to Cancún on a cruise once, an American cruise. I’ve always got on very well with Mexicans, in America. We’ve got a big following of them over there, in Frisco.

Illness is a prevalent theme on Your Future Our Clutter, hence the compunction about swine flu.

Solvent may be added to wax when coating wood and also, closer to MES's experience no doubt, to dissolve wax deposits on denture molds.

2. Is "George" here a metonym for England, i.e. king George? In that case, it could be a reference to the ex-pat community (see note 1). On the other hand, the music is composed by Peter Greenway, whom MES dubs "Cowboy George" elsewhere on the album, and MES often identifies a song's author in the title or lyrics (some examples are "Craigness," "Stephen Song," "Clasp Hands," and "Jim's 'The Fall'").

3. "Aqua rosa" is Latin for "rose water." This is sometimes prescribed for skin ailments, as far as I can tell.

According to Leon Massey, "My dad had a knee replacement on the NHS in 2012. Imagine my surprise when the bottle of water at his bedside was labelled 'aqua rosa'!" I haven't been able to find any information on this brand of water. Mike Hardy points out that this may also be an allusion to blood.

4. Quality Street is the name of candies produced by Nestlé in Britain, as well as the name of a 1937 movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Franchot Tone, a remake of a 1927 silent movie that was itself an adaptation of a play of the same name; a Spanish (not Mexican, unfortunately) version appeared on TV in 1980. None of these seem to have much to do with the song. There was also a gang in 1960s-70s Manchester called "The Quality Street Gang," which was apparently either a criminal gang or else merely a social club most of whose members had criminal records (the gang was never actually connected to any definite criminal activity). Several streets in Britain bear the name, although none appear in MES's bailiwick--but there is one in Edinburgh, where he lived for a time.

For hanging of holy people in Mexico circa the 1930s, Lis comments: "José María Robles Hurtado, a Mexican priest and one of several priests martyred during the Cristero War (1927). He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged from an oak tree."

5. Ginio (which is closer to "Gillio") and Yates (or "Yeats"), along with other "ex-pats," also appear in "O.F.Y.C. Showcase":

There goes old Giles
There goes Archibald
There goes old Yates, there
There goes that Yankee who gets ex-pats to go on Quality Street

"Go on Quality Street" sounds like a reference to a TV show; at least, it seems unlikely to refer to a candy, a movie, a gang, or an actual street.

According to enframed1954 on the Fall online forum:

Archibold Yates from "Mexico Wax Solvent" could be a reference to Archimboldi in Roberto Bolaño's 2666.

In the book Archimboldi is an ex-pat (from Germany) who lives near the maquiladoras, where cheap stuff is made ("Where are Britian's lowest prices"). "Aqua Rosa" could refer to water bloodied rivers, or cheap perfume.

6. 'E,' of course, is not a consonant; thus, I added a comma to the Lyrics Parade's "X is the third consonant," but this could be totally unjustified.

7. Trimidine is an anti-microbial drug used to treat urinary tract infections, although it is mostly given to animals. Barbiturates are central nervous system depressants that are used in the treatment of pain, but are now mostly used as a general anaesthetic because of the high risk of overdose. Many of the album's lyrics deal, in one way or another, with MES's 2009 stay in a hospital after breaking his leg.

Hull comments:

"In the Village radio session version, MES sings; the Tramadol's kicking in and the barbituates are kicking in!
In Mexico you can get tramadol over the counter and lot's of other prescription drugs fairly cheap. Maybe this is why the 'expats' like it there and maybe this is why MES went there?"

MES probably says "trimidine" here because it sounds like "tramadol," in an instance of the "clang process."

8. From the radio session, "Where is the pustule?" See comment #25.

^

9. MES's "physician" has even Doogie Howser beat by two years, if we take the age estimate literally.

10. "Maggie" = Margaret Thatcher.

11. "Bisto" is a British food brand that is primarily known for making instant gravy.

More Information

Mexico Wax Solvent: Fall Songs A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 2010

Comments (35)

1. John | 01/08/2013

You left out the last line. Some folks hear it as "I'm invincible", but I think it's clear that he's saying "I'm in Mexico. I'm in..."

2. Ryan | 02/08/2013

Archibald Yates is a guy who works in set design the Film industry. Also i believe it is 'X is the 3rd consulate of Mexico'. 'x' usually referring to a person who has had there identity removed for legal or safety reasons. Not sure why you changed 'X' to 'E' in your explanation of (6). It would also explain why he refers to the government in the next sentence.

3. policetruck | 05/09/2013

In the word Mexico the third letter is x which is also a consonant.

4. policetruck | 05/09/2013

It may be tramadol kicking in. A pain killer much used the same as codeine.

5. Joseph Mullaney | 17/03/2014

It sounds more like `Gillio' than Ginio on this song, as opposed to in OFYC Showcase where it's definitely Ginio.

I don't think it's Trimidine, the last consonant sounds like an l. So it could be a mangling of Tramadol.

It's `winner of Britain's lowest prices' rather than `where are...'.

Doesn't sound like `bus depot' to me. I think it's a deliberate mispronunciation of `Bisto'.

It's definitely not `such a object'. Sounds like `sachet of' but I can't make the last word out.

I hear `corridors' rather than `government'.

I don't think it's `the infant here', should just be `he isn't here'.

And the last line should be indeed be `I'm in Mexico, I'm in'. Nothing to do with vegetables.

6. bzfgt | 08/04/2014

I went with some of that, Joseph. It still sounds like "Trimidine" to me. These lyrics are nothing but confusing to me, both what they are and what they mean...

7. MikeHardy | 24/02/2015

I take aqua rosa as a reference to blood. Red/pink water

8. Leon Massey (link) | 25/03/2015

My dad had a knee replacement on the nhs in 2012. Imagine my surprise when the bottle of water at his bedside was labelled 'aqua rosa'!

9. SDK | 07/11/2016

Am I the only one who thinks he is saying "Make it Go" instead of "Mexico" for the majority of the song? That's sure what it sounds like.

10. bzfgt | 19/11/2016

SDK, I always took him to be aping the Mexican Spanish pronounciation, which is "Meh-Hi-Coe."

11. bzfgt | 19/11/2016

Thanks, Leon, I just deleted all the other nonsense in my note, so I hope you're right or it's back to the drawing board...

12. Mike Hardy | 22/03/2018

I also hear bus DEPOT instead of uh oh

13. bzfgt (link) | 31/03/2018

I made it "huh-ho" which is exactly what I hear. I cannot get a 'd' out of that.

Nobody noticed "barbiturates" was spelled wrong for 5 years....doubtless a legacy from the Lyrics Parade.

14. dannyno | 17/12/2018

MES quoted in note #1:

I went to Cancún on a cruise once, an American cruise.

This is probably the cruise that inspired Cruiser's Creek. That particular cruise was L.A. to Acapulco, according to Brix (the cruise continued beyond Acapulco, but Brix's family only booked the first week rather than the full cruise which took in the Panama Canal etc).

So either MES is confusing Acapulco and Cancún or they stayed in Mexico at the end of the cruise and ended up over in Cancún. Or Brix is misremembering.

Dan

15. Martin Peters | 30/09/2019

In the East Village Radio session version of the song MES sings "bus queue". Not a great contrtibution to Fall facts, I know!

https://youtube.com/?hl=CA

16. Huli | 02/10/2019

In the Village radio session version, MES sings; the Tramadol's kicking in and the barbituates are kicking in!
In Mexico you can get tramadol over the counter and lot's of other prescription drugs fairly cheap. Maybe this is why the 'expats' like it there and maybe this is why MES went there?

17. bzfgt (link) | 06/10/2019

Excellent point, Hull!

18. Ian Forth (link) | 16/01/2020

In a startling example of precognition the excellent child actor who plays the main character's best friend in Jojo Rabbit is called Archibald Yates.

19. Gerry | 14/02/2020

I'm hearing 'or sachet of sick' instead of 'or such a object'.

20. bzfgt (link) | 14/03/2020

"Sachet of" definitely, I am not 100% sure of "sick" but that's as close as we've come, if not

21. nutterwain | 04/05/2020

I think it is:

'Where's the busto'

As it is the third thing to get wrong after screwdrivers and trowels due to tramadol/barbiturate use remedied at the end of the song with the correct pronunciation where the true light of ex-pats are revealed

22. bzfgt (link) | 14/06/2020

What is busto?

23. Nutterwain | 22/06/2020

He means to say 'bisto' as in gravy granules

24. Albtwo (link) | 06/10/2020

Note (8) ff - surely the lyric is ‘..staring at ODD people.. and mothers’. Seems pretty clear that Mark’s doctor gave him some kind of pass so that he didn’t have to wait in the (Crowded) general waiting room with every other punter but was granted either fast track access or perhaps more likely a more discreet, private waiting room? Although, wld love to know what the ‘odd people‘ in question felt about MES perusing them from the doorway :-).

25. Lis | 17/11/2020

From the session version - (From this I conclude that Where's the bus huh-ho? is reallt Where's the pustule?
Not that it's important

This is an extension of George of Mexico
And I tell you this, I tell you this
It is Aqua Rosa
Aqua Rosa
Aqua Rosa

The holy murder and all the hanging in Mexico
Third generation for the gurnies? and ex-pats on Quality Street
And the cheapest thing for expats
Spain was too dear

There goes old John
There goes old Yates
There goes that Yorkie
and there goes that blogger whose next consonant is 'X'

They love their Tramadol in Mexico
Tramadol is kicking in
And the barbituates are kicking in

It's the way of Britain's lowest prices
Where are Britain's lowest prices going?
It's Mexico

Where is the pustule?
I don't make chicken with rice screwdrivers
I don't blind people with a trowel
Hand me a wrench or a sachet of sick

Location, location, in this marvellous empire
It is winner of Britain's lowest empire
And the lowest prices...It's Mexico

26. Lis | 17/11/2020

Que mas?

Hanging of holy people in Mexico around the 30s?
Possible reference to -

José María Robles Hurtado, a Mexican priest and one of several priests martyred during the Cristero War (1927).
He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged from an oak tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Robles_Hurtado
O https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Robles_Hurtado

He was canonised in the year 2000

27. Joshua Ross (link) | 23/12/2020

'Rice with screwdrivers and chicken with a trowel' I see as a reference to the street food movement that was big in London pre 2008 recession and hit the Northern Quarter in Manchester later. The idea of the £8 burrito, the spared down kitchen with the gourmet chef with his gadgets.

'lowest prices' has HUGELY prophetic implications in a Trump landscape, NAFTA, globalization, the idea that goods can be imported made at slave labour rates and immigrants imported at minimum wage, then the immigrants treated as a social cancer.

'Britain's lowest empire' - Britain has never invested to become a global power - which would require a 100,000,000 population - new built cities in the countryside, investment in infrastructure - it wants to romanticize the 19th century and kid itself it's still there.

28. DD | 28/12/2020

For the sake of accuracy

The holy broke and that hanging, the thirties ex-pats is owned on Quality Street

Tramadol is kicking in

I don't make rice with screwdrivers
I don't fry chicken with a trowel
Where's the pustule?

Staring at odd people and mothers

I know it was
Surely I can't live
In Mexico
Full of obtuse Yates
And a burnt lid

He promised here

Last lines: I'm invincible
I'm in

29. bzfgt (link) | 16/01/2021

I don't know how I missed it but Aqua Rosa is some kind of skin ointment. Also is said to be prescribed in former times?

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/aqua+rosa

But the source, Segen, is savaged here, somewhat amusingly:

https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article-abstract/86/6/703/1911185?redirectedFrom=fulltext

30. bzfgt (link) | 16/01/2021

25: I have something called "the non-Peel sessions" digitally, but no info--does anyone have the recording date etc.?

31. bzfgt (link) | 16/01/2021

28 Definitely "invincible!" But he clearly says "trimidine" and not "tramadol" on YFOC

32. dannyno | 16/01/2021

Comment #30,

I think it's this: Mike Joyce Coalition Chart Show – 17th June 2010.

According to: https://thefallliveblog.wordpress.com/category/live-tracks-list-and-count/mexico-wax-solvent/