New Face in Hell

(1)

Wireless enthusiast intercepts government secret radio band and
Uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful-type proportions.

Aghast, goes next door to his neighbor, secretly excited, 
As aforementioned was a hunter who radio enthusiast wanted
Friendship and favor of

A new face in hell
Nearly a new face in hell!

A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbor is at the table
Poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of
Wireless operator's forthcoming revelation

A new face in hell!

A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the
Realisation hits him that the same government him and his now
Dead neighbor voted for and backed and talked of on cream porches
Have tricked him into their war against the people who enthusiast
And dead hunter would wish torture on. A servant of
Government walks in and arrests wireless fan in
Kitchen for murder of his neighbor (2)

A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell! 

A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell! 

The dead cannot contradict   (3)
Sometimes the living cannot

A new face in hell!   (4)

1. This is a pretty straightforward (odd, but not impenetrable) story...the music is based on the riff from "What Goes On" by the Velvet Underground. The 1968 film P.J., with George Peppard starring as a private eye set up by his cleint, played by Raymond Burr, was called New Face in Hell in the UK. Slackhurst Broadcasting from the Fall online forum remembers MES saying the kazoo part is an attempt to imitate the theme song from P.J. Unfortunately, this has not yet been corroborated, but it is entirely plausible, given the similarity of the melody.

There is also a (rather obscure) crime fiction title from 1976 called New Face in Hell by Roger Busby. 

From Paul Hanley's book Have a Bleedin Guess (p.32):
 

'New Face in Hell' has a remarkably economical word count, and the events recounted therein would play out in real time in about five minutes. The wireless enthusiast hears an illicit broadcast, nips next door, spots his friend's body and gets arrested. Roll titles. But the fact that the government agent poisons the neighbour and frames the wireless enthusiast rather than simply killing him opens up a host of narrative possibilities, none of which Mark sees any need to explore - which inevitably forces listeners to fill in the rest of the story's detail for themselves.

^

2. Hexen Blumenthal: "This is followed by 'what a turn up for the books' in the Peel version which is possibly an allusion to 'Rhinocratic Oaths' by The Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band where the same phrase is uttered when several policemen emerge from their hippy disguises."

^

3. The English translation of the German play Die Spanier in Peru ("The Spaniard in Peru," 1796) by August von Kotzebue (translated in 1799 by Richard Sheridan, who is today probably best known for A School for Scandal, and retitled Pizarro) contains the line "The dead cannot contradict the assertions of the living." The German text is simply "die Todten sind gefällig" ("the dead are compliant"--alternatives would be "obliging" or "accomodating").

The events surrounding the death of Kotzebue, a political conservative who polemecized against those seeking to liberalize German institutions, form a narrative worthy of "New Face in Hell." Kotzebue was seen as a reactionary by many of the students and ex-soldiers who were calling for a unified Germany with increased freedom of the press and of association, and his History of the German Empires was publicly burned at the Wartburg Festival, a public demonstration for German unity. In 1819 he was stabbed to death by Karl Sand, a member of one of the Burschenschaften, the liberal and nationalistic student fraternities that were politically active in the 19th century. This became a pretext for the arch conservative Prince Metternich, then Foreign Minister (later Chancellor) of the Austrian Empire, to promulgate the Carlsbad Decrees which dissolved the Burschenschaften and imposed state control on the universities and the press.  

At this point on The Legendary Chaos Tape (Dec. 11 1980) MES says "Every man hates what he has to deny...especially I!"

^  

4. The "new face" may be the neighbor, but it could also refer to the "wireless enthusiast," as indicated by the line "the dead cannot contradict, sometimes the living cannot." The government may be using the frame-up to blackmail the enthusiast, rather than prosecuting him straight off, in which case "hell" would be a metaphorical way of describing the wireless operartor's life subsequent to these events. Thus, on the Peel session, MES repeats "nearly a new face in hell" after the neighbor is already dead. Then, when the wireless enthusiast is arrested, he sings "He became a new face in hell!" On the other hand, given that on the album version he does not repeat "nearly" or sing "became" after the arrest, there is a bit more leeway for interpretation there. 

^

A New Face in Hell: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1980