No X-mas for John Quays

(1)

The X in X-Mas is a substitute crucifix for Christ (2)
A-one, A-two, A-one, two, three, four
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays  (3)

The powders reach you
And the powders teach you
When you find they can't reach you  (4)
There is no Christmas for junkies

He thinks he is
More interesting
Than the world
But buying cigs
Puts him in a whirl

A packet of three-five fives
Five hundred and fifty five  (5)
A packet of those over there
And 20 special offer cigars
And 20 special offer cigars

Found talking to the cigarette machine...

Into nicotinic acid  (6)
Good King Wenceslas looked out
Silly bugger, he fell out  (7)

He spits in the sky
It falls in his eye (8)
And then he gets to sit in
Talking to his kitten

And talking about Frankie Lymon

Tell me why is it so?
Tell me why is it so? (9)

Out of his face with The Idle Race (10)
Out of the room with his tune

Although the skins are thin
He knows its up to him
To go out or stay in
I'll stay in
I'll stay in
I'll stay in 
I'll stay in

You
Me
X-Mas
X-Mas

Well the powders reach you
And the powders teach you
When they find that they can't reach you

There is no Christmas for John Quays

No girls
No curls
Just the traffic passing by
Bye bye bye bye bye bye bye
Bye bye bye
Bye bye bye

One, Two, Three, Four
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays
No Christmas for John Quays

1. The name of the title character is seemingly a pun on "junkies" (see note 3 below). In his book The Fallen, Dave Simpson talks with a woman who had been close to the Fall at the time, and who reveals that John Quays was an actual person (and, conveniently enough, a junkie, or at least a heavy drug user). The implication in the book is that "John Quays" was/is his actual name, but this is never confirmed and seems less than certain to me. On the other hand, former (briefly) Fall member and Una Baines associate Jonnie Brown was reportedly convinced the song was about him.

Dan: 

"It's worth noting that Dave Simpson (author of The Fallen) says 'The John Quays character is certainly a play on words' - i.e., this isn't the precise name of the person in question. Also, for what it is worth, I've tried an English/Welsh births records search from 1916 and nobody whatsoever was born after that date with the name 'John Quays.'"

According to Alan, "I can vouch that John Key does indeed exist - I've been for a drink with him - Mark just changed the spelling. Apparently he went out with Mark's sister for a while, which Mark didn't approve of and so wrote a song attacking him."

There is a John Key from Prestwich, who founded the band The Teardrops, which included Fall members Karl Burns, Tony Friel and Martin Bramah at one time or another (thanks to Wheelie).

From Stopping, Starting, and Falling All over Again, interview with MES and Bramah by Graham Lock. NME, 7 April 1979, p.7-8, 40.
 

Mark: [...] 'Xmas' is about takers. It's anti-drugs in a lot of ways. A lot of people use drugs for getting off on 'n' they're just mind-fuckers, fucking their own brains. And they really try 'n' get your sympathy, saying 'Oh, I musthave some barbs' or whatever. And there was this guy - not called John Quays - who just kept wanting things. It's about him really. He was a real bastard.

According to Duncan "There's another version where he sings 'Up in her room there's a cloud of smoke' a couple of times. This is a quote from 'Up in her room' by The Seeds." 

Ex-worker man: "Intro to 'Frightened' on Live 77 CD; "We are frightened, cause it's Christmas, Santa never comes for junkies." This is especially interesting if you think MES more or less identifies with the narrator of "Frightened" (which is debatable), as he would seem to hoist himself on his own petard in that case...

In any case, the song may be about a type as much as any one person. MES expounds the idea of "No Xmas" in the Dutch fanzine Unite and Fight, issue 4, 1980 (thanks to Dan):

Wel, het zijn een soort junkies, en dan niet zozeer met drugs, naar die de hele tijd opwinding willen en nodig hebben. En op is voor hun geen kerstmis. Met andere woorden: ze onderschneiden de schijnkicks niet meer van de echte kicks.

Well, they're kind of junkies, not so much with drugs, who want and need excitement all the time. And there is no Christmas for them. In other words, they no longer distinguish the fake kicks from the real kicks.

^

2. X, which looks like a cross lying on its side and leaning away from the viewer, has been used as a symbol for Christ since at least the 11th century, standing for the Greek letter Chi (the initial letter in Christos).  

^

3. MES does not enunciate the 's' the first three times, so it sounds like "No Christmas for junkie." However, it may also be "No Christmas for John Key," i.e. he could be lapsing into the original name that inspired at least the title, if not the song (see note 1, particularly Alan's testimony). Or, he may just be swallowing the 's' (although it doesn't sound like it).

^

4. From "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boy" by the Equals (1970):

Cool is school
But the teachers beat ya
When they see
That they can't reach ya

^

Read more:  The Equals - Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys Lyrics | MetroLyrics

5. State Express 555 is a British cigarette.  

^

6. Nicotinic acid is niacin, a B vitamin. It has nothing (much) to do with nicotine, although it is probable MES is punning on nicotine here, given the context. 

Nicotine is named after a Frenchman named Jean Nicot de Villemain, introduced tobacco plants to France in the 17th century. Nicotinic acid was discovered by the chemist Hugo Weidel in 1873; he derived it from nicotine (hence the name), but it can come from lots of other sources, like vegetables, meat, or eggs. It was named "niacin" (a compound of "nicotinic" and "vitamin") when, apparently, there was a bit of a scare that people were ingesting nicotine with their flour. 

^

6. A reference, of course, to the popular Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas," which begins: "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephen." Wenceslas (actually a Bohemian Duke, Wenceslaus) was a 10th-century saint and martyr. Otto I, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, posthumously conferred kingship on the late Duke.   

The rendition MES has here is in fact a traditional children's parody of the carol. Here is one version:

Good King Wenceslas looked out
Of his bedroom winder
Silly bugger he fell out
On a red hot cinder
Brightly shone his bum that night
Though the frost was cruel
Till the doctor came in sight
Riding on a mule
Good King Wenceslas drove out
In his Austin Seven
He bumped into a trolley bus
And now he's up in heaven

There are versions around the internet with other verses, but you get the idea.

Danny brought this to my attention, and he has located one version in Frank Rutherford's 1971 book, All the Way to Pennywell: Children's Rhymes of the North-East.

^

7. This line appears in "People Grudgeful" by Sir Gibbs (one of two songs that form the basis of the Fall's "Why Are People Grudgeful?"), and in "Jim Screechey" by Big Youth ("You spit in the sky, it fall in your eye").  MES also seems to quote Big Youth on "Get A Hotel" and "City Hobgoblins." The origin ultimately seems to be the Jamaican proverb which, in patois, runs "Pit inna de sky, it fall inna yuh y'eye."

^

8. Frankie Lymon was the lead singer of the Teenagers, whose "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" (which contains the line "Tell me why, tell me why") went to number one in the UK in 1956. In 1968, Lymon died of a heroin overdose at the age of 25.  

^

9. The Idle Race were a British band in the late 60s and early 70s that featured future ELO mastermind Jeff Lynne. The Fall covered the Lynne-penned "Birthday" in the 1990s (with Lucy Rimmer on lead vocals).  

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No X-mas for John Quays: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1978