Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun

OCTO REALM (1)

a) Hi! I'm Spliffhead I like to lie on the floor (2)
b) Hello, I'm Girlie
c) I'm Rob and I'm cynical
d) Hi! I'm Ketamine Kettison
e) Hi! I'm Julia and I'm Schoolie
f) I'm Smith
g) Hi! I'm Smartass at the computer
h) Hi! I'm Skunklad
 
New Programme: The Kettisons

Your kids are making queerer sounds
Little dog go and moan
You don't need all this hassle because your brain is a seed
Anthony takes a front tooth
We count them all at least K Sun - AK/AK like a wise one
Your brother's in the pen but then you see your electromorph (3)
And you can't even describe it because you're a K sun
You are a piece of slop  (4)
Can't say it any better
You took a TV and nailed it to the bench of a jeweller
Your mum's moustache needs fixing
Dad's washing up for one Ketamine Sun
All stoolpigeons need tea, even at six foot one
You're a walking tower of Adidas crap at a cobbler's four times a month
Ketamine Sun
 

KETAMINE SUN   (5)

I was right but now I'm wrong
I loved you now and now you're gone
I was a goddamn fool, you taught me that
But I look out at
K-K-Ketamine Sun 

Life is like a holy war
Destroyed my life and the ties that bind
Take it - my world's destroyed
Take it
K-K-Ketamine Sun

Behind the clouds
For me
Like I did it
'Cos I'm
K-K-Ketamine Sun

1. Technically these are two separate songs, but they comprise a single track on The Unutterable and are thematically linked. "Octo Realm" marks the exact point where The Unutterable makes the transition from a relatively tight Fall album to something stranger and less focused, though not uninteresting at any point. The lyrics here are handed back and forth among the band (see note 2 below). For the first 43 seconds we are treated to the idea that the band members are characters in a new sit-com called The Kettisons, although it doesn't last long enough to give us any idea what the premise is; the pursuit of the idea is rather desultory and the song soon moves on. From 0.44 to 1.38 MES takes over the mic and, in an odd and unplaceable, but vaguely Southern, American accent, rants a little in a vein that may still have something to do with the sitcom idea; then, at 1.39, Tom Head strikes up the beat of "Ketamine Sun," and after a couple of bars the band kicks us into a gorgeously hazy psychedelic dream.

Ketamine is a veterninary anaesthetic, and when used recreationally is a powerful dissociative psychedelic, in certain dosages inducing out of body experiences, ego loss and a breakdown of temporal cognition. The Story of the Fall humorously identifies the theme of the whole thing as "the new Ketamine drug sweeping the nation's slobs," but of course as he is aware there is not, and has never been, any such epidemic. I don't think the idea is so much to imagine a world where Ketamine plays the role of crack or methamphetamine among those who can't balance their drug habits with the more functional aspects of their lives; rather, the overall tenor of life as a drug addict and cultural misfit is figured as the unreality and dissociation of a Ketamine trip. At the same time, the gauzy lushness of the latter half of the song introduces a dreamy beauty into the mix, even as the narrator wistfully recounts the aftermath of a failed love affair. We're left wondering whether a Ketamine high is a symbol of his subsequent alienation and half-hearted stab at genuine depression, or whether he drifted away from his loved one in the throes of a (literal or figurative) trip. Either way, the narrator of "Ketamine Sun" bears little resemblance to the goofy losers of "Octo Realm." It should be acknowledged, however, that this does not necessarily indicate the suture of the two halves is ill-advised; we may be witnessing the disjunction between a superficial view of an alienated existence, which is always debased and ridiculous when viewed from the outside, and the interior grandeur of the alienated consciousness which speaks in an idealized voice which, by dint of its alienation, cannot be made dramatically audible in the third person.

The song is written off of Lou Reed's "Kill Your Sons," from which it borrows the chord pattern and basic melody, but which it does not much resemble in terms of feel and overall effect. According to Julia Adamson (Julia Nagle):

Octo Realm: Fall Tracks A-Z

Ketamine Sun: Fall Tracks A-Z (there's a lot more on both songs here, check it out)

The Story of the Fall: 2000