Oswald Defence Lawyer
Lyrics
How could he cope with the flashing-by past
Through my vid-earphone amp I had to tap
I relate the tract
Oswald defence lawyer
Lawyer!
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain (2)
(Oswald defence lawyer)
How do you think that jury made up of putrid mass (3)
Embraced theory of triangle bullet lines
Turning in circles twice
Then incredible, marvelous, exiting back of mind? (4)
And Oswald's defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
Lawyer!
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scuffed corpse of Walt Whitman
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the struffed corpse of Mark Twain
Decent lawyer fishes in buckskin hat
Raccoons drown beneath the embarking man
When he sees CIA ship flying over head fast
Goody goody he looks up
In cloudless sky enhancing theory of zig-zag bulletline (5)
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of the Mark Twain
Lawyer!
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the stuffed corpse of the Mark Twain
He's liberal and insane,
He caught the good news horse
His opposite is vain
The cardboard fake in the witness stand
He's got an interview in Spin magazine (6)
He loves the magazine
His mouth is in his brain
The prosecution lawyer
Turns himself to butter
Oswald defence lawyer
Lawyer!
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
(Lawyer)
Oswald defence lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
Oswald defence lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer
Cheap rifle photo touched up
Drawn on sky
Oswald's head added on a commie tie
While Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
(Oswald defence lawyer)
Oswald defence lawyer
Embraces watching stuffed corpse of Walt Whitman
(Oswald defence lawyer)
Lawyer!
Notes
i designed record label for palace of swords reversed..the thumb print is mine...
wrote two songs with m e s ....oswald defence lawyer...and mike love xexagon.
starred as a cardinal using a cell phone in Hey!Luciani at the riverside...
I also published The Fall Lyrics......
why am i telling you this ? well..i shall be working on the second fall lyrics book over
the winter...provisional title ...V2....
something to look forward to next year....so watch this space with mince pies to be informed up to date.....
respectfully yours
cog sin.
2. MES has claimed the lyric is "stuffed corpse but, as in the case of "Guest Informant," what comes out sounds a bit different; much of the time MES and co. seem to be saying "scruffed corpse," and some of the time it actually comes out more like "struffed corpse," of all things; to complicate it further, it's not always clear that all the singers are rowing in the same direction. The idea is conveyed very well by "stuffed corpse," however; Mark Twain (and later, Walt Whitman) is quintessentially American, and the lawyer is probably trying to paint Oswald, who in fact defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, as an all-American kind of guy. Both Twain and Whitman were considered more or less patriotic critics of the US from what today would be considered a left-of-center perspective.
In The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise Brix quotes the line as "scruffed corpse." More recently, on Twitter, she has said it is "scruff corpse." Dan suggests that "scruffed" could mean "scruffy". But it seems more likely to me that the original idea was "stuffed corpse," and someone somewhere along the line got bored with it.
Note that "scruffed" also appears in "He Pep!" and "Oxymoron," however, so it's in MES's lexicon.
3. Orlando found a couple prior uses of this phrase. The second one is much more likely to have seen by MES:
"By lessening the size of the putrid mass of matter, the fetor is diminished." Samuel Cooper A Dictionary of Practical Surgery (1818), Page 743.
Arthur Machen, The Novel of the White Powder: "There upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething corruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but melting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oily bubbles like boiling pitch."
MES was a member of the Arthur Machen Society. See "Leave the Capitol" for more.
4. Theories about the Kennedy assassination, many of which deal with the suppsed trajectory of the fatal bullet, have of course proliferated since the day after the event, and are too numerous and Byzantine to go into here.
5. Critics of the Warren Report position hold that it was impossible for a single bullet to cause all the damage that occurred.
6. Even in a song about a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, MES manages to get in a swipe at the music press, and the song's setting gives him an opportunity to target the Americans for a change. Spin was founded in 1985 and carved out a niche as a putatively hipper, more youth-oriented alternative to Rolling Stone. The latter organ, especially at the time, would be a more likely candidate for an interview with Oswald's pretend prosecutor, although whoever it is must have made a name for himself in some other pursuit in order to rate an interview with a national magazine.
More Information
Comments (57)

- 1. | 02/05/2013

- 2. | 27/04/2014
Here is what I'm hearing:
"How could he cope with the flashing-by past
Through my vid earphone amp I had to tap
I relate the tract
Oswald defence lawyer
Lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
Oswald defence lawyer
How do you think that jury made up of putrid mass embraced theory of triangle bullet lines turning in circles twice?
Then incredible, marvellous, exiting back of mind?
And Oswald's defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
Lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
Oswald defence Lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
Decent lawyer fishes in buckskin hat
Raccoons drown beneath his embarking mass
When he sees CIA shit flying overhead fast goody-goody looks up in cloudless sky, enhancing theory of zig-zag bullet line
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of the Mark Twain
Lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of the Mark Twain
He's liberal and insane, he's caught the good news horse
His opposite is vain
The cardboard fake in the witness stand
He's got an interview in Spin magazine
He loves the magazine
His mouth is in his brain
The prosecution lawyer turns himself to butter
Oswald defence lawyer
Lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
Oswald defence lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
oswald defence lawyer
Oswald defence lawyer
Cheap rifle photo touched-up, drawn-on sky
Oswald's head added on a commie tie
While Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain
Oswald defence lawyer embraces [ ] scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman
Lawyer"
That last [ ] there represents a word or two I can't make out.
Stuffed seems to be "scruffed" to my ears, so that's what I've put. Your mileage may vary.

- 3. | 13/05/2014

- 4. | 06/06/2015

- 5. | 22/08/2015
http://z1.invisionfree.com/thefall/index.php?showtopic=3473&view=findpost&p=1938443

- 6. | 25/08/2015
Dave Luff said that he "wrote two songs with m e s". He doesn't actually say that he co-wrote the lyrics.

- 7. | 05/09/2015

- 8. | 06/01/2016

- 9. | 27/04/2016

- 10. | 07/05/2016

- 11. | 15/05/2016



- 14. | 15/12/2016
Brix (and MES) definitely sing "scruffed" and not "stuffed" on various occasions during the song.

- 15. | 15/12/2016

- 16. | 27/12/2016

- 17. | 02/08/2017

- 18. | 16/09/2017

- 19. | 20/09/2017

- 20. | 29/10/2017

- 21. | 04/11/2017

- 22. | 29/01/2018

- 23. | 29/01/2018
http://dannyno.org.uk/fall/f.htm

- 24. | 26/02/2018
Also, in my mind, it sounds like 'the prosecution lawyer turns himself to vater' (= 'father' in German, pronounced 'farter'). I never tried to make much sense of it, to be honest, just accepted it!

- 25. | 10/03/2018

- 26. | 10/03/2018

- 27. | 10/03/2018

- 28. | 10/03/2018

- 29. | 27/03/2018

- 30. | 20/06/2018

- 31. | 15/07/2018

- 32. | 14/11/2018
"Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruff corpse of Mark Twain."
https://twitter.com/BrixExtricated/status/1062795355157417984

- 33. | 15/11/2018

- 34. | 16/11/2018

- 35. | 21/11/2018

- 36. | 04/04/2019

- 37. | 04/04/2019

- 38. | 06/04/2019
http://on-trial-lho.blogspot.com/
Not sure if I can watch all 21 hours although I can get drawn into stuff like this.

- 39. | 06/04/2019
The Novel of the White Powder Arthur Machen - ‘There upon the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething corruption and hideous rottenness, neither liquid nor solid, but melting and changing before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous oily bubbles like boiling pitch. ‘

- 40. | 11/05/2019

- 41. | 11/05/2019

- 42. | 11/05/2019

- 43. | 23/06/2019
I was just reading about US/UK war against the Red Army 1918-1920s around Petsamo, Murmansk, Kola and to the south. Henry Rawlinson was one find (Viv Stanshall), but searching BBC Genome - there was Oswald Mosley discussing the Forgotten War early Sept 1971.
Oswald Mosley became a regular on BBC after "My Life" (68) and there were more attention after his death (80). There is hardly any mention of Mosley on BBC before 1968. Who made him acceptable, how and why?
Roald Dahl's My Uncle Oswald is an intriguing story.

- 44. | 23/10/2020
I don't think it is that well-crafted because there's not that many parts. There's a few good lines like "Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain". It's like children in the playground taunting each other. "Oswald defence lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Walt Whitman." So, he was really into the American novelists - the classic guys.

- 45. | 23/10/2020


- 47. | 27/02/2021

- 48. | 30/06/2021
https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/John_F._Kennedy

- 49. | 04/07/2021
https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Fall:_Show_Appearances_(Excluding_Sessions)

- 50. | 07/10/2021
From "My Way", a German fanzine, September 1988 (translated with help from Google translate):
MY WAY: Es gibt da eine Zeile in "Oswald Defence Lawyer" in den die am. Musikzeitschrift SPIN vorkommt. Mochtest du deren Artikel über THE FALL nicht?
Mark: Ich hasse ihn! Ich denke das ist ein "Scheißmagazin ". Die meisten amerikanischen Rockmagazine sind wirklich Scheiße.
MY WAY: There is a line in "Oswald Defense Lawyer" in which the American music magazine SPIN appears. Didn't you like their article about THE FALL?
Mark: I hate it! I think this is a "shitty magazine". Most American rock magazines really suck.

- 51. | 07/10/2021
http://tapeattack.blogspot.com/2020/09/my-way-09-88-bergkamen.html

- 52. | 22/10/2021
In terms of coverage prior to the song/this interview, all I can find in the database of the magazine I have access to is an article on The Fall in vol. 2 iss 3, June 1986, p.16. That's it in terms of anything substantive.
There is no mention that I can find in the magazine of Bugliosi, or Spence, or anything about the Lee Harvey Oswald TV trial.
So perhaps it's not about an actual interview, but applying a dislike of the magazine to attack someone's else reputation, on the grounds that they are the kind of person who would love the magazine.

- 53. | 27/12/2022

- 54. | 27/12/2022

- 55. | 05/05/2023
The prosecution lawyer
Turns himself to fart
(Not 'to butter'.)
I still do.

- 56. | 05/05/2023
The prosecution lawyer
Turns himself to fart
(Not 'to butter'.)
I still do.

- 57. | 24/08/2023
Was it, perhaps, "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald", produced by London Weekend Television and first aired in 1986? In the programme, Vincent Bugliosi was the prosecutor and Gerry Spence was the defence lawyer. He lost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Spence#Mock_trial:_United_States_v._Oswald