R.O.D.

Lyrics

(1)

Maybe you haven't got everything that you want after all

It's approaching
600 pounds gas and flesh
Rotten, tainted
It's approaching
Lips and tongue abhorrent
Flickering lexicon
Or a stray dog pack leader (2)

Hide, hide, all good people hang out for a result
Hide, dive, hide, reasonable people in silence do exult (3)
Realm of dusk
Realm of dusk

The Northerns
Look at the North ones
Their brains are unhinged by the sun (4)

Hide, hide, all good people hang out for a result
Hide, dive, hide, reasonable people in silence do exult
Realm of dusk
Realm of dusk

Rare stone
Our faces are rare stone
It comes to take them
Root out the armies, and

Hide, hide, all good people hang out for a result
Hide, dive, hide, reasonable people, it's the realm of dusk
Realm of dusk
Realm of dusk
Realm of dusk

Hide, hide, dive!
Realm of dusk...

 

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Notes

1. R.O.D.=Realm of Dusk. Dan remarks: "This is a red herring, I'm sure, but I do like the symmetry of Rod Serling being behind the Twilight Zone. Rod = R.O.D.; Twilight Zone = Realm of Dusk."

MES was known to be a big fan of The Twilight Zone, as evidence by numerous lyrics.

Portsmouth Bubblejet comments:

"Realm of Dusk was the English title of a collection of poems by Romanian writer Mihail Crama which appeared in bilingual form in 1984. 'Realm of Dusk' was also the title of a 1985 instrumental by Bill Nelson, which appeared on his album Trial By Intimacy - The Summer Of God's Piano."

Occam's Razor might lead me to surmise that MES got the title from Nelson, who got it from Crama. At the same time, it's possible that only two are connected or, of course, that none of them are...the Twilight Zone connection seems to make it more likely than it would otherwise be that MES arrived at the title independently.

MES talks about the song a bit here:

R.O.D. (from _Bend Sinister_, 1986) "Realm Of Dusk, what do you think of that one?" Smith asks. I say I like the guitar a lot. "That was Brix, brilliant. It was an instrumental at first, I added the vocals later. It reminded me of surf music. The lyrics are about approaching the mediocre." I ask him how he feels about _Bend Sinister_, because he says something different about it in each interview. "I like _Bend Sinister_, it's brilliant, but I think it's been over-reported on. I found that critics always write things like 'this is obviously the record of a dying band', and later say they always thought it was a great record." 

John remembers: "I used to know the Fall's roadie, named Colin, who was also a founder (and short-lived) member of the Junior Manson Slags. He told me that the title of this song was also a little personal dedication to himself: 'Our Roadie.'"

This is presumably Colin Burns, who was also in Ark with Steve and Paul Hanley.

^

2. As befits a creature who appears in a realm of dusk (or is what approaches here the realm itself? If so, 600 lbs seems a bit light) it is as if the words with which we can describe it are hard to descry, flickering in and out of reach.  

Or, in a moment of fear, the narrator's words fail in the face of sublime terror, flickering out like a candle.

On the other hand, Dan notes that "'flickering' has another angle of meaning, only to be found in books of underground slang like Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, where 'flickering' is defined as 'grinning, or laughing in a man's face'-- so it's a bit like jeering or laughing. A 'flicker,' in Grose, is a drinking glass, so there's an association with drunkenness, punning on flickering as unsteadiness.

Further support can be found in the better known A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, edited by Eric Partridge, which also defines "flicker" as a drinking glass and "flicker" as to grin or laugh in a person's face. Again that sense of aggressive mockery.

And I'm thinking that this sense seems to fit better in the context. A 'flickering lexicon' would now be words of jeering in-your-face mockery. Whether it's what was intended or not obviously I cannot say, but it does provide us with a new reading."

On the other hand, Dan also finds that in some live versions, the word order is altered such that "flickering" does not modify "lexicon" at all, such as certain shows from the Fall of 1986 which have:


Tongue and lips flickering
Abhorrent lexicon 
A stray dog pack leader

And, from Hamburg February 13, 1987:

600 pounds of gas and flesh
Lexicon abhorrent
It's approaching
With a riding aspect
On a stray dog pack leader

And Bazhdaddy maintains that the Bend Sinister version transcribed here should read:

Lips and tongue abhorrent, flickering.
Lexicon of a stray dog pack leader

I'm not personally convinced that MES has one set meaning attached to these lines such that we would have to read it one way. Aural language has no punctuation per se, and the ambiguity only has to be resolved in the act of transcribing. Therefore, it's good to keep all these variants in mind, and to remember that the transcript is a representation of what is sung, but is not identical with it.

^

 

3. The origin of this line can probably be found in a poem by W.B. Yeats (1865-1939) entitled "To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing":

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors' eyes;
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.
 
On the Peel version the lyric comes even closer to the line from Yeats, as MES there sings "Be silent and exult."  
 
 
4. The North (of England?) is not usually associated with overexposure to the sun; perhaps the "north ones" have wandered South and, unused to the amount of sunlight there, have become unhinged.

On the other hand, gizmoman submits:

"Suggests Icelanders to me, they have 23 hours of daylight during summer and this could well have been a line saved from The Fall's time in Iceland."
 
Goylito comments:
"Possibly a reference to the Hyperboreans, a supposed lost race similar to Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria kinda stuff. Definite possibility that MES came across them from various literary sources. Personally seem them referenced in Nietzsche and various occult/horror style fiction." This is the sort of thing MES goes in for... 
 

More Information

R.O.D.: Fall Tracks A-Z

R.O.D.: The Fall Online Forum  includes an interesting interpretation of the song by Dktr Skagra, whose hypothesis is that the song is about the Fall.

Note this abstract of a theology paper below--Mihail Crama's "Realm of Dusk" (note 1)seems in a way the opposite of MES's, a place of sweetness and repose, perhaps like  Blake's "Beulah." Is it somehow pathetic to point out that this abstract--from 2008--ends with the word "approaching"?

Theodor Damian

Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, Metropolitan College of New York; President of the Romanian Institute of Orthodox Theology and Spirituality

A Poet of the Transcendent:  Mihail Crama, "The Realm of Dusk"

Symposium, Vol. XV/1, 2008

 

Abstract: The poetical universe of M. Crama (The Realm of Dusk) runs in parallel to the physical universe in which he lives. This universe is not to be thought of in its actual evolved state only, but also in its primordial state; thus it becomes a dream world from another realm, a world that is to be discovered with surprise, as it is sweet and unmoved. One looks at it as a spectator and does not dare to touch it, lest it collapses. One would not want the dream to vanish. The stages of Crama’s poetical universe coincide most of the time with the great themes he is approaching.

Keywords: literature, theology, transcendence, poetry, history, cosmos, Crama

 

Comments (75)

dannyno
  • 1. dannyno | 04/05/2014
The last lines after "move out the armies" go like this, to my ears:

Hide, hide, all good people hang out for a result
Hide, dive, hide, reasonable people exult realm of dusk
Realm of dusk
etc

i.e. not "in silence to exult"
marc balance
  • 2. marc balance | 16/05/2014
...in the peel session version it is loud and clear ' reasonable people, it's the realm of dusk...' ... same, but not so loud and clear, in the album version..
Joseph Mullaney
  • 3. Joseph Mullaney | 27/05/2014
It doesn't sound like `robes in tatters' to me. Could well be `Robson tainted', which I believe has been pointed out elsewhere.
bzfgt
  • 4. bzfgt | 28/05/2014
Does "Robson tainted" mean anything? Or is it purely about phonetics?
bzfgt
  • 5. bzfgt | 28/05/2014
I agree it sounds more like that, by the way; I'm just now listening to the Peel version and it seems definitely to be "...tainted." But who the hell is Robson?

OK, I rewound it a few times and am changing it to "Rotten, tainted" unless there's a good argument for "Robson" ("rotten" actually sounds clearish to me right now). It's kind of a shame, since "robes in tatters" is evocative in a kind of trashy way...the fact that it would be wearing "robes" is kind of amusing.
Joseph Mullaney
  • 6. Joseph Mullaney | 29/05/2014
The England football team's manager in 1986 (when this song was released) was Bobby Robson. Their captain was Bryan Robson of Manchester United. Either one of these Robsons seems to be referenced in the programme for the `Hey Luciani' stage play: http://www.visi.com/fall/news/luciani.html

Of course it may not be Robson he's saying, I'll listen again.
bob stevens
  • 7. bob stevens | 04/08/2014
I think I remember reading in an 80's article Smith talking disparagingly of Robsons England. (They had failed to qualify for the 1984 Euros, and the song was written presumably after this and before the 1986 WC)
Robsons reputation had presumably took a dip since his Ipswich days and was now tainted? But I have no idea why this observation would go into this song.
The word result is in the song however.
bob stevens
  • 8. bob stevens | 04/08/2014
This has got me thinkin!
"The lyrics are about approaching the mediocre." (MES) - Mediocre is a very apt word for English football since 66
josephmullaney85@gmail.com
  • 9. josephmullaney85@gmail.com | 23/09/2014
Having listened to this again I'm certain that it is Robson.
Karl B.
  • 10. Karl B. | 27/10/2014
Just to share some thoughts on this one.i think the Realm of Dusk is describing Marks penchant for unsavoury watering holes.hes known to frequent these types of establishments soaking it up and scribble lyrics on fag boxs and beer mats.A hide or a dive is common slang for early house type bars located in old dock or market areas to cater for the working man on night shift.he too was entitled to a beer after work.they are usually shuttered from the street and can be dark grimy holes,often times hard to tell what time of day it is from withinin,its a realm of perpetual dusk but thts probably agreeable to the clientele.in the modern era they are frequnted by alcoholic derelicts,lonely old men and the racing news hard men types.verse 1 i think describes the latter type of clientele.and i think the word is rupsitating,one of marks made up words with a Lovecraftian vibe.like hes describing one of H.Ps elder gods.pure malevolence.rupturing and pulsating.simultaneously.the psycho gangleader.verse 2 describes the unsettling re-emergence from one of these establishments.verse 3 i think describes the old war veteran contingency,chiseled features,looks that are precious.still at war or in war time.anyway these are just my feelings about the song.
dannyno
  • 11. dannyno | 26/06/2015
I hear "Rotten", not "Robson". However, the song is not without potential nods to soccer.

The first live performance of the song was apparently 12 July 1986. The World Cup took place in Mexico 31 May to 29 June. Argentina won, having knocked out England 2-1 in a quarter-final notorious for Diego Maradona's "hand of God" goal.

"Hide, hide, all good people hang out for a result" sounds like it could refer to football results.

"Their brains are unhinged by the sun" could refer to Northern European teams coping with the Mexican heat.

But it all seems a bit forced.
harleyr
  • 12. harleyr | 22/07/2015
Move out the armies...

Isn't this...
Roots out the armies?

I took it to mean the giant creature who thinks our faces look like rare stones deliberately flushes out the human armies, so it can stamp on them and get on with its stone collecting.
bzfgt
  • 13. bzfgt | 24/07/2015
Could be, I am listening to it now and considering it.

Anyone up for transcribing "Pledge" or "Stout Man"?
bzfgt
  • 14. bzfgt | 24/07/2015
I think so based on Peel. I'm going to listen to BS now and check that though. I changed it for now, I like your interpretation, it ties it together nicely. I never knew what the fuck any of this thing was about.
bzfgt
  • 15. bzfgt | 24/07/2015
Oh yeah, based on BS it's definitely "root." A pleasing result.
Martin
  • 16. Martin | 04/11/2016
I've listened to a few early live performances of the song (including the debut) and every time it's sounded like "rotten" and not "Robson" to me.
bzfgt
  • 17. bzfgt | 19/11/2016
Yes, I am right now listening to Peel and I hear very clearly and distinctly "rotten, tainted," not "Robson," although it's an interesting suggestion. I'm sticking with this but Mr. Robson is now, of course, in the record.
bzfgt
  • 18. bzfgt | 19/11/2016
Oog, I don't know about the other variants, I'm going to leave it for now. What a great song!
bzfgt
  • 19. bzfgt | 19/11/2016
Not sure about "root out," Peel sounds more like "move" to me but it doesn't seem definite. Maybe I'll listen to the 1% slower version next.
bzfgt
  • 20. bzfgt | 19/11/2016
I'm still not sure, but it definitely sounds 1% slower...and BS definitely sounds more like "root"! Changed.
John
  • 21. John | 26/01/2018
I used to know the Fall's roadie, who was also a founder (and short-lived) member of the Junior Manson Slags. Can't remember his name now, it was so many years ago during mad times in London. But he told me that the title of this song was also a little personal dedication to himself: "Our Roadie".
John
  • 22. John | 26/01/2018
Come to think of it his name was Colin.
bzfgt
  • 23. bzfgt (link) | 04/02/2018
Ha! Good one!
bzfgt
  • 24. bzfgt (link) | 04/02/2018
John, are you sure about Colin? I can't find a record of a Colin in JMS, although maybe he left before they recorded or something?
bzfgt
  • 25. bzfgt (link) | 04/02/2018
Wait--from a Rate Your Music review:

"More recently, Colin Burns (founder member of the JMS) has joined the band ARK - created by two ex-members of The Fall, Steve and Paul Hanley."
bzfgt
  • 26. bzfgt (link) | 04/02/2018
OK, confirmed Colin Burns in Ark, it must be he.
Bazhdaddy
  • 27. Bazhdaddy | 27/09/2018
There's a barely audible whispered chant at the beginning, slightly clearer on Peel version;
"Maybe you/ haven't got/ everything/ that you want /after all" starts at 00:09
dannyno
  • 28. dannyno | 02/10/2018
Re: Colin Burns. I'm skeptical, but could be so.

Importantly, the dates check out. R.O.D. debuted live in 1986, and in Hanley's biography is this passage, in the context of talking about the play of Hey! Luciani, which of course was later that year.

Colin, our roadie of six months, is a genuine superstar


It's the same Colin.
bzfgt
  • 30. bzfgt (link) | 13/10/2018
Bazhdaddy: Yes, I hear it! Excellent.
Goylito
  • 31. Goylito (link) | 13/11/2018
'The Northerns
Look at the North ones
Their brains are unhinged by the sun'
Possibly a reference to the Hyperboreans a supposed lost race similar to Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria kinda stuff. Definite possibility that MES came across them from various literary sources. Personally seem them referenced in Nietzsche and various occult/horror style fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperborea
dannyno
  • 32. dannyno | 28/01/2019
"Lips and tongue abhorrent
Flickering lexicon"

What does "flickering lexicon" mean? Well, "lexicon" would seem to represent a dictionary or glossary or vocabulary - by poetic extension, a style of expression. I don't think we are to take it that it's about a literal word-book of any kind.

Note 2 currently, and admirably, sets out what I think has been the general opinion - in this realm of dusk, we are to think of a "flickering lexicon" as one that flutters like a candle, perhaps insubstantial or unreliable. So the narrator's words are failing him, confronted by this abhorrent apparent beast/creature. Failing either through fear, or inability to do it descriptive justice in faint or stuttering speech.

But I wonder.

And the reason I wonder is that "flickering" seems like an understated way of describing that situation. And maybe that's it. Maybe MES liked the phrase, and felt it kind of fits here. And yet somehow this has been nagging away at me.

Now, it just so happens that "flickering" has another angle of meaning, only to be found in books of underground slang like "Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue", where "flickering" is defined as "grinning, or laughing in a man's face" - so it's a bit like jeering or laughing. A "flicker", in Grose, is a drinking glass, so there's an association with drunkenness, punning on flickering as unsteadiness.

Further support can be found in the better known "A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English", edited by Eric Partridge, which also defines "flicker" as a drinking glass and "flicker" as to grin or laugh in a person's face. Again that sense of aggressive mockery.

And I'm thinking that this sense seems to fit better in the context. A "flickering lexicon" would now be words of jeering in-you-face mockery. Whether it's what was intended or not obviously I cannot say, but it does provide us with a new reading.
dannyno
  • 33. dannyno | 28/01/2019
More support, from Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, by Jonathon Green (1998, pb ed 2000):

[quote]
flicker v. 1. [late 17C-early 19C] to grin, to laugh in someone's face. 2 [late 19C-1930s] (US Und.) to faint or pretend to faint. to die.
dannyno
  • 34. dannyno | 28/01/2019
Some live versions have a different word order which give the lines a different meaning.

I-Beam San Francisco, 21 Oct 1986 (not same as gigography?) and Bristol University, 06 Nov 1986, and Sheffield Polytechnic, 26 Nov 1986 have this:


Tongue and lips flickering
Abhorrent lexicon
[of?] A stray dog pack leader


Woolwich Coronet, 08 Nov 1986 follows the Bend Sinister word order.

But then this: Markthalle, Hamburg, Germany, 13 Feb 1987:


600 pounds of gas and flesh
Lexicon abhorrent
It's approaching
With a riding aspect (?)
On a stray dog pack leader


Or something like that.

The Peel Session version sticks with the flickering lexicon version.

Anyway, so there's a common live variant (original? revised?) in which the lexicon is abhorrent rather than flickering, and in which lips and tongue are flickering rather than abhorrent. More straightforward, I think. But not what is on record.
dannyno
  • 35. dannyno | 28/01/2019
... and which also suggests that my attempts to force a different meaning on the word "flickering" may be moot. On the other hand, that reading is still there even if not intended (and we don't know it wasn't, as MES experimented with word order, if that's what he was doing).
Bazhdaddy
  • 36. Bazhdaddy | 04/02/2019
Heard here as;
"Lips and tongue abhorrent, flickering.
Lexicon of a stray dog pack leader"

He/it has a physically repulsive mouth and a limited animal vocab.

Peel version is "kids, lips and tongue"
Sea Bee Blue
  • 37. Sea Bee Blue | 08/02/2019
This song bespeaks an army of the apocalypse. M. E. is a Balaam prophet, and he mocks those that understand in his song "Powder Keg". "Flickering lexicon" a reference to conlangs. "Stray dog pack leader" a reference to a warrior form. Not "rotten, tainted" but "robs imitating", a game in the final battles, wherein property is abolished as a power and now a mockery for play. Peel version, "kids, lips and tongues" an echo of "from the mouths of babes".
Sea Bee Blue
  • 38. Sea Bee Blue | 08/02/2019
Shit, it's not Powder Keg. What's the song where he says "believed we were inspired by The Holy Spirit"? Never liked the track much, so I don't remember the title.
bzfgt
  • 39. bzfgt (link) | 16/02/2019
Great stuff with the "flickering." Check out my new Note 2; given my verdict at the end, I am quite satisfied with both the transcription and the note.
bzfgt
  • 40. bzfgt (link) | 16/02/2019
On the other hand, you might think my verdict a pusillanimous cop-out...Paul Go would never stand for it!
dannyno
  • 41. dannyno | 16/02/2019
Comment #36. I disagree with the punctuation here. As sung on the album and Peel Session it is not as straightforward as that, because there are relatively long gaps between the words "abhorrent", "flickering" and "lexicon".
dannyno
  • 42. dannyno | 16/02/2019
Comment #38: You're thinking of Hostile. The lyric you cite comes from a newspaper article.
dannyno
  • 43. dannyno | 03/03/2019
The "lips and tongue abhorrent" bit is vaguely reminiscent of the opening pages of Swedish painter Carl Larsson's autobiography.

He writes about a dream involving a cobra:


Now it approached my face, I felt its tongue as if it were fluttering against my lips, but I smiled and remained courageous. Ah, but I was petrified, and so was my wide smile. Now, now it stole its narrow, thin, thin tongue between my lips. I felt it against my tongue. Now I could take it no longer.

I... woke up.


Dan
bzfgt
  • 44. bzfgt (link) | 21/03/2019
Wow the cobra thing is good, I think that captures the feel of the thing, the opening of the song here is like a dream too.

I fixed a bunch of typos in note 2...Dan note there are revisions to Slates and (a little) Leave the Capitol, and I added some of your stuff to Dktr Faustus that you didn't volunteer for that purpose, so go there and rebuke me if needed.
Portsmouth Bubblejet
  • 45. Portsmouth Bubblejet | 27/03/2019
I've often wondered about the inspiration(s) behind this song. 'Realm of Dusk' was the English title of a collection of poems by Romanian writer Mihail Crama which appeared in bilingual form in 1984. 'Realm of Dusk' was also the title of a 1985 instrumental by Bill Nelson, which appeared on his album 'Trial By Intimacy - The Summer Of God's Piano'.

The bit about 'the Northerns' whose brains were 'unhinged by the sun' sounds a bit sub-Nietzschean, but it isn't from 'Beyond Good and Evil', which Smith once cited on a reading list.
Bazhdaddy
  • 46. Bazhdaddy | 28/03/2019
Now, on the splendid new remaster it sounds like "lids and tongue". The "it" with abhorrent flickering eyelids and tongue is a compelling image, tongue fluttering, flickering like the cobra dream in note 43
bzfgt
  • 47. bzfgt (link) | 06/04/2019
Whoa, Crama is gold.

Someday I will google every word in every song in every possible combination...many of you will then become obsolete. Until then, however, keep laboring, my minions...did I say all that aloud?
bzfgt
  • 48. bzfgt (link) | 06/04/2019
Does anyone know what an Xbox "mod" is?

https://bethesda.net/en/mods/fallout4/mod-detail/1666077

Note the Twilight Zone connection...I was about to say Eureka! No one has noticed that "Realm of Dusk" is a paraphrase of "Twilight Zone!" But of course then I see it begins the first note, and of course &$^# Dan already figured it out...

The "mod," whatever the hell that is, is an "influenced by" (maybe) rather than "influence," but we can do that once in a while as long as the site doesn't get too clogged with them....
bzfgt
  • 49. bzfgt (link) | 06/04/2019
No, I seem to remember some stuff about "We Hyperboreans" by Nietzsche, in other words identifying with the "Northerns" rather than crying "unhinged"...
bzfgt
  • 50. bzfgt (link) | 06/04/2019
There seems to be an arabic edition of Realm of Dusk, or something....an arabic site with a download of the English text actually appears more likely?

http://qasimalmasi.tk/download/C8oIAQAAIAAJ-the-realm-of-dusk

But I'm not clicking that shit
bzfgt
  • 51. bzfgt (link) | 06/04/2019
A little bit of tantalizing irrelevance in "More Information," too...
dannyno
  • 52. dannyno | 12/04/2019
"xbox mod", comment #48:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_modding

It's when you get around the security measures on an xbox in order to open it up for other uses or enable usually disallowed functions.
dannyno
  • 53. dannyno | 12/04/2019
"exult"

I haven't listed to this again yet, need to do so, but I wonder if it should be "exalt" instead. i.e, "exalt" is to praise, and "exult" is to express joy or triumph.
bzfgt
  • 54. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
"Exalt" is transitive , so we'd take a grammar hit...but I think the Yeats connection is the decisive thing for me here, you might not see it but it always put me in mind of that
bzfgt
  • 55. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
I should say transitivity+ Yeats
jensotto
  • 56. jensotto | 25/06/2019
Dusk by Saki, BBC Radio 10 March 1954 (see Genome)?
RO=SE in date-encoding: I focused too much on S/19, E/5, etc. R/18, O/15, D/4 brings us to 1954. (Rob is 1952, Roy is 1975)...

RODIN becomes 14 Sept 1954. ROTAX 24 Jan 1970. BBC Genome is the place to look - ROGER is 18 May 1957 and the film is Stand-In (Bogart).

Snakefinger had an early song about The man in the dark Sedan His lyrical universe is maybe too influenced by The Residents - but could be 14 Jan...
HiccupPercy
  • 57. HiccupPercy | 03/07/2019
I’m convinced the opening lines are MES describing the Fall and are therefore the greatest opening lyrics of any album.
bzfgt
  • 58. bzfgt (link) | 03/07/2019
I like that, HP!
HiccupPercy
  • 59. HiccupPercy | 03/07/2019
I’m waiting for Dannyno to tell the Fall would have weighed considerably more than 600lbs
dannyno
  • 60. dannyno | 03/07/2019
Well, they would!
bzfgt
  • 61. bzfgt (link) | 12/07/2019
Poetic license--the way I see it, they could have weighed as little as 780...the core 5, anyway.
dannyno
  • 62. dannyno | 14/11/2019
gizmoman
  • 63. gizmoman | 30/01/2020
"The Northerns
Look at the North ones
Their brains are unhinged by the sun"

Suggests Icelanders to me, they have 23 hours of daylight during summer and this could well have been a line saved from The Fall's time in Iceland.
victor
  • 64. victor | 06/08/2020
Three distinct moans happen between the 3:36 - 4:06 marks. Sounds like Brix, but wondering what that is? Any ideas?
dannyno
  • 65. dannyno | 11/10/2020
Funky Si's A-Z of Manchester, episode "R" includes a discussion of this song.

https://funky-si-s-a-z-of-manchester.pinecast.co/episode/ead832e5e56240b7/episode-18-letter-r-from-rollerball-to-the-ryder-family

Apparently he was asked to play "like the Surfaris".
dannyno
  • 66. dannyno | 01/01/2021
Rotten vs Robson.

There are several posts above debating the above. I still hear "Rotten", but a soccer interpretation could be made to stand up.

However, I wanted to come back to comment #6 and Joseph Mullaney's remark that:


The England football team's manager in 1986 (when this song was released) was Bobby Robson. Their captain was Bryan Robson of Manchester United. Either one of these Robsons seems to be referenced in the programme for the `Hey Luciani' stage play


What Joseph is referring to is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_hand_of_God

Plenty of videos of the incident on the web, here's one:

[youtube">http://thefall.org/news/luciani1.jpg]<br />
<br />
Note the bottom right.<br />
<br />
As I noted in comment #11, in the World Cup in 1986 the England team were knocked out by Argentina in part due to the controversial Diego Maradona "hand of god" goal (but it was his fist).

https://youtu.be/oJEw7Inwlc4[/youtube]

The item on the programme is clearly a reference to that World Cup incident. The programme would of course have been produced well after the incident.

But that doesn't mean it's necessarily safe to read "Robson" back in the lyric. As I say, I'm sympathetic to the interpretation, but ultimately I don't hear "Robson". Could still be a football element to the lyric, even if it's not "Robson".
dannyno
  • 67. dannyno | 01/01/2021
I screwed up the link to youtube:

dannyno
  • 68. dannyno | 01/01/2021
And the programme Joseph was referring to:

http://thefall.org/news/luciani1.jpg
dannyno
  • 69. dannyno | 01/01/2021
Worth noting that at the time this song was debuted, Channel 4 in the UK were airing The Twilight Zone.

See information here:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/the-twilight-zone-and-the-fall-t23314-s68.html
dannyno
  • 70. dannyno | 01/10/2021
Brix on Twitter, 1 Oct 2021, 10:14am
https://twitter.com/Brixsmithstart/status/1443866900514197514?s=20


So glad u love R.O.D.
When I wrote the riff it started in my mind as a surfers lament.The sea taking one of our own.
I grew up in L.A. & was connected 2 the sea & surfing culture. The song evolved into something different,fallesque ,but that was my initial inspiration.
Bx
dannyno
  • 71. dannyno | 16/11/2021
Brix on Twitter, on this song, 10 November 2021 7:47PM, as part of #TimsTwitterListeningParty for Bend Sinister:


R.O.D.
Embracing the 60’s Surf vibe, Mark wrote a lyric which was very revealing of his true feelings.
“The Northerns
Look at the North ones
Their brains are unhinged by the sun” He hated it! He hated the sun & the beach, he couldn’t swim!


https://twitter.com/Brixsmithstart/status/1458521622369947648
dannyno
  • 72. dannyno | 25/04/2022
Follow up on comment #70, Brix claiming the riff.

On the Hanley brothers Oh! Brother podcast (Season 2, episode 7, 25 April 2022), Craig Scanlon disputes Brix's claim to have written the riff. He says he showed her the riff.

https://play.acast.com/s/605f39df77590c5e123f9e5c/6265a5f4f6db2100121105d5
HJDoom
  • 73. HJDoom | 31/05/2022
It occurs to me that the following lines could easily be a Camus reference.

The Northerns
Look at the North ones
Their brains are unhinged by the sun

The Camus novel "L'Etranger" concerns a murder committed by a social outcast in French Algiers. The protagonist Meursault kills an Arab while possibly suffering from heatstroke. Meursault offers no defence at his trial even though, as a Frenchman in a colony, he could have argued that he was driven temporarily mad by the heat and sun and possibly avoided the death penalty. Many Europeans had claimed to have been "unhinged by the sun" and been treated leniently, especially when committing crimes against the indigenous people. Here "the north ones" could be a reference both to the novel's setting in North Africa, and the fact that white Europeans came from even further north and were considered peculiarly susceptible to heat derangement.
John
  • 74. John | 10/12/2022
Does anyone else finds similarity between the intro of R.O.D and the intro of Can's song Uphill? Might it be a quote?
david rathbone
  • 75. david rathbone | 15/10/2023
Comment #74 -- Yes, the muted guitar string strums at the start of Can's "Uphill" are so similar to the ROD intro that it does seem like a direct reference.
Comment #63 -- It could mean Iceland, but "The northern ones with brains unhinged by the sun" describes Australia exactly, and The Fall had been downunder in '82...
Comments #31, #45, #49 -- The "We Hypoboreans" bit in Nietzsche is from the first paragraph of "The Antichrist" from 1888 which begins "Let us look ourselves in the face. We are Hyperboreans -- we are well aware how far off the beaten track we live."
The "dusk" theme runs right throughout Nietzsche. Another of his 1888 books is called "Twilight of the Idols," and his earlier book entitled "Daybreak" from 1881 (sometimes translated as "Dawn") opens its preface with the line: "In this book you will find a subterrainian man at work, one who tunnels and mines and undermines."
Comment #43 -- There is also the passage in Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" from 1884 where a snake crawls into Zarathustra's mouth while he is sleeping and bites his tongue, and he awakens and bites its head off, symbolizing Nietzsche's relationship to a Christianity "perverted by language." (Section 2 of the chapter "On the Vision and the Riddle" in book 3 of TSZ; pre-cog'd by the chapter "On The Adder's Bite" in book 1) -- "It is difficult to live with people, because silence is so difficult. Especially for one who is garralous." ("On Redemption" in book 2). Specifics about football and pubs are not incompatible with deep musings on the tension between the implicit and the explicit in the making of great art. Also, slightly OT, but "You who are glad of riddles, riddle me this": In the chapter "Before Sunrise" in book 3 of TSZ, the cover of Dragnet is tied to The Diceman: "This blessed certainty I found in all things: that they would rather dance on the feet of chance .. there is no eternal spider or spider-web of reason: you are to me a dance-floor for divine accidents; you are to me a divine table for divine dice and dice-players." (George Cockcroft who wrote The Diceman under the pseudonym Luke Rhinehart got a PhD from Columbia in NYC and had read Nietzsche). And yes re comment #73, such themes are strong in Camus but only because Camus was so steeped in Nietzsche.
In sum: TSZ, book 4, "The Drunken Song," section 12: "Have you now learned my song? Have you guessed its intent? -- the world is deep, deeper than the day had been aware."

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