Rowche Rumble

Lyrics

Rowche Rumble
Is valium
Valium
Valium
Rowche Rumble
That's rumble

Thousands of wives around the world
are given them by doctors, who think they're little girls
The doctors need prescriptions
The wives need their pill
So Rowche Rumble

Menopause wives are hard to handle
No culture or love, no gambles
The dull manage, especially smashed
on Rowche Rumble
Rowche Rumble

Physician, heal thyself (2)

Our government's built on expense accounts
Once in, never out
A step to Rowche
Force feeding
What are the people around you taking?
Rowche Rumble

Now I've tried crazy things
Abusing my body to a quick end
But I'll never never never never do it again
I said I'll never never never never do it again (3)
Rowche Rumble

Physician, heal thyself
Physician, heal thyself

Musician, heal thyself
Hey listener, heal thyself

Loads of people across the land
Do a prescribed death dance
While condemning speed and grass
They got an addiction like a hole in the ass
Rowche Rumble
Rowche Rumble

I sent 70 pounds instead of 70 p to
pharmaceutical company Rowche AG (4)
The lorry arrived the next day
Swiss gnomes dealing out potions
Kick your liver in
What is it there for?
To decant the beer
...the full use of your body isn't it? (5)

Rowche Rumble
Is valium
That's rumble

Notes

1. This song is quite explicitly about Valium (diazepam), in the model of the Stones' (less explicit) "Mother's Little Helper." Valium was produced by the pharmaceutical company Roche, which has presumably been altered here for legal reasons. According to Simon Ford in Hip Priest (thanks to Reformation):

"'Rowche Rumble' refered back to Smith's shipping clerk days, when he did business with the Rowche [sic] Chemical Company. One day, due to a clerical error, Smith found himself with piles of barbiturates that he attempted to hide in stores across Manchester and in the bottom drawer of his desk at work."

The source given for this is an interview with Dave Haslam which appeared in City Life, #58, 18 July 1986, pp.22-23. What it actually says is the following (thanks to Dan for digging this up):

"The Roche Chemical Company used to do business through the office and due to incompetence with paperwork Smith found himself responsible for a forty ton load of barbiturates from Roche which had to be stored in a croft in Manchester. He kept stuffing barbiturates into his bottom drawer. And that's part of the inside story of 'Rowche Rumble' (the name of an early Fall song)."

According to the Fall's press release: "This is a great dance number and combines a cheek-in-tongue putdown of a popular sweetie with the Fall's tribute to Racey. Dig it."

Many fans do; according to a poll, this is the most popular song on Early Years 77-79 among members of the Fall online forum. Racey was an English band in the 1970s; the drums here somewhat resemble Racey's song "Kitty" (which became a hit in refurbished form when Toni Basil recorded it as "Mickey").

Anita points out that the title may be an allusion to Link Wray's "Rumble."

The riff is based on "Shake Appeal" by the Stooges. From Brooklyn Vegan:

"Marc Riley, who is a BBC 6 DJ these days, told us a little about the origins of the song. 'This was the first time Craig and I saw down to purposefully write a song for The Fall,' Marc says. 'He (and Steve) had just joined the band and I remember we were sat in the front room of my house going over riffs and stuff. I came up with a sequence that (in my mind) was akin to The Stooges "Tight Pants/ Shake Appeal." Of course it ended up nothing like it...but once we all got together in the rehearsal room it came together as a pretty ferocious beast. Particularly once MES started weaving his bitter magic and the pounding drums kicked in.'"

2. "Physician, heal thyself" is said by Jesus in Luke 4:23; he claims to be quoting an already existing proverb, although there is now no older source remaining, as far as I can make out.

The cadence here anticipates "Spectre vs. Rector."

3. It seems clear that MES must be singing in character here.

Connell brings the goods: "'I'll never never never do it again' is almost a quote of the line in 'Transfusion' by Nervous Norvus, 'I'll never never never speed again' which of course MES & Ed Blaney covered many years later."

According to Mark Turner, Marc Riley has confirmed that this is the source of the lyric.

"Transfusion" is on Kenny Everett's "All-Time Worst Top 30", along with Steve Bent's "I'm Going to Spain" which the Fall covered for The Infotainment Scan (thanks to Dan).

Martin submits: "from the performance of the song at St. Helens, 20 February 1981:

I'm a real gone paleface and that's no illusion
Transfusion, transfusion"

4. MES says that when he worked as a shipping clerk, a paperwork error resulted in his receiving a massive shipment of valium from Roche. See note 1 above.

5. Trevor Morris points out the live variant from Totales Turns runs "They're gonna kick your liver in, y'gonna treat it like a bin, beer & speed is OK, but the full use of your body isn't."

Note that similar phrases appear in the handwritten lyrics for "Underground Medicin."

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More Information

Rowche Rumble: Fall Tracks A-Z

Comments (38)

1. Mark | 21/05/2014

"Physician, heal thyself" possibly comes from Luke 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physician,_heal_thyself

2. Mark | 21/05/2014

Is there a link between "Your Heart Out" and "Your liver in"?

3. Connell | 30/06/2014

"I'll never never never do it again" is almost a quote of the line in "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus, "I'll never never never speed again"

which of course MES & Ed Blaney covered many years later.

4. Anita | 08/09/2014

My guess is that Mark E. Smith knows Link Wray's very influential 1958 "Rumble" which was banned from radio play although it was an instrumental. A rumble was a gang street fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTg6rZJCu4

5. Sumsiadad | 25/01/2016

I'm surprised no-one has pointed out that the main riff in this song is a sort of shambling homage to the Stooges' "Shake Appeal".

6. bzfgt | 12/03/2016

Good call, Sumsi, it is the same riff.

7. dannyno | 10/08/2016

Note: Nervous Norvus' "Transfusion" appeared on Kenny Everett's "All-Time Worst Top 30", along with Steve Bent's "I'm Going to Spain".

8. dannyno | 12/08/2017

The similarity of the riff to The Stooges' Shake Appeal is also noted in Rob Waite's article "Notebooks Out", in the Fall fanzine, "The Biggest Library Yet", issue #18, January 2000, p.6.

9. mark turner | 17/01/2018

marc riley confirmed recently that "I'll never never never do it again" is from nervous nurvus transfusion.

10. Trevor Morris | 25/01/2018

Pretty sure the outro is
"Kick your liver in
What is it there for?
[To decant the beer]
...the full use of your body isn't?"
The Dudley live version from September '79 (and others around the time) condense it to, "kick your liver in, treat it like a bin, what is it there for? the full use of your body isn't", plus some Underground Medecin lyrics. And, of course, Totale's Turns captures another memorable variant "They're gonna kick your liver in, y'gonna treat it like a bin, beer & speed is OK, but the full use of your body isn't."

11. John Kedward | 28/01/2018

I thought the rumble was a pun on stomach cramps when you take them, and rumble meaning find out, uncover the government expense account which was not widely known.

12. Csonic (link) | 25/02/2018

Marc Riley also confirmed that the riff on "Rowche" is indeed a flawed* attempt to play "Shake Appeal".

13. bzfgt (link) | 10/03/2018

Damn, he tweets a lot and you can't search Twitter timelines. I scrolled back to the beginning of the year looking for "Shake Appeal," and that's as far as I'm willing to go because that in itself took forever. If you remember around when the tweet was, could you please find it? This needs confirming.

14. dannyno | 11/03/2018

The story starts with this Tweet I just found from Vic Godard:

Vic Godard, Twitter, 11:13 AM - 15 Nov 2016@marcrileydj thinks his guitar riff on rowche rumble is like shake appeal!
stick to the dj job mate !

https://twitter.com/vic_godard/status/798604972850081792

And there's a reply from Paul Hanley:

Paul Hanley, Twitter, 11:41 AM - 15 Nov 2016Replying to @vic_godard @marcrileydj
sounds more like 'Tight Pants' to me

https://twitter.com/hanleyPa/status/798611901970137088

A couple of days later, Godard says:

Vic Godard, Twitter, 8:26 AM - 17 Nov 2016To b honest havent heard Shake Appeal since 1976 and was windin him up- hope u got paid the nite u did Rowche Rumble !!!!!!!

https://twitter.com/vic_godard/status/799287505983926272

I haven't found a Tweet from Riley about this. Could be that it was a comment he made on his show.

15. dannyno | 11/03/2018

By the way, Twitter does have an advanced search option that allows you to specify accounts and dates:

https://twitter.com/search-advanced

16. dannyno | 16/06/2018

Note 3, live variant noted by Trevor Morris in comment #10.

A version of the line appears in a lyric sheet for Underground Medecin posted on Facebook by Graham Duff. See the Fall Online Forum

Dan

17. Ben | 06/04/2019

'A Letter From Mark E Smith' - April 18th 1983 (soundcloud interview)

Dear Andy,

Here is some stuff you may like...

Rowche is a ridiculous perversion of Swiss depressant making company Roche AG, valium etc.

See you soon or not

Regards MES,

PS Apologies for scribbles on the back, vandals abound in NYC.

18. MES Sage | 25/04/2019

Hey listener heal thyself not hey mister - good advice!

19. bzfgt (link) | 28/06/2019

Sounds like it, I'm going with it

20. Martin Peters | 18/05/2020

Re note 3: from the performance of the song at St. Helens, 20 February 1981:

I'm a real gone paleface and that's no illusion
Transfusion, transfusion"

These are the full lyrics of the Nervous Norvus song:

"Tooling down the highway doing 79
I'm a twin pipe papa and I'm feelin' fine
Hey man dig that was that a red stop sign-
Transfusion transfusion
I'm just a solid mess of contusions
Never never never gonna speed again
Slip the blood to me Bud

I jump in my rod about a quarter to nine
I gotta make a date with that chick of mine
I cross the center line man you gotta make time-
Transfusion transfusion
Oh man I got the cotton pickin' convolutions
Never never never gonna speed again
Shoot the juice to me Bruce

My foot's on the throttle and it's made of lead
But I'm a fast ridding daddy with a real cool head
I'ma gonna pass a truck on the hill ahead-
Transfusion transfusion
My red corpsuckles are in mass confusion
Never never never gonna speed again
Pass the crimson to me Jimson

I took a little drink and I'm feelin' right
I can fly right over everything everything in sight
There's a slow poking cat I'm gonna pass him on the right-
Transfusion transfusion
I'm a real gone paleface and that's no illusion
I'ma never never never gonna speed again
Pass the claret to me Barrett

A rollin' down the mountain on a rainy day
Oh when you see me coming better start to pray
I'ma cuttin' up the road and I'm the boss all the way-
Transfusion transfusion
Oh doc pardon me for this crazy intrusion
I'm never never never gonna speed again
Pump the fluid in me Louie

I'm burning up the highway early this morn
I'm passing everybody oh nothing but corn
Man outa my way I don't drive with my horn-
Transfusion transfusion
Oh nurse I'm gonna make a new resolution
I'm never never never gonna speed again
Put a gallon in me Alan

Oh barnyard drivers are found in two classes
Line crowding hogs and speeding jackasses
So remember to slow down today
Hey daddy-o
Make that type O huh
Atta-boy"

21. GLochin | 13/03/2021

Primary source for Riley's admission re: Shake Appeal/Tight Pants might be this:

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/listen-to-the-falls-rowche-rumble-from-upcoming-1981-live-album/

Riley RTs it on Jan. 8:
https://twitter.com/marcrileydj/status/1347586211150491648?s=19

Can anybody tell who it is MES is calling a jerk in the Totale's version? (around 1:38)

22. bzfgt (link) | 20/03/2021

Good catch! No idea about the "jerk"

23. bzfgt (link) | 20/03/2021

Huh...I had no note for "Racey," nor for "Physician, heal thyself..."

24. deems | 23/03/2021

pretty sure mes is saying "the promoter is a jerk" in the TT version (came here to see if there was any story behind the line)

25. dannyno | 25/03/2021

Comment #24: Yes, I think it's "the promoter is a jerk".

Part of the story is in the Totales Turns back cover annotation by R. Totale XVIII:

CALL YOURSELVES BLOODY PROFESSIONALS?

Was one of the shower-cum-dressing room comments The Fall received after completing their 'turn' which makes up side one of this record, along with 'Everybody knows best groups cum fromt' London' and 'You'll never work again'.

The gig in question was at Bircotes Leisure Centre (often mistakenly described as "Doncaster", including on the cover of TT!).

There is an eyewitness account of the gig in The Biggest Library Yet fanzine #9, August 1997 (pp.20-21), by ST Parkin.

Parkin writes:

CALL YOURSELVES BLOODY PROFESSIONALS?

These words, as any fule kno, were spoken by the promoter of the concert featured on the first side of Totale's Turns. He had once managed Suzi Quatro, he said, so he should know. 'The promoter is a jerk,' MES sang during Rowche Rumble, and he should know as well.

Parkin notes that the promoter may have been annoyed by The Fall's lateness, attributed to their misunderstanding the location of the venue, driving around under the impression it was indeed in Doncaster. Google maps, directions from Doncaster to Bircotes

The group were supported by a punk band called the Kickstarts.

Parkin continues:

Once the support had finished we snuck into the dressing room ourselves in search of badges. This turned out to be a regular sports centre changing room, with rows of clothes pegs over wooden benches. We found an argument going on between the promoter - who also seemed to be the Kickstarts' manager - and Kay Carroll. MES was there, but apart from backing up Kay's arguments with the odd word every now and then, I don't remember him saying a great deal.

I remember the 'professionals' comment and being amazed that anyone could criticize the band we had just seen.

And so on.

What this account tells us is that the on-stage comment was made before the backstage argument from which "call yourselves bloody professionals?" derives.

Another account of the gig can be found in The Biggest Library Yet #17 (p45) by Alan Savill, but it doesn't include anything about the dispute with the promoter.

26. dannyno | 24/04/2021

Note 1:

. This song is quite explicitly about Valium (diazepam), in the model of the Stones' (less explicit) "Mother's Little Helper." Valium was produced by the pharmaceutical company Roche, which has presumably been altered here for legal reasons. According to Simon Ford in Hip Priest (thanks to Reformation):

"Rowche Rumble" refered back to Smith's shipping clerk days, when he did business with the Rowche Chemical Company. One day, due to a clerical error, Smith found himself with piles of barbiturates that he attempted to hide in stores across Manchester and in the bottom drawer of his desk at work.

The Simon Ford quote there is sourced by Ford to a Dave Haslam interview with MES which appeared in City Life, #58, 18 July 1986, pp.22-23.

Scanned online here: http://thefall.org/news/pics/86jul18_citylife/86jul18_citylife.html

The trouble is, the source doesn't seem to say what Ford reports it saying.

Here's the relevant quote on p.22:

The Roche Chemical Company used to do business through the office and due to incompetence with paperwork Smith found himself responsible for a forty ton load of barbiturates from Roche which had to be stored in a croft in Manchester. He kept stuffing barbiturates into his bottom drawer. And that's part of the inside story of 'Rowche Rumble' (the name of an early Fall song).

Which is presumably what lies behind this bit of the lyric of course:

I sent 70 pounds instead of 70 p to
pharmaceutical company Rowche AG
The lorry arrived the next day

The word in the interview is "croft" (which is Lancashire dialect for an enclosed field, see note 2 on the entry for Carry Bag Man: http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/pages/the-annotated-lyrics/carry-bag-man.html#n2) not "stores". But presumably the shipping company had storage facilities in fields.

The point I want to make is that the way Ford represents the interview, it tends to obscure the detail that the storage facilities where MES was "hiding" or "attempting to hide" the barbiturates (if indeed he was "hiding" them, which isn't what the interview says, as opposed to just having to find somewhere to keep them - hiding implies it was unofficial and would imply the company didn't know, which may be the case but is not what is in the interview Ford is citing) were likely official company storage facilities.

27. David Gladwin (link) | 25/05/2021

The reference to sending 70 pounds instead of 70p and the lorry arriving the next day recalls the passage in B.S. Johnson’s 1973 novel Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry when Christie changes his employer’s purchase order for carbon paper from five cartons to five tons.

From Chapter XI:

“You may look forward to the arrival of a lorry at Tapper’s loaded with enough carbon paper to keep them going until the end of the century. For Wagner signed without noticing, as usual.”

28. bzfgt (link) | 05/06/2021

Huh, this is a new one..when I try to archive that City Life thing, wayback says "Cannot fetch the target URL due to system overload."

29. bzfgt (link) | 05/06/2021

Interesting, David....I wonder if the MEs story really happened, or if he made it up or got it from somewhere like that...I seem to remember his reminiscences of the clerking days aren't always veracious...

30. Enno de Witt | 20/07/2021

Diazepam is not a barbiturate.

31. Liam T. Cruivie | 31/07/2021

Oh - fairly obvious thing having been missed here.
"Swiss Gnomes dealing out potions"
- Not just a lazy cultural stereotype arising from a storybook impression of Switzerland as a land of fairy tale landscapes and Cuckoo clocks, but more probably a reference to the epithet "Gnomes of Zürich" given to Swiss bankers. The disparaging term - a reference to the idea of Gnomes as secretive creatures living underground and counting riches - was common in Britain and a staple of the faintly anti-Semitic Old Labour rhetoric. The actual term can be traced to a "Crisis meeting" of Labour politicians in 1964, according to this wiki at any rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_of_Z%C3%BCrich

32. dannyno | 12/12/2021

I sent 70 pounds instead of 70 p to
pharmaceutical company Rowche AG
The lorry arrived the next day
[quote]

The reverse cover of the Rowche Rumble 7" has this wording (omitted letters omitted in original, and bits of it are unclear, in square quotes):

[quote]
your liver in. What is it

"I sent £70 instead of 70p to pharmaceutical co. The lorry arrived the next day." Mrs S. of Surrey the
wiss gnomes dealing out potions
ternative is ed. [Higher] much preferable
Look dull manage esp

http://thefall.org/discography/pics/rowche%20back%20big.jpg

33. dannyno | 12/12/2021

That went wrong.

Try again.

I sent 70 pounds instead of 70 p to
pharmaceutical company Rowche AG
The lorry arrived the next day

The reverse cover of the Rowche Rumble 7" has this wording (omitted letters omitted in original, and bits of it are unclear, in square quotes):

your liver in. What is it

"I sent £70 instead of 70p to pharmaceutical co. The lorry arrived the next day." Mrs S. of Surrey the
wiss gnomes dealing out potions
ternative is ed. [Higher] much preferable
Look dull manage esp

Which makes the "I sent" bit look like a quotation from a letter to a newspaper or something.

34. dannyno | 12/12/2021

"Gnomes of Zurich".

I've noted on the wikipedia talk page that the phrase was used by Nigel Birch, then Tory MP for West Flintshire, on 6 May 1963, during a debate on the Finance Bill.

See Hansard: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/may/06/finance-bill

35. mark turner | 02/11/2022

On Marc Riley's show some listener noticed a borrow from new york dolls private world,but he didnt say it was,you can certainly here it.

36. Mark Oliver | 03/09/2023

'The Gnomes of Zurich'; in 1969 there was a sitcom called 'The Gnomes of Dulwich', starring Terry Scott and Huw Lloyd, based on the exploits of various actual (living) garden gnomes. Now completely wiped..tut.

https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:ecfea3b0-81f5-4922-9b94-d91366f7bba2

37. Sumsiadad | 16/09/2023

fwiw the "Gnomes of Zurich" is not actually anti-Semitic as banking in Switzerland has never been associated with Jews. Remember, Swiss banks were only too happy to hold on to money belonging to Holocaust victims and less than happy to pay it out to their living relatives, so much so that they were eventually sued by the World Jewish Congress. Not to mention the gold and other assets the Nazis stole and depositied in (and enriched) those selfsame Swiss banks.

38. dannyno | 16/01/2024

From an interview with MES in Pilot fanzine, c.1983. This probably the source of the information in Dave Haslam's City Life article:

Where does a song like Rowche Rumble come from? There is a Swiss chemical company called Roche, and people say that the song was based on this.

Well, that's where the title comes from, but very few people know that. I put "w" in the middle of Roche and that made it way ahead of most people. It took out realism.

Yes, Fall songs are realistic and yet Rowche Rumble could be and has been interpreted as a drug song.

Well, there again you see, it can be interpreted in many different ways but I'll tell you how I wrote it. Rowche Rumble is about valium. I used to work for an export company before I started the group and I've got this thing about valium. Everyone takes it, housewives etc., but I think that's all wrong. I got involved with it at work where I used to import to and from Switzerland. When I took over the imports, I couldn't do the Swiss stuff very easily and I had a forty ton load of heavy barbiturates from Roche.

The company tried to get around every law to keep it in the country. I ended up with forty tons of it on this croft in the middle of Manchester because I hadn't done the documents properly. I got sacked, I remember, before I left I was stuffing all these barbiturates into my bottom drawer. So that's how the song came about. It wasn't idealistic. I had friends who were idealistic who went on about how Roche was corrupting the minds of the kids but I got the song out of pure office incompetence. But there you go - people look at it as an idealistic song.

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