Secession Man

(1)

You're the one who always runs the show 
And happiness comes easy when its bright and breezy 
Sudden inspiration to a session man's sensation 
I've got to get up early this morning 
Gotta get my early warning (2)

How will she ever know? 
You're the one who always runs the show 
You're the one who always runs the show 
You're the one who always runs the show 
Inside. Outside. Turn around. 
I'm a session man 
I'm a session man

And, just how you knew 
I'm falling through a grate 
But happiness comes easy 
In your company

I dont need to mince my words 
I dont need to mince my....

You're the one who always runs the show 
You're the one who always runs the show 
You're the one who always runs the show

That's where the session ends

You're the one who always runs the show

'Cos you're the one who always runs the show 
I'm a session man
I'm not broken like the other man 
They work just the same 
I'm a session man 
I'm a session man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
I got to get up early this morning 
Gotta go and get my early dawn in. 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Just how you knew I was falling through 
I knew you were not insane 
Your chains were much like mine 
I'm a session man 
Like the other man 
Other man/men 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Other man 
Other man 
Other man 
You're the one who always runs the show 
Other man 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Other man 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Other man 
Inside. Outside. Turn around 
Other man 
Other man 
That's where the session ends.

1. In the lyrics it's "session man," and the lyrics seem to be glancing at the song of that name by the Kinks, as well as the Fall's own "Session Musician." It's not clear what the lyrics are about, but I get a sense that the "session" in question might be with a psychiatrist or a therapist rather than a record producer; not that MES would ever consent to such an operation, but he may be singing in character. This is an odd entry in the Fall catalogue in many ways, not really sounding like anything else they've done. 

^

2. Zack says "'I gotta get up early this morning / Gotta get my early warning' is another one of those lines (much like 'over the long, long days') that MES likes to throw into lots of different songs. I was surprised to hear it in 'US 80s-90s' recorded in 1990 at the Livid Festival in Sydney. It sounds like the line could have been borrowed from some dusty old radio hit from the '70s but I can't place it."

"Morning/warning" is a rather obvious rhyme, and it does have a pedigree--there's the old nautical proverb, "Red sun at morning, sailors take warning," and Chuck Berry famously sings "Well, early in the morning I'm a givin' you a warning/Don't you step on my blue suede shoes" in the 1956 hit "Roll Over Beethoven" (if I were annotating Chuck Berry, I would have to point out that this line alludes to the previous year's "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins but, since I'm not, I wont mention it). In 1969, Vanity Fare ("Early in the Morning") announced "When it's early in the morning/Very very early without warning/I can feel a newly formed vibration sneaking up on me," which almost sounds like one of MES's pre-cognitive hangovers. 

Many more songs and poems use the rhyme, as a quick consultation with Google will attest, but MES's exact formulation doesn't appear anywhere else of which I am aware.

^

Secession Man: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1996