Serum

Lyrics

(1)

Help yourself dear brother as long as you've got serum


101 
101.1 (2)

And kids, I just need to get home to them
There's no mam there or there wasn't last time I looked
And many have found pleasures in curvaceous women
We're excluded for our own good

When will the serum come again?

101
101.1

Many have found pleasures in curvaceous women
Their undulating curves upper and lower
But what I really need is a glass of cold water (3)
The serum gives results

When will the serum come again? (4)

101
101.1

First three hairs descended in this morning
From the fringe of the fop (5)
And the scalp of your mind
Serum unavailable
And where the sun meets the dawn (6)

And the serum never came

101
101.1

Glass of velvet pilsner and a glass of water. The first three hairs descended out into your lock stock and barrel mentality. Fragile rejected backward mind said 'What - could - get?' I give him - understandably aged - been in heat - neutered res...

Notes

1. Serum is a word for the liquid part of the blood, i.e. the medium in which blood cells are contained, and is often used to more particularly denote serum used as a medicine or, as the OED has it, "a therepautic or diagnostic agent." It is possible that the word is used metaphorically here, or perhaps to denote some drug or some drug-like or therapeutic substance or phenomenon.

^

2. The repeated numbers "101" and "101.1" are not explained in the context of the song; do they allude to some chemical property of the serum? 101.1 could also be the level of a mild fever. Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV) is a measure of average red blood cell volume, and the average result is in the range 80-100, so the number could refer to a (slightly high) MCV reading. This is a stretch, I'm sure, and the bottom line is that I am unsure what the numbers refer to.

First time caller antoiuneprocuta has a suggestion:

"On a practical note, it's struck me that the ''101'' might refer to ''the basics,'' like the old chestnut along the lines of ''oh, that? It's plumbing 101, mate!'' . And extrapolating, I suppose the ''101.1'' could be the most basic of basics, the very first step, say. He does seem to be talking about basic vices in the first two sections, but the rest of the number gets rather cryptic indeed - as is to be expected! Just a thought, all the best!"

^

3. Mighty Zack:

"If you're feeling too sexy, have a glass of water and a run round the backyard." - Words of advice from Jack Smith, as quoted by his son in Renegade and multiple interviews. I believe this is relevant to the glass of water in 'Serum,' especially since it follows the line about curvaceous women."

 

^

4. Coimbra: "Serum is semen - just listen to the way he says come + the squelchy synth noises that sound like Frankie goes to Hollywood."

^

5. A "Fringe Fop" is actually a name for a haricut, in which close-cropped sides blend into a longer top. "Fop," which seems to have originally meant a fool, is an epithet for a vain and dandyish person.

^

6. Dan points out that this echoes the 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me":

You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn
You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn
You're gonna look around in your mind, girl, you're gonna find that I'm gone 

 

^

 

 

Comments (18)

Antoine
  • 1. Antoine | 03/04/2015
Hello there!

Long-time listener, first time caller sorta thing - the website is brilliant, I've made a habit of listening to my LPs accompanied by their respective annotations. I've checked in more times than I can remember - Thanks!

On a practical note, it's struck me that the ''101'' might refer to ''the basics,'' like the old chestnut along the lines of ''oh, that? It's plumbing 101, mate!'' . And extrapolating, I suppose the ''101.1'' could be the most basic of basics, the very first step, say.

He does seem to be talking about basic vices in the first two sections, but the rest of the number gets rather cryptic indeed - as is to be expected!

Just a thought, all the best!
Zack
  • 2. Zack | 09/06/2015
"If you're feeling too sexy, have a glass of water and a run round the backyard." - Words of advice from Jack Smith, as quoted by his son in Renegade and multiple interviews. I believe this is relevant to the glass of water in "Serum", especially since it follows the line about curvaceous women.
Zack
  • 3. Zack | 19/02/2017
"your lock stock and barrel mentality" - Possibly a reference to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a popular British film released in 1998.

I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but I believe Lock Stock was something of a cultural moment in Britain that briefly made it fashionable to look/act/talk like an East End toughguy.
bzfgt
  • 4. bzfgt | 25/02/2017
Interesting, it is also a reasonably common saying of course.
Zack
  • 5. Zack | 25/02/2017
^ Of course, but the film was part of the zeitgeist when this album was being written and recorded.
dannyno
  • 6. dannyno | 21/04/2017
"And where the sun meets the dawn"

Reminiscent of the 13th Floor Elevator's song, written by Roky Erickson:

You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn
You're gonna wake up one morning as the sun greets the dawn
You're gonna look around in your mind, girl, you're gonna find that I'm gone
etc
dannyno
  • 7. dannyno | 28/06/2017
I don't read it like comment #7, but you could also link it to the "truth serum" experiments that the CIA conducted with LSD.
bzfgt
  • 8. bzfgt (link) | 06/07/2017
Anonymous (I don't know his screen name) posted and asked me to delete (because it had his real name):

Always assumed it was the Orwellian 101 - 101.1 would therefore be an evolved/updated/more potent version of that. I assumed it refers to the serum (in the drug-sense) of horniness, and seems to suggest that it's a mild but highly evolved form of torture. Which it is, if you ain't getting any.
bzfgt
  • 9. bzfgt (link) | 06/07/2017
Note that Dan's comment #7 is in response to the old #7, reproduced in #8 above...so 8 is 7, Freedom is Slavery, etc...
Paul Go
  • 10. Paul Go | 01/12/2018
Note 2. The process is good, can't be sure 101 isn't part of it, but, perhaps because of the *fixing* of sound to text, you didn't hear '1 on 1'.
Paul Go
  • 11. Paul Go | 01/12/2018
That came across wrong, 101 is definitely there, and you worked out the principle without its double meaning.
Paul Go
  • 12. Paul Go | 06/12/2018
Paul Go
  • 13. Paul Go | 06/12/2018
Comment 3. Lock stock and two smoking barrel comment is totally valid, hard-man / fragile mind. Like king kong or Vic Reeves after drinking the pump-up juice... the little chortle gives it away. There's also a pattern of three's running through the minds/mentalities so the original saying is also part of it.
Coimbra
  • 14. Coimbra | 03/11/2020
Serum is semen - just listen to the way he says come + the squelchy synth noises that sound like Frankie goes to Hollywood.
dannyno
  • 15. dannyno | 03/11/2020
Comment #14.

Possibly right, given some of the text.

But elsewhere in the Fall canon, "serum" means "serum".

For example.

"His veins are full of evil serum" - Flat of Angles

"Vials of stupid serum" - Haf Found Bormann

"Sperm" occurs a couple of times too:

"The semite man's home was full of sperm" - Backdrop

"Main undercurrent, white spermatoze" - Shoulder Pads #1

And there's a "spermo", whatever that means, in Who Makes the Nazis?, of course.
dannyno
  • 16. dannyno | 31/03/2021
Turns out that "Spermo" is almost certainly a reference to one of the daughters of Anius in Greek myth - Spermo, Oeno and Elais. See the entry for Who Makes the Nazis?. So perhaps not to be understood in the same way as reference to semen.
bzfgt
  • 17. bzfgt (link) | 03/04/2021
I was hoping to discover that the body stores sperm at 101.1 F or thereabouts.....unfortunately, it is colder than body temp

If 101.1 is a temp, it's more likely Celsius anyway; I see I have it as a "mild fever" but MES would be more likely to think of the metric system, so just over boiling?
Alex
  • 18. Alex | 27/01/2024
"And many have found pleasures in curvaceous women" reminds me of a line from Room to Live...

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