Service

(1)

Why do you have a cloud in your eye?
Why do you have a cloud in your eye? 

Walked downstairs
Got my hat and my corny brown leather jacket
Streets, grey and clean for a change
Must have been the rain
Thought transference
And this man in digs with me would spit out 
Two or three teeth a night on the floor

Winter is here,
and, like yourself, cold;
Pulled my shirt up
Service

Kicked the leaves
Learning about time,
Time of the vulperines 
Time of the wolverines (2)
They sit rotting, the leaves
Kick the brown branches, it is here (3)
I came home and found
I could say the word "entrepreneur"
And my problem began
Service

(Every man wants to be what he is not)

At my feet, one who laughs at anything
And at my head
One who laughs at nothing
And I'm just in between 
This day's portion (4)
Service
(You would not like it if you knew it)

(Why you have tears in your eyes from infotainment?) (5)

Winter is here
I've got a witch on my left shoulder
My future's here
Now I will kick the broken branches
They're this day's portion of this day's portion

(Why do you have...)

Don't want to wake up and learn
I've learnt the word 'entrepreneur"
Wandered around, found out
Didn't want to say the word
Roll it around in your mouth

Every man jack wants to be what he is not
Service

Little boys are taking over
They mumble through the grass
They are not fit to be in the company
Of vulperines and wolverines
Too many heads knocking about
Service
This day's portion
This day's portion
This day's portion
This day's portion 

Why do you have a cloud in your eye from infotainment?

1. Dan remarks:

Why is the song titled "Service"?  

The word has several meanings, including:

* The act of serving (i.e. in a shop or whatever), and the act of waiting at a table
* Work, in general (eg "death in service")
* Employment in the armed forces
* Performance of a duty
* Religious (church) worship
* The supply of essential amenities, like water
* Set of dishes for a meal
* Checking and repair of parts ("service a vehicle", or "my computer needs servicing")
* A service charge

And so on.

I used to think it was about being let down in a shop or something, but looking more closely this seems way off beam. To me, it now feels like the song is about someone who is in some sense "in service", or considers themselves to be so. So if not a servant or a military person, then someone who is in that kind of mode of thinking about themselves. So perhaps, picking up on the word "entrepreneur", this is a portrait of someone deciding, in a weird way, to go into business?

It's all very odd.

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2. Vulperines were wolf-like animals from which canines (such as wolves, dogs, coyotes, and foxes--Vulpes is Latin for "fox"), Ursidae (bears), Procyonidae (such as raccoons, coatis, and ringtails), Mephitidae (skunks and "stink badgers," which are actually a variety of skunk),  and Mustelidae (such as otters, weasels, and indeed wolverines) descended, as well as seals and walruses. Vulperines are thus the ancestors of wolverines, so the "time" of Vulperines and wolverines is, in a strictly literal and naturalistic sense, an impossible notion. 

Wolverines are also mentioned in "Cary Grant's Wedding," "Session Musician," "Bury Pts. 1+3," "Clasp Hands," and "Arid Al's Dream."

From QRM (tagged as "1983," but "Service" was released in 1993, which is the likely year for this):

QRM: What do you mean when you mention "...time of wolverines.." in "Service?"
MES: Well it is the time of the Wolverines. I mean everybody's looking
after there own arse, aren't they?
I don't know what it's like in Georgia, but it's like that 'ere.

I would like to punch the interviewer in the eye for not following up. As for why "Wolverines" is capitalized in MES's comment, I have no idea, but we can't read anthing into it, as it was a telephone interview.

In any case, wolverines seem to represent something to MES, and it has been suggested by a reader that they are solitary and vicious animals, qualities that seem consonant with what MES is saying above. 

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3. This is reminiscent of "Evergreen No More" by David Wilcox (the Canadian one), which goes:

"In a ditch by the roadside he dies like a dog/What once was the Christmas tree now is a log/Broken brown branches half-buried in snow/Are bones of a hero one Christmas ago"

The likelihood of this song being an influence is increased when one consideres the chorus, an echo of which can perhaps be found in "Elves":

"And it's nay, nay, nay never/Nay nay never no more/Shall he stay green forever/He's evergreen no more"

Thanks to Martin and Dan.

^

4. Mark E. Smith once declared, “MR James is good, but Machen's fucking brilliant," and at one point he was reportedly a dues-paying member of Friends of Arthur Machen (FOAM). On page 915 (!) of his autobiography Far Off Things, Machen writes, "I lounged on the stile and waited, and when the postman came I would give him my packet--the day's portion of 'copy' of that Heptameron translation that I was then making and sending to the publisher in York street, Covent Garden." In 1991, a couple of years before the debut of "Service," The Day's Portion: an Arthur Machen Miscellany appeared, a collection of newspaper articles and other uncollected occasional writings edited by Godfrey Brangham and Nigel Jarett (thanks to Spartan HB from the Fall Online Forum). 

The phrase "a day's portion" is used in some translations of the Bible in connection with manna, which was an edible substance that God provided the Hebrew's during their desert Exodus, in the form of a sort of solid rain or frost-like accretion that could not be stored up from one day to the next (although the King James version has "a certain rate"). Tales of the Hasidim, collected by Martin Buber, contains a short tale headed "A Day's Portion" which likens one's daily prayers to the day's allotment of manna. In general, the use of the phrase "day's portion" to designate one's fate or allotment probably derives from the Biblical tale of manna.

^

5. "Infotainment" is a term of relatively recent coinage that has often been used to criticize the vapidity of television news programs.  

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Service: Fall Tracks A-Z