Slates, Slags, Etc.

Here's the definitive rant 
Slates drive me bats  
Therefore I bait
Hey slates give us a break  (1)

Male slags,
Slags slates and tapes (2)
Everything's drained by the states 
They are the grey ones of our state I relate (3)
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes
Male stales
Slags slates and tapes

Male slags
Slags slates and tapes

And slates, break hard, break hardly
Break the slates for Christ's sake 
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes
Male slags, knock over your drink 
Pay for correct amount spilt  (4)
Male slags

Male slags
Remember slates are always outta date
In the fine light of day they have to face--
Well, I can't give a definition
The consequences of their plagiarisation (5)
Male slags
With greasy pants scrubbed hands
Kill jokes join gangs 
Kill the safety in our lands 
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes

Male slags
Slags slates and tapes
In the cold nearly old ska Jamaica dawn
Dead publisher's sons
Are material hardship pawns
The Beat, Wah! Heat    (6)
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes

(Bites the dick that feeds it)  (7)
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes
Male slates
Slags slates and tapes

Academic male slags 
Ream off names of books and bands 
Kill cultural interest in our land 
Male slags
Slags, slates and tapes
Male slates
With creaky pants, scrubbed hands
Male slags
Male slags

Okay mates
Let's get on to the valley of weights
The valley of weights
The valley of weights is the valley 
Where they cast off the weights 
And became (trite) uptight  (8)
Fat and bereft 
A liberty mess 
Male slates
Slags slates and tapes
Female slates 
Make hymns of your whims 
Break your balls, suck your thoughts
Rip-off bands 
With stuck up hair and shitty pants
New beatniks with hoop shirts 

Male slags
Slags slates and tapes
(Give me a break)
Big priest, give us a break 
Help me to fight the slates  (9)
Male slags
Slags slates and tapes

"How would you describe the slates?"
Don't start improvising for God's sake...
Male slags
Male slags
A-waa waa waa waa
Male slates
Slags slates and tapes

They are the grey ones of the state I relate
Everything's drained by the slates 
The valley of weights 
Okay mates 

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1. Iceland, 1981-09-12: "Hey priest, hooray hooray! Slates are here today!"

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2. "Slag" is a British slang term that is sometimes used in an equivalent way to "slut" in the U.S., and like the latter term, it almost always describes a woman, hence the modifier "male slags." However, it can also be used to mean "a worthless or insignificant person, a coward, a petty criminal" (according to Jonathan Green's dictionary of slang, which also seems to indicate the sexual usage is less common--thanks to Stephen Parkin for this). "Slate" is a more complicated matter, and its use here has provoked much speculation. It is apparently not a common term, and, in fact, even people from the same general region as MES seem not to recognize it in the sense it is used here. It may be a coinage, and if so, there are a few relevant facts to be established. The word may be intended to function as a complementary insult to "slags" but one that is directed at men and, thus, applied to women here--in other words, a reversal of an invented "ordinary" usage already applied at the moment of its invention. I am led to this hypothesis by the circumstance that MES sings "female slates" at one point, as though the ordinary application of "slates" would suggest a male target of opprobrium. Although this is by no means common, "slate" can mean "a slovenly, dirty person," according to the OED. This fits the pattern of sexually demeaning epithets like "slut" and "slattern," and indeed "slag," although again this is rare, is sometimes employed as an adjective to mean "muddy"; a common noun form of the word denotes refuse matter from smelting, whereas "slate" is a word also used for shale by coal miners. Furthermore, in British slang "slate" is used as a verb meaning to harshly criticize, insult, verbally abuse, or dismiss someone, and "slag" is used in the very same way. "Slate" can also be a noun which indicates "a severe criticism, a slating" (again from the OED). Finally, and again in British slang, to "have a slate loose" can mean to be loopy or insane.

Reformation quotes the press release for the American summer tour of 1981:  "...is about plagiarisation and blackboard type people in this land of ours..."[sic] Blackboards, of course, are made out of slate. RT XVII suggests: "'Slates' is a term MES used to describe people who were grey, uniform and mundane, people without any inspiration or shred of individuality in their lives. Those who just accepted the status quo. Just like slate tiles, all grey and all the same." This seems consonant with the terse press release comment, and in the context of the song works very well. 

I do not take the sexual implications of these terms too literally, as the behavior Smith slags and slates is seemingly not simply sleeping around but being a nuisance in other ways; it is common to use "whore" to mean someone who is shameless and free with their substance and dignity, and I imagine that is probably a clue to the lyrics above. James Marriott below suggests that "slag" may also "relate to slag heaps - the mountain of shit records spilling down on and suffocating the public - as well as to the trend-chasing 'slags' making those records." This would perhaps also provide a clue to the third and most difficult to account for word on the list, "tapes"--I received a suggestion that the lyric is actually "Slags, slates send tapes" but, as convenient as this would be, it sounds to me like MES sings exactly what's written above, "Slags, slates and tapes." I have found no record anywhere of "tape" being used as an epithet to desribe a human being, so here it may acutally mean a recording, presumably one produced by slates, slags, or both, or forming a part of the aforementioned slag heap. 

Dr X O'Skeleton: "Another meaning of Slates could be vinyl records, which complements the tapes in the title."

MO submits that "tapes" could be referring to people who bootleg Fall gigs. The Fall were pressed to release live material, often with new songs, before it was bootlegged. As MO points out, like the "slates," bootleggers were a kind of copyist. 

See note 6 below. 

Paul Hanley in his book Have a Bleedin' Guess, talking about "The Classical" (p. 70):

"[T]he 'paste' theory was one of Mark's go-to theories which often popped up in other songs. Paste, in this context, is the substance that costume jewelry is made from, and as 'paste' was sometimes replaced by 'slate' live, this ties with the sentiment in 'Slates, Slags, Etc.' that the world is full of imitators of the truly talented."

At the NME awards in 2018, Brix gave a speech in a kind of tribute to MES. She proclaimed "Mark told me he believed there were only seven original people in the world, and that everyone else was a slate of one of them. Mark was absolutely one of the seven." This seems to suggest a "slate" is a kind of copy...

See also "The Classical" (particularly note 5): "There are twelve people in the world/The rest are paste."

(thanks to Robert)

Dan adds:

Should note here the sleeve note to the Lie Dream of a Casino Soul single:
 

Early this year, things were too gruesome to behold for this writer - The Fall had been diluted into part of an almost Betrayal environment; anti fashion schtick, backs to the audience mate, pass us the the hair dye wack - Mere Grubby Pseuds making capital out of The Fall sweat and pre-cog. This record is an answer to that and a brief sideways nod to what was thought but now needs to be said.

This is the Pre-amble youthful ramble of Big Priest. The ripper mentality hid well under ex Empire wealth. The above referred to slates'll be struck with revenge forthwith. 'FANTASTIC LIFE' relates itself.

Smith terminal '81

"Slates" there means the "Mere Grubby Pseuds making capital out of The Fall..."

On A Part of America Therein, MES sings in "Winter":

The mad kid had 4.75 lights
And the sign of genius is 4 lights
Now, most of us have 3 lights
Except um, slates, who have 2 lights

And, in the following excerpt submitted by Dan, "slate" seems to denote a copycat:

MES reviews the singles, Melody Maker, 03/10/98:


Re: The Cardigans - My Favourite Game:
 

MES: They're quite famous, aren't they? Are they Irish or something?

MM: Swedish.

MES: Swedish? They're just fucking slates, aren't they? They just try and play whatever they hear on the radio. It's like when you go to Scandinavia, everyone supports Man United. They've just heard Garbage. Why do those cunts earn twice as much money as me? I'll tell you. Cos they're Cardie Lads.

MM: What?

MES: Cardie lads, In Salford that's blokes who aren't 30, but dress like their grandads, Man United fans - 'my great-grandad's mate met Georgie Best' and all that. Cardie lad is as cardie lad does. That's the Cardigans

Dan: "Here 'slates' seems to mean 'copyists' or that kind of 'displaying what others write on them' meaning."

John Howard points out a resemblance to the Paul Revere and the Raiders version of "Have Love Will Travel," which, he points out, celebrates "slutty behavior," and has a "waa waa waa" part. One could more or less sing one over the other...

Dan points out that this sounds a bit like "Rema-Rema" by Rema-Rema (see also "Gut of the Quantifier," which to my ears resembles "Rema-Rema" much more closely).

^

3. Here is a possible clue to some of the implications of "slate": someone who is drab and perhaps a bit thick.  

^

4. Chris says "If you knock over someone's drink (esp. someone else's pint) in a UK pub you are (at least) expected to offer to pay for it."

^

5. MES is often very critical of those he considers plagiarists, which at first blush is odd because he borrows so freely, to say the least, in his own work. I think the key to this is not to take "plagiarization" too literally; the simple act of borrowing is not enough to make one a plagiarist, and originality is a more elusive concept in the world of the Fall than simply an index of where a few words, notes or ideas have their genesis.  

^

6. The Beat and Wah! Heat were British musical acts. Robert submitted a quote from the NME in October 1987:
"... Smith has continued, for a decade, to write lyrics which tower above the short-sighted attempts of his contemporaries, of whom he recognizes only Kevin Rowland [Dexys Midnight Runners] and Pete Wylie [Wah! Heat] as being any good." So this seems to indicate a positive attitude toward Wah! Heat, albeit the reference here is secondhand; and, on the other hand, MO submits the following: 

"The line mentioning 'The Beat and Wah! Heat' rung a bell, as they are two bands that were featured on the NME / Rough Trade C81 tape that was made available to readers of the NME in January '81. As noted here, the live version of Slags, Slates Etc. from Iceland 1981-09-12 adds mention of The Specials, who were also on C81.

C81 was famously the first of a series of promo tapes that NME were to offer over the next couple of decades. The 25 song tracklist featured bands from a range of independent labels, including Postcard, 2-Tone, Mute, and Stiff, but the bulk of those represented were on Rough Trade: the label The Fall were on at the time too, of course.

Why were The Fall not on C81? Was it put to Smith and he refused to be associated?

If you look at some of the lines that were added to the evolving Slags, Slates, Etc., it is interesting to note that the early version documented on the Live in London tape (from December '80, therefore before the NME C81 launch in Jan '81) does not have this mention of The Beat and Wah Heat, whereas the Slates recored version (released April '81) and later live versions do include it.

Additionally, there is a line in the live version from Iceland that comes right after the mention of The Beat and Wah Heat about 'Cut out your coupons.' This has to be a further clue re: C81, as it was necessary to collect tokens from successive issues of NME to submit with your £1.50 in order to get a copy of the tape."

Iceland 1981-09-12: "Wah! Heat, white Uncle Toms...The Beat, Specials (fought?) by hot meat"

Queen Mary's College Ballroom 1981-02-05: "Wah! Heat, The Beat/Young and old Uncle Tom's/In the cold nearly old ska Jamican dawn/ Dead publisher's sons/Self-created genius lies broken/Because of male slags..." 

^

7. This throwaway line is an odd image to return to, but some 30 years later MES proclaims "I had to wank off the cat to feed the fucking dog" ("Greenway"). In the latter case, the line is a near-quote from "But I've Got Texas" by Jon Wayne, a "Cowpunk" band formed of session musicians playing under assumed names, in which the relevant lyric is "I had to jack off the dog just to feed the goddamn cat."  

^

8. "The valley of weights" seems like a drug reference at first, but the ensuing lyrics don't lend much support to this view. Mr. Marshall from the Fall Online Forum has identified a probable source for this line in The Gods of the Labyrinth by Colin Wilson (publishes as The Hedonists in the USA). The novel's protagonist, Gerald Sorme, is hired by a publisher to edit a book on one Esmond Donelly, a mysterious 18th century character who seems to be involved in something called "The Order of the Phoenix" (which is taken from a story by Jorge Luis Borges, where it is an esoteric cult which is probably centered around sex; note also the Borgesian title of Wilson's book). "Sorme" writes:

"What most impressed me about Esmond Donelly was the modernness of his mind. The language is the language of Walpole or Grey; the thought was often closer to Goethe, or even William Blake. The central point of his argument against Hume and d'Alembert is very simple: that when man outgrows religious authority, he usually becomes the victim of his own triviality. When does man most frequently experience the sensation of freedom? he asks and answers: When he is bored. "Boredom is to be free, but to experience no particular impulse to make use of the freedom.'"
And he invents a Swiftian parable to illustrate his points:

In the midst of the high mountains of Tartary, he says, there is a valley in which dwells a race of small but sturdy and healthy people. From the earliest times, it has been part of the religious observance of these people to carry two heavy weights, in the shape of a water-bottle, on either side of the waist. They would no more think of walking abroad without their weights than an Englishman would think of walking naked along Whitehall. They wear them from birth to death, and there are strict penalties for removing them. 

But the greatest pleasure of this race is the exercise of walking, and a small band of rebels declare that the weights are intended to make walking uncomfortable. Then even bolder spirits declare that man should be able to fly like a bird or float like a balloon, and that the weights are intended to prevent them from enjoying the freedom for which they were created.

There is a revolution; the king is executed (a remarkable anticipation of the execution of Louis XVI), and the people tear off their weights. To their amazement, nothing happens, except that they find it hard to maintain balance without them. The more timid spirits resume their weights; the bolder ones practise walking without them, and soon declare that it is merely a matter of habit.  

They are so delighted with this new accomplishment that at first they walk day and night, striding from one end of the valley to the other, and even attempting to climb the mountains. They soon discover that the mountains are sheer walls of rock that cannot be scaled. And now some of the weightless ones fall into a frenzy and rush frantically from one end of the valley to the other until they collapse with exhaustion. Others attempt to scale the steep walls out of the valley, and either fall down when they are exhausted, or cast themselves down out of terror or despair. 

But by far the larger number of the weightless ones simply sit at home, utterly bored, since they know every inch of the valley. They jeer at the people who still wear weights, calling them superstitious hogs. But after a few generations these weightless ones are dead, for their lack of exercise makes them grow immensely fat and die at an early age. 

Finally, only those who wear weights continue to survive; they elect a king, and for many generations the Great Revolt is only a terrifying memory. Until a sect arises that declares that man was created to fly like a bird...

The story sounds utterly pessimistic, an allegory of original sin. But I am inclined to reject this view. For Donelly says: 'There were some of those climbers who were never seen again; yet certain shepherds whose flocks fed under the shadow of the great walls affirmed that they heard voices hallooing from far above their heads, where the slopes of the mountain vanished into the clouds.' In other words, perhaps a few of the climbers got beyond the cliffs and over the top of the mountains.

What Donelly is saying - and it is a remarkable perception for a seventeen-year-old boy - is not that 'Men need weights,' but that the men of the valley need weights. They are healthy, sturdy and adventurous (i.e. love walking), and the only way in which to maintain these qualities in their tiny valley is to wear heavy weights. But a few among them, a very few, are born climbers..."

On the other hand, Steve suggests another story concerning weights, although this one lacks a valley: "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in which people are forced to wear weights and accept other handicaps so that no one is stronger, smarter or better than anyone else. See "More Information" below for Steve's excellent summation of the story.

^

9. The recurring "Hip Priest" or "Big Priest" is here enlisted as a kind of superhero to fight off the slags and slates. I point this out because it's an interesting question to what extent MES identifies with, and to what extent he mocks, this character, and this is another bit of evidence on the positive side (in the end he seems to be just as ambiguous a figure as anyone else in Fall lyrics). The character can be Mark Smith, or someone Mark Smith reviles, or both at once, it seems.  

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Slates, Slags, Etc.: Fall Tracks A-Z

Much speculation about the terminology in the song at the forum

From the back cover of Slates (thanks to Dan):

SLATES, SLAGS ETC.

Full bias content guaranteed.
Plagiarism infests the land.
Academic thingys ream off names of 
books and bands

Steve's summary of Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron":

In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic. One April, 14-year-old Harrison Bergeron, an intelligent and athletic teenager, is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel Bergeron, by the government. They are barely aware of the tragedy, as Hazel has "average" intelligence (a euphemism for stupidity), and George has a handicap radio installed by the government to regulate his above-average intelligence. Hazel and George watch ballet on television. They comment on the dancers, who are weighed down to counteract their gracefulness and masked to hide their attractiveness. George's thoughts are continually interrupted by the different noises emitted by his handicap radio, which piques Hazel's curiosity and imagination regarding handicaps. Noticing his exhaustion, Hazel urges George to lie down and rest his "handicap bag", 47 pounds (21 kg) of weights locked around George's neck. She suggests taking a few of the weights out of the bag, but George resists, aware of the illegality of such an action. On television, a news reporter struggles to read the bulletin and hands it to the ballerina wearing the most grotesque mask and heaviest weights. She begins reading in her unacceptably natural, beautiful voice, then apologizes before switching to a more unpleasant voice. Harrison's escape from prison is announced, and a full-body photograph of Harrison is shown, indicating that he is seven feet (2.1 m) tall and burdened by three hundred pounds (140 kg) of handicaps. George recognizes his son for a moment, before having the thought eliminated by his radio. Harrison himself then storms the studio in an attempt to overthrow the government. He calls himself the Emperor and rips off all of his handicaps, along with the handicaps of a ballerina who he proclaims his "Empress". He orders the musicians to play, promising them royalty if they do their best. Unhappy with their initial attempt, Harrison takes control for a short while, and the music improves. After listening and being moved by the music, Harrison and his Empress dance while flying to the ceiling, then pause in mid-air to kiss. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, enters the studio and kills Harrison and the Empress with a ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. She forces the musicians to put on their handicaps, and the television goes dark. George, unaware of the televised incident, returns from the kitchen and asks Hazel why she was crying, to which she replies that something sad happened on television that she cannot remember. He comforts her and they return to their average lives.