Telephone Thing
Lyrics
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you! (2)
Sorry to be so short with you
But I'm tapped
But I'm tapped (3)
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of, uh, nodule and your smug advertisements
And your tendril ocean bed achievements does not (4)
justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you!
Gretchen Franklin nosey matron thing (5)
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you!
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type
Does the Home Secretary have the barest basest inkling of what's going down? (6)
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
The use of, uh, nodule and your smug advertisements
And your tendril ocean bed achievements does not justify your abuse of privacy piracy act
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you!
Gretchen Franklin thing
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Sense you
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you!
I'm tapped
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
Notes
1. Telephone Thing was written by Mark E Smith and the electronic dance music duo Coldcut, who also produced the track. From Reformation:
"My Telephone" was a single by dance music duo Coldcut (Matt Black and Jonathan More) from the album "What's That Noise?" and featured Lisa Stanfield on vocals. [This album also featured the track "(I'm) In Deep with MES on guest vocals.]
On 25 January 1990 on News Nike, MES commented: "On the acetate they sent me the drums were a lot we're quite a drum and bass orientated group...On the Stansfield version it's more of a pop song, really, whereas as ours is more of a workout...All we've done really is got the machine tracks and got the musicians to learn them naturally" .
On the same day, the NME published an interview ("Funky, Cold, Modern - Ah!")in which MES said that Coldcut's "version of it was a misjustice to the tune. That single was a flop and it was rubbish. It's topical - like all Fall singles. I think it's good to have a go at things like that - BritishRail and British Telecom. It's a natural gripe. One time, I was using the phone a lot and I dialled a number and I could hear people munching sandwiches and talking about my last phone call. I actually rang up the operator and said 'Lookl I'm trying to dial a fucking number here and I can't get through because people are talking about my phone callsl Have you got a bleedin' license to do this?'"
"Being staff, they get fed up, so what they do is tap into lines that they think are gonna be interesting. It doesn't bother me, I've got nothing to fucking hide! But I said 'Well, is it tapped or not? I can't fucking get through because of your bloody lot!' And she slammed the phone down on me!"
On 23 February 1990 on Radio Luxembourg MES said, "I think it's a bit too long to be a hit."
Jonathan More is quoted ("Ring The Noise", NME; 20 January 1990) as saying,"He thought the vocals and all the rest of the stuff we did on it were shit, but he really liked the guitar, bass and drums, and he gave the cassette to his band to learn these parts."
From "The Fall: album by album", in Uncut magazine, July 2019 (Dan):
MARTIN BRAMAH: Mark wrote the words to that after reading Spycatcher. He thought the secret service was listening in to his calls, because he had opinions. Maybe they were.
Chas n Dave have a 1987 song called "That Telephone Thing" (thanks Dan). The song actually has similar cadences to "Telephone Thing," although at a different tempo with a bouncier beat:
"There's a thing I've got that wouldn't be missed/It's a telephone ring, it drives me round the twist"
Chas n Dave are a musical comedy duo whose style is sometimes called "Rockney." Dan links to a video to "That Telephone Thing" in comment #31 below.
"There's a thing I've got that wouldn't be missed/It's a telephone ring, it drives me round the twist"
Chas n Dave are a musical comedy duo whose style is sometimes called "Rockney." Dan links to a video to "That Telephone Thing" in comment #31 below.
2. "Parlez-vous" literally means "Do you speak?" when used in an interrogative phrase such as "Parlez-vous français?" ("Do you speak French?"). It has elsewhere been used out of context in a similarly incorrect manner: for instance, the 2002 song "One Night in New Orleans" by the American country band BlackHawk has the line "Baby I don't parlez vous," and, in this case prior to "Telephone Thing," the World War I-era "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" famously goes as far astray from sense as "Hinky Dinky Parlez-vous." "I don't want to parlez-vous with you" literally makes no grammatical sense, even if we grant the hybridized form...
3. To have one's phone tapped is to be bugged, an object of surveillance. It can also mean to be out of money, but apparently only in the US. Gizmoman points out: "The 'but i'm tapped' lyric has a double meaning, in northern slang to be 'tapped' means to be a bit mental, (following a tap/knock on the head I presume), someone paranoid about being listened to may question their own state of mind. When I was a kid saying to someone 'you're tapped' was a common insult."
Guy Boden suggests MES is remembering party (shared) lines, although this is not technically "tapping."
Guy Boden suggests MES is remembering party (shared) lines, although this is not technically "tapping."
5. Gretchen Franklin was a British actress best known for playing Ethel on Eastenders. From the NME, January 25, 1990 (thanks to Zack):
Gretchen Franklin?! The woman who plays Ethel on Eastenders? Mark buries his head under the table in what appears to be shame. He groans. "I know! I know! I thought I'd made up that name. Coldcut and Craig Leon were going to me 'That's a great name to make up, Gretchen Franklin', it just came out of nowhere. And then I was watching Eastenders and ... it was terrible! Maybe she'll be flattered, you usually find people are flattered. I don't even watch fucking Eastenders. I hate it! It must've just lodged there somewhere, out of the blue. It's subliminal - I've nothing against her - I can't even remember what she looks like now." She wears a tea cosy and carries a pug. "OH NO! It's not the woman with the dog is it? It's not!"
Whether or not he's being honest here, the character Ethel is gossipy and nosy, according to the Baron Doug below, so it seems like an appropriate lyric.
And Willie the Dog points out that she had a bit part in Quatermass of "Lay of the Land" fame...
And Willie the Dog points out that she had a bit part in Quatermass of "Lay of the Land" fame...
6. Martin: The home secretary at the time of the first performance of the song (Aberdeen, 18 October 1989) was Douglas Hurd. I don't have a recording of this but do have one of the next gig outing, which was 28 November 1989 in Dusseldorf. The lyrics concerning the home secretary are there. By this time David Waddington had replaced Hurd in this particular cabinet position. The following quote comes from Waddington's memoirs: "Very much more important than the Data Protection Act was the Interception of Communications Bill which I helped Leon Brittan to take through the House at about the same time. It put telephone tapping authorised by the Secretary of State on a statutory basis and outlawed telephone interceptions not so authrorised; and it was to be the model for later legislation putting the security service on a similar statutory basis."
More Information
Telephone Thing: Fall Tracks A-Z
The lyrics are given in the Cog Sinister newsletter as follows (thanks to Dan):
I hear you telephone thing listening in x2
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you
Sorry to be so short with you - but I'm tapped What??
I'm tapped
Chorus x2
The use of nodule and your smug advertisements for your tendrill ocean bed achievements
Does not justify your abuse of privacy/piracy act
(Does the home secretary have the barest, basest inkling of what's going down?)
I hear you telephone thing listening in x2
I feel you telephone thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you, you Gretchen Auschwitz nosey matron-type -
I hear you telephone thing, listening in
I sense you
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you. Etc.
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you
Sorry to be so short with you - but I'm tapped What??
I'm tapped
Chorus x2
The use of nodule and your smug advertisements for your tendrill ocean bed achievements
Does not justify your abuse of privacy/piracy act
(Does the home secretary have the barest, basest inkling of what's going down?)
I hear you telephone thing listening in x2
I feel you telephone thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you, you Gretchen Auschwitz nosey matron-type -
I hear you telephone thing, listening in
I sense you
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you. Etc.
Comments (44)
- 1. | 22/06/2014
- 2. | 24/06/2014
Fine, I went with an exclamation point, although I'm pretty sure that either way is correct. I wish I had some better option than "lorture," though...
- 3. | 09/06/2015
Andrew Collins interviews MES, NME January 25, 1990:
Gretchen Franklin?! The woman who plays Ethel on Eastenders?
Mark buries his head under the table in what appears to be shame. He groans.
"I know! I know! I thought I'd made up that name. Coldcut and Craig Leon were going to me 'That's a great name to make up, Gretchen Franklin', it just came out of nowhere. And then I was watching Eastenders and ... it was terrible! Maybe she'll be flattered, you usually find people are flattered. I don't even watch fucking Eastenders. I hate it! It must've just lodged there somewhere, out of the blue. It's subliminal - I've nothing against her - I can't even remember what she looks like now."
She wears a tea cosy and carries a pug.
"OH NO! It's not the woman with the dog is it? It's not!"
Gretchen Franklin?! The woman who plays Ethel on Eastenders?
Mark buries his head under the table in what appears to be shame. He groans.
"I know! I know! I thought I'd made up that name. Coldcut and Craig Leon were going to me 'That's a great name to make up, Gretchen Franklin', it just came out of nowhere. And then I was watching Eastenders and ... it was terrible! Maybe she'll be flattered, you usually find people are flattered. I don't even watch fucking Eastenders. I hate it! It must've just lodged there somewhere, out of the blue. It's subliminal - I've nothing against her - I can't even remember what she looks like now."
She wears a tea cosy and carries a pug.
"OH NO! It's not the woman with the dog is it? It's not!"
- 4. | 31/03/2016
The home secretary at the time of the first performance of the song (Aberdeen, 18 October 1989) was Douglas Hurd. I don't have a recording of this but do have one of the next gig outing, which was 28 November 1989 in Dusseldorf. The lyrics concerning the home secretary are there. By this time David Waddington had replaced Hurd in this particular cabinet position. The following quote comes from Waddington's memoirs:
"Very much more important than the Data Protection Act was the Interception of Communications Bill which I helped Leon Brittan to take through the House at about the same time. It put telephone tapping authorised by the Secretary of State on a statutory basis and outlawed telephone interceptions not so authrorised; and it was to be the model for later legislation putting the security service on a similar statutory basis."
As usual, I've no idea where any of this is leading (if it leads anywhere) but I think some more research needs to be done into the lyrics of this song.
Oh, and while I'm about it, what on earth are " tendril ocean bed achievements"?
"Very much more important than the Data Protection Act was the Interception of Communications Bill which I helped Leon Brittan to take through the House at about the same time. It put telephone tapping authorised by the Secretary of State on a statutory basis and outlawed telephone interceptions not so authrorised; and it was to be the model for later legislation putting the security service on a similar statutory basis."
As usual, I've no idea where any of this is leading (if it leads anywhere) but I think some more research needs to be done into the lyrics of this song.
Oh, and while I'm about it, what on earth are " tendril ocean bed achievements"?
- 5. | 14/05/2016
Martin:
I always presumed that the "tendril ocean bed achievements" are British Telecom's undersea cables.
I always presumed that the "tendril ocean bed achievements" are British Telecom's undersea cables.
- 6. | 25/06/2016
"Tendril" seems to have been one of MES's favorite words at the time; it also turns up in the 'Extricate' liner notes ("[This album] is the culmination of stuff I've/we've held back or just wrote over and through the tendril wires and chaos of the last 14 months.") and in the lyrics to "(I'm) In Deep", his other collaboration with Coldcut ("He trekked up and down the tendril wires of this haunted isle...").
Also, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd -> "heard" -> "listening" is a delightful (albeit hidden) play on words.
Also, Home Secretary Douglas Hurd -> "heard" -> "listening" is a delightful (albeit hidden) play on words.
- 7. | 31/10/2016
"Pint-sized Ethel Skinner was to all appearances a real old dear, but she could be a trouble-maker when the mood took her. She spread the most insane rumours about all and sundry in the cabal of gossips that she formed with the formidable Lou Beale and Dorothy Cotton."
- BBC
She was pretty nosey as well. Be sure and study her technique on youtube, anyone applying for GCHQ.
- BBC
She was pretty nosey as well. Be sure and study her technique on youtube, anyone applying for GCHQ.
- 8. | 01/09/2017
I've always heard the line as "I hate you, telephone thing, listening in.."
- 9. | 07/10/2017
The very first time he says it on the Extricate version the "hear" is pretty clear. Thereafter there are iterations that could be "hate."
- 10. | 12/10/2017
I can't claim credit for this discovery (someone commented on the 'Late Show ' Performance found on YouTube) The late poet Laureate Ted Hughes's poem 'Do Not Pick Up The Telephone' has a certain Fall like quality to it and Mark must surely have been aware of its existence.
- 11. | 12/10/2017
This is it. I don't personally find so very Fall-like, to be honest.
Do not Pick up the Telephone
That plastic Buddha jars out a Karate screech
Before the soft words with their spores
The cosmetic breath of the gravestone
Death invented the phone it looks like the altar of death
Do not worship the telephone
It drags its worshippers into actual graves
With a variety of devices, through a variety of disguised voices
Sit godless when you hear the religious wail of the telephone
Do not think your house is a hide-out it is a telephone
Do not think you walk your own road, you walk down a telephone
Do not think you sleep in the hand of God you sleep in the mouthpiece of a telephone
Do not think your future is yours it waits upon a telephone
Do not think your thoughts are your own thoughts they are the toys of the telephone
Do not think these days are days they are the sacrificial priests of the telephone
The secret police of the telephone
0 phone get out of my house
You are a bad god
Go and whisper on some other pillow
Do not lift your snake head in my house
Do not bite any more beautiful people
You plastic crab
Why is your oracle always the same in the end?
What rake off for you from the cemeteries?
Your silences are as bad
When you are needed, dumb with the malice of the clairvoyant insane
The stars whisper together in your breathing
World's emptiness oceans in your mouthpiece
Stupidly your string dangles into the abysses
Plastic you are then stone a broken box of letters
And you cannot utter
Lies or truth, only the evil one
Makes you tremble with sudden appetite to see somebody undone
Blackening electrical connections
To where death bleaches its crystals
You swell and you writhe
You open your Buddha gape
You screech at the root of the house
Do not pick up the detonator of the telephone
A flame from the last day will come lashing out of the telephone
A dead body will fall out of the telephone
Do not pick up the telephone
- 12. | 17/10/2017
What ?
Imagine it in a Prestwich accent complete with Gretchen Franklin reference
Imagine it in a Prestwich accent complete with Gretchen Franklin reference
- 13. | 04/11/2017
I also think it's a bit Fall-like, in parts although not as a whole. But there is not enough intrinsic evidence to say he was influenced by it, there would need to be an explicit connection; even if it is likely he' d have been aware of it I don't know how to connect the dots if it's just a surmise.
- 14. | 29/12/2017
The "but i'm tapped" lyric has a double meaning, in northern slang to be "tapped" means to be a bit mental, (following a tap/knock on the head I presume), someone paranoid about being listened to may question their own state of mind. When I was a kid saying to someone "you're tapped" was a common insult.
- 15. | 29/12/2017
Comment #14, gizmoman is quite right. "I'm tapped" would be an odd way to say "I've been tapped" unless the pun were also intended.
- 16. | 10/02/2018
Great. In the USA it also means broke, out of money. Does it mean that in England, too? I put it in for now but need to add a caveat if the Brits say it not.
- 17. | 13/02/2018
Re note 16: "Tapped" used in the sense of broke, skint, as far as I know, isn't used in England. Nor in the other parts of the UK.
- 18. | 13/02/2018
Thanks, Martin.
- 19. | 26/03/2018
Mr Smith could on the other hand be just commenting/remembering "Party Telephone lines" that were shared telephone during the 1970's, where the other shared party could and did listen into your Telephone conversations. Party Telephone lines were cheaper due to sharing the line, which made them popular, our family had one.
- 20. | 07/04/2018
"The use of, uh, your (???) and your smug advertisements..."
- 21. | 07/04/2018
Ordure? It's the closest I'm going to get for now. "Closer" may be a suspect concept, but it's certainly not "iorture."
- 22. | 08/04/2018
On the live tv version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzAOiA4dH_o its "use of a nodule" and is used twice but that doesn't sound quite right on the studio version. Telecoms use a node
- 23. | 20/06/2018
I thought the line "I'm tapped" might be a reference to Phil Ochs' '69 song "My Life" where he sings "Take your tap from my phone and leave my life alone"; in the notes to "Quit iPhone" I saw a guess that MES could be familiar to Ochs' music, so my suggestion might also be accurate.
- 24. | 01/07/2018
Cog Sinister thing:
The text there is:
The text there is:
I hear you telephone thing listening in x2
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you
Sorry to be so short with you - but I'm tapped What??
I'm tapped
Chorus x2
The use of nodule and your smug advertisements for your tendrill ocean bed achievements
Does not justify your abuse of privacy/piracy act
(Does the home secretary have the barest, basest inkling of what's going down?)
I hear you telephone thing listening in x2
I feel you telephone thing listening in
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you, you Gretchen Auschwitz nosey matron-type -
I hear you telephone thing, listening in
I sense you
How dare you assume I want to parlez vous with you. Etc.
- 25. | 15/07/2018
I like the BBC version much better than Extricate but it's hard to put my finger on why...
- 26. | 15/07/2018
Now that I see that I can hear it as "nodule" on Extricate
- 27. | 15/07/2018
Is "Tendrill" a British spelling or just a mis-spelling? If there is a distinction to be made there, that is!
- 28. | 15/07/2018
Yes, he says "basest," not "faintest," on Extricate too
- 29. | 15/07/2018
Maybe John but we coul find so many uses of "tap" with "phone" that it seems more would be needed
- 30. | 17/07/2018
"Does the Home Secretary have the barest basest inkling of what's going down"
Yes, I can hear this now, instead of "faintest". You get the alliteration then too.
Yes, I can hear this now, instead of "faintest". You get the alliteration then too.
- 31. | 18/10/2018
This can't possibly be relevant. Can it?
But Chas & Dave had a song titled That Telephone Thing (1987):
https://youtu.be/xu5cei1iLAM
But Chas & Dave had a song titled That Telephone Thing (1987):
https://youtu.be/xu5cei1iLAM
- 32. | 21/10/2018
It's almost certainly relevant.
- 33. | 21/10/2018
Dan, do we have them noted elsewhere that you know? I have somehow heard of them which makes me think there's some sort of MES connection...note you could sing "Telephone Thing" over this.
- 34. | 21/10/2018
What are they saying? "There's one thing I got that wouldn't be missed/[It's a telephone ringing drive you round the twist]"? Is there a britishism in there, or what the hell does it say?
- 35. | 25/10/2018
I hear "There's one thing I got that wouldn't be missed / It's the telephone [thing/ring], it drives me round the twist."
- 36. | 27/10/2018
"There's a thing I've got that wouldn't be missed / It's a telephone ring, it drives me round the twist".
Definitely not "one thing".
Definitely not "one thing".
- 37. | 27/10/2018
No other Chas & Dave references in Fall lyrics or titles, so far as anyone has discovered thus far.
- 38. | 15/05/2019
From "The Fall: album by album", in Uncut magazine, July 2019:
More on Spycatcher
MARTIN BRAMAH: Mark wrote the words to that after reading Spycatcher. He thought the secret service was listening in to his calls, because he had opinions. Maybe they were.
More on Spycatcher
- 39. | 31/03/2020
Gretch franklin was also in quatermass of Ley! Ley! Ley! fame
- 40. | 27/06/2020
i wondered before if MES was really 'embarrassed' that he subconsciously included "the bloody woman with the little dog off Eastenders" he changed the lyric ever , live - ? i suspect not -
- 41. | 01/10/2020
Just a note that the groove to Telephone Thing is strikingly similar to that of the song "Look Out" by the 70s Zambian garage-rock band, WITCH [We Intend To Cause Havoc]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gehwsK6Xm8&t
I realise that this doesn't exactly pertain to lyrics but thought that it was worth a mention cos both songs are great! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gehwsK6Xm8&t
I realise that this doesn't exactly pertain to lyrics but thought that it was worth a mention cos both songs are great! :)
- 42. | 09/01/2021
Maldoror,
It doesn't have to pertain to lyrics. And this WITCH song is great. But I suspect it would be possible to find other funk or zamrock tracks with a similar groove? I wonder if it's distinct enough...
It doesn't have to pertain to lyrics. And this WITCH song is great. But I suspect it would be possible to find other funk or zamrock tracks with a similar groove? I wonder if it's distinct enough...
- 43. | 03/06/2023
MES's story about picking up the phone and hearing people "munching on sandwiches talking about my last call" just sounds like the people he rang didn't put the phone down properly. He picked the phone back up, the call was still connected, and he heard them discussing what they talked about
- 44. | 06/06/2023
Comment #43. Assuming the story to be true, and that it's not anything to do with party lines, it strikes me that if the people talking were the people MES had previously spoken to, he'd probably recognise their voices. Of course, something of the sort could have happened and MES might just be fictionalising.
The first mention of Gretchen Franklin doesn't start with "You".
"I do you Telephone Thing listening in" is "I feel you Telephone Thing listening in"
And the last mention of Gretchen Franklin doesn't start with "You" either.