Ten Houses of Eve
Lyrics
Can you see the ten houses of Eve, yeah? (1)
And can you enter the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
And will you deny your own treat?
Dare you enter the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
Turn around and face ten houses of Eve, yeah
If only
Identity art (2)
If only the shards would relocate back in place
In your blue green and grey heart
Bedecked in lace
If only, if only thouldst could (3)
In a rap sort of style (4)
Understand
(Will those shards relocate?)
If only...
Can you dig the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
Turn around and look at the ten houses of Eve, yeah
And will blood flow 'til you see (5)
Do you believe enough to enter the houses of Eve
Wake up and see...
Do you believe?
The ten houses of Eve
Notes
1. The first live version referred to "ten houses of evil." A 1957 book about a woman with a multiple personality disorder was entitled The Three Faces of Eve; a movie based on the book, and bearing the same title, was released the same year, and Joanne Woodward won an Academy Award for her portrayal of the title character. The woman in question, one Chris Sizemore, has since contested the veracity of some of the claims in the book. Woodward later played a psychiatrist in Sybil, a 1976 film about a woman with no less than 13 distinct personalities (11 female and two male). Tin foil hat time: Sybil's 13 minus Eve's three equals MES's 10.
Multiple "houses" also figure in astrology, a theme MES was to take up on "Two Librans."
The melody is more or less taken from "Evil Hoodoo" by the Seeds (thanks to Zack for pointing this out).
Harley mentions that Eve is the archetypal female, associated with temptation, so the "houses" may be thought of as brothels in this regard.
2. This and the following lines may be a reference to multiple personalities, reinforcing the Three Faces of Eve connection.
3. "Thouldst" is not grammatically correct here; in the nominative, it would simply be "thou."
4. On "U.S. 80s-90s" MES calls himself "the big-shot original rapper." Continuing with the multiple personality hypothesis, the word here may be a reference to therapy; psychoanalysis used to be referred to as "the talking cure."
And Zack has dug up strong evidence in favor of "rap":
According to the Gigography, on 30 November 1997 in Stoke: "If only the shards would reconnect in a rap-sort of style. If only, in a Snoop Doggy Dogg style."
5. On the XFM session from 1999-04-15 MES says "Where blood flows, you will surely see..." This seems suggestive of menstrual blood, as the name Eve sometimes denotes something like the archetypal woman, as Eve in the Bible was the first woman; in Hebrew the word "Chavah" (Eve) means "living," and "where blood flows" could likewise denote any living thing...
More Information
Comments (34)

- 1. | 25/06/2014

- 2. | 15/07/2014

- 3. | 15/07/2014

- 4. | 15/07/2014

- 5. | 07/09/2014
Shakespeare's King Lear:
"Thou'ldst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou'ldst meet the bear i' the mouth."
This is sometimes written 'thoulst' in certain editions; the d isn't really pronounced. It's still not grammatically 'correct', but it is a word.
It has the olde-worlde flavour that MES wanted to puncture by getting deliberately wrong. That's what I think!

- 6. | 06/07/2017
"If only the shards would reconnect in a rap-sort of style. If only, in a Snoop Doggy Dogg style." (amended lyrics to "10 Houses of Eve")
I think that settles it.

- 7. | 15/07/2017
...and yet, it's not, as he could be punning on his own lyric...
...but I am listening now and cannot detect a "t," and anyway that tips the scales so I changed it.

- 8. | 15/07/2017

- 9. | 25/08/2017

- 10. | 05/08/2018
"his friends entreated him not to go"
synonyms: implore, beseech, beg, plead with, supplicate, pray, ask, request; bid, enjoin, appeal to, call on, petition, solicit;
exhort, urge, importune;
datedcrave;
rareimpetrate, obtest, obsecrate
"my lord, I entreat you to believe what you find in this letter"

- 11. | 16/08/2018

- 12. | 16/08/2018

- 13. | 16/08/2018

- 14. | 16/08/2018

- 15. | 21/11/2018

- 16. | 28/11/2018
Given the colours and cloth context, it's pretty safe to assume it's 'Wrap'.

- 17. | 01/12/2018
Seems even a year 3 level educational story can have a sub-text of biblical proportions, which is more than can be said for anything, who is it, 'Snoopy dog dog' has ever barked.

- 18. | 01/12/2018
The lyric doesn't appear to say that the houses are barren, or that there are no trees in their gardens.

- 19. | 01/12/2018
Hearts are usually depicted in our culture as red - representing love and/passion etc, so a heart that is blue or green or grey or a combination of those colours is likely a heart with problems, or at any rate one that is not symbolic of love or passion.

- 20. | 02/12/2018

- 21. | 02/12/2018

- 22. | 03/12/2018
Let me know when you sense the plunge into something way out of your depth. That being the principle joy in The Fall after all.

- 23. | 03/12/2018
The lyric doesn't say anything about trees or fruit, either.
Originally, as already noted, the song was "the ten houses of evil". Changing it to "Eve" creates a whole bunch of other associations to get to grips with, but we should also be careful not to get carried away.

- 24. | 03/12/2018
Ever heard of the 'Fall of Man', the fruit was eaten. How about 'Le Chute'? The bands name?
A 'The Fall' song with the female name 'Eve' in the title... is what's known as self-evident.

- 25. | 03/12/2018

- 26. | 03/12/2018

- 27. | 04/12/2018

- 28. | 13/12/2018

- 29. | 14/12/2018
'...your own tree~d'...' - I'd go for, or
'...your own tree~t'...' - if you want the treat in there
'...your own tree/treat..' - less phonic
'...your own tre(ed/at)..' - more fiddly
Syntax is your choice, but it's a fair point to want to reflect something of the dynamics of the vocal performance. It also means you don't have to decide, one way or another, for everyone else.

- 30. | 22/12/2018

- 31. | 23/12/2018
I wouldn't agree with the multiple personality thing, no more then the usual female array of conflicting archetypes, goddess/virgin/angel/mother/princess/lover//friend/bitch/whore... witch? Dishwasher?
first line is 'feel'
if you look though the 'can you...'
it's progressive, feel, enter, dare, believe, dig, wake, 'see' only at the end
'See' shouldn't come before 'Turn around and look' anyway
again, I don't mind 'rap' being in mind when he sings it, it's unavoidable, I just think wrap should lead in the text. Women's clothes and stuff, rap looks wrong, especially in among all that safe sentimental gushing

- 32. | 12/01/2019

- 33. | 24/05/2019
I still think and hear 'wrap', based mainly on the female colour/cloth theme

- 34. | 20/07/2021
Here is what I hear. The key differences is that I'm hearing "yeah" at the end of most Eve lines - i.e. I don't think it's him doing an "ah" at the end of each line. Secondly, no definite article in "Turn around and face ten houses of Eve, yeah". Thirdly, there's an extra "if only" in the line I render as "If only, oh if only thoust could, in a rap sort of style, understand". And finally, after the blood flow line, the lyric is "Do you believe enough to enter the houses of Eve?" i.e. not "do you believe you can enter etc".
Can you see the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
And can you enter the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
And will you deny your own treat?
Dare you enter the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
Turn around and face ten houses of Eve, yeah
If only
Identity art
If only the shards would relocate back in place
In your blue, green and grey heart
Bedecked in lace
If only, oh if only thoust could, in a rap sort of style, understand
If only
Can you dig the ten houses of Eve, yeah?
Turn around and look at the ten houses of Eve, yeah
And will blood flow 'til you see
Do you believe enough to enter the houses of Eve?
Wake up and see
[ ? ]
Do you believe?
The ten houses of Eve
Dan