The Birmingham School of Business School
Lyrics
The car is at the roundabout
The policeman is at the roundabout (2)
But I'm full of surprises now
And my friend, he said I'm full of surprises now
Let me tell you about scientific management (3)
And the theft of its concealment
The Birmingham School of Business School (4)
In Birmingham
It's main theme
Weave a web so magnificent
Disguise in the art of conceit
Give a very firm handshake
And take the bastards for everything that they rate
The Birmingham Business School of Business School
Deposits prisoner robotics
Home to their wives Stepford (5)
Case-carrying
Business School
Birmingham School of Business School
Birmingham School of Business School
In the heart of Britain
The big heart of England (6)
Lee Coopers on FEs (7)
The Birmingham School of Business School
Plane crash to walkin'
Hitching
Blazers
Builders
Tryna find a job
The jumped up prats
Birmingham Business School
The Birmingham School of Business School
Birmingham School of Business School
Laughing-stock of European
Olympic bidding again and again (8)
Exciting developments
The Birmingham School of Business School
("Trevor Long" "Speaking" [dial tone])
Notes
1. Dan reports that the Birmingham Business School, at Birmingham University, was opened on 24 October 1990 by Sir Alex Jarrett. So, it was a fairly recent thing when this was written, though it had already existed as the School of Commerce. The song probably has little to do with the actual business school, in any case.
This song is reputed to be about Trevor Long, who managed the Fall in the late '80s and who was subsequently sued (unsuccessfully) by Mark E. Smith for appropriating some of the band's funds. From an interview with John Procter of I, Ludicrous in The Biggest Library Yet:
"Trevor Long rubbed us up the wrong way from the start. But, in true Nietzchean style, we embraced our enemy (I learned that from Mark). By the end of the tour, Trevor was spending most of his time in our dressing room, which was very disturbing. Very disturbing indeed. Mark described Trevor as The Fall's guru, but we were wary of him.
I suspect Gentleman's Agreement to be about Trevor, but can shed no further light. The Birmingham School of Business School is more specifically about Trevor and his creative accounting techniques."
There is some indication that "Don't Take The Pizza" is also about Long, at least in part.
One can almost hear "Brummagem School of Business School," a word deriving from 'Birmingham' which denotes cheap or ersatz goods.
The form of the title echoes a radio piece MES read on the pirate station Greenwich Sound Radio in 1983 entitled "Mark E Smith Guide to Writing Guide." And at the end of "Yes, O Yes" from the ballet I Am Curious, Orange (and the album I Am Kurious, Oranj), MES is heard to say, "And that's what you get when you join the M. Clark School of Soccer Coaching School: Enraged and inflamed with torment."
Martin submits: "Typewritten comments about the song found on the Code: Selfish album sleeve: 'The weak in courage are strong in cunning2 [sic] (Blake) milling about in the hotel reception. Convention vermin who read the 'Sunday Sport`too often. '"
The original (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) Blake quote has the singular "is" and not "are."
See More Information below.
2. Roundabouts are also referenced in M5 and Way Round.
3. Scientific Management, often called "Taylorism," is a school of management that studies and adapts the labor process in order to maximize efficiency. Fredrick Taylor is considered the progenitor of this movement, although the term was coined by (then-future) Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis as a generic descriptor to the approach taken by Taylor and others. The approach, and particularly Taylorism, became infamous as a worldview that looks at people as merely economic factors or even machines.
From mr phil in the comments below:
"The point about scientific management is very valid. Taylor would subtly redesign a shovel to see if he got more tonnage shovelled or not. Whether people were aware of this or not is open to question. As such 'the thefts of its concealment' are interesting as many of the methods might have reduced the throughput. If the worker was on piece rate, he may have been shortchanged when it was a result of the shovel and not the worker. Perhaps Mark felt that Trevor Long was 'switching the shovel' without the bands knowledge and represented it this way."
4. The Birmingham Business School is part of the University of Birmingham.
5. The Stepford Wives is a 1972 novel by Ira Levin in which the wives in an upscale suburban Connecticut neighborhood turn out to be robots. Film versions were released in 1975 and 2004.
6. "The Big Heart of England" was an advertising slogan for Birmingham.
Egg points out: "The Nightingales' "Part Time Moral England," released in 1986, opens with "Hello and welcome to Birmingham, it's the big heart of England."
7. Lee Coopers are jeans that were particularly trendy in the 1950s and 1960s. An F.E. is a financial executive.
But from pinkpapaver: "I hear 'Lee Cooper of FE.' FE also stands for "further education," and there are FE colleges in Brum. So, second rate education. (16-19 education) like Lee Cooper jeans second rate jeans to levis." Then this particular school may be second rate (Lee Cooper) within the category of second rate (Levi's)...
According to Seadog Black on the Fall Online Forum, "To me it sounds like F.U's and that would make more sense as F.U's are a famous American brand of jeans from the 70's/80's."
8. Birmingham made a bid for the Olympics in 1992, the year Code:Selfish was released.
More Information
The Birmingham School of Business School: Fall Tracks A-Z
Dan points out that MES has quoted, or alluded to, the "Proverbs of Hell" from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell numerous times:
"The selfish smiling fool and the sullen frowning fool shall both be thought wise" (quoted in "So-Called Dangerous," also on Code: Selfish; also, "Beware the selfish smiling fool," etc., "Mere Pseud Mag. Ed.")
"He thinks at dawn / He acts at noon / He stays alone / And in the evening.." (paraphrased version of "Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.", "Two Face!," from Code: Selfish)
"Folly is the cloak of knavery", ("Ed's Babe," 1992, the Code: Selfish era)
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" (adapted for "Lost in Music," which is on the next album, The Infotainment Scan)
Also there are a bunch of references to Blake, including a reference to "Heaven and Hell" in "W.B.."
See also "That Man" and "A Figure Walks" for lines that appear to be nods at this source.
Anyway, it is interesting that so many lines emerged c1992.
Comments (58)
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management
" 'The Birmingham School of Business School' with its less-than-cryptic tirade about a band manager from the Midlands. To clear up any remaining doubt as to which manager the song may be calling into disrepute, Mark even insisted on tacking an authentic recording of an answerphone message onto the end of the piece."
From David Harvey's "A Companion to Marx's Capital, Vol 1" pp.214-215:
"Marx tend to universalize what is going on in Manchester as if this is the ultimate form of capitalist industrialism... If Engels had been in Birmingham, Marx's presentation might have been quite different. The industrial structure there was small-scale but assembled in such a way as to realize economies of agglomeration. It was more craft-oriented, with workshops producing guns, jewelry and various metallurgical products, and it seems to have been highly efficient and characterized by very different labor relations from those found in the huge cotton factories of the Manchester region. Marx evidently knew very little about what we might call the Birmingham model of capitalist industrialism and therefore failed to address a distinction that has been long-lasting in the history of capitalist development."
"The weak in courage are strong in cunning2 {sic] (Blake)
milling about in the hotel reception. Convention vermin who read the 'Sunday Sport`too often.
(The actual Blake quote has the singular "is" and not "are", by the way.)
Laughing stock of European Olympic bidding.... The city went for the Olympics in 1992, ie around 86. So, its not just about Trevor long It is about Birmingham. I feel smith has a soft spot for the city and its deprivation and delusions of grandeur. In the way he says Manchester is actually crap, but it is a place very bigged bigged up in the country. Birmingham is a place everyone knows is crap! (yet its actually pretty good unless youre poor, like everywhere). It's in the Midlands but mark references birmingham as in the neglected and industrial North in the video of hit the north
And then there's the lse London school of economics. Higher Ed rather than fe but another educational establishment of waffle and bulla.
I hear jumped up press. But prats sounds good enough.
This was a tourist-advertising slogan for Birmingham:
It doesn't sound like "FEs" to me whatsoever. Nothing like it. Sounds more like "FUs" or "effuse", but I don't know what the word is. Neither of those really fits.
I'm having trouble with the whole "plane crash... hitching" bit. Don't feel that's right at all. Except I don't think Hitchin would fit at all.
(i.e. lots of Lee Coopers)
I don't think Mark is talking about Brummies themselves, more of this rebranding exercise. As far as the character goes, I always think of a generic managers, the type of manager who knows nothing about the actual business he's in, just trained to maximize profits. I worked setting up a bookshop in Stockport, and just before opening they got one of these knob-ends straight from McDonalds. He had to find ways to sack everyone one by one and rehire because we all hated him so much.
Mark, getting in early to the heart of the matter, as he always does, offers us the most succinct translation yet, of this oblique jargon:
"Wah wah wha wahawahwah wah wah wah wawawah, wah wah wah wAh wah wah wah wawawah".
Indeed. But the Blair government was 5 years away when Code: Selfish was released.
Misleading. Birmingham did bid for the 1992 Olympics (which took place in Barcelona of course), but that process started in 1985 and the decision confirmed in February 1986. Since Birmingham only made one bid for the Olympics (unlike Manchester, which bid twice), it seem inaccurate and unfair to talk about "Olympic bidding again and again". Also, the song made its live debut in 1991.
In 1991, Birmingham played host to the IOC and their accouncement of the winner of the bids for the 1994 Winter Olympics.
Here's another one:
Further evidence:
https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b87e3e7ee
https://restaurantsbrighton.co.uk/profile-drinks-expert-pacta-brighton-open-market/
The Blake quote, "The weak in courage is strong in cunning", comes from Proverbs of Hell from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
The same source has been plundered by MES a few times, especially c1992:
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" (adapted for Lost in Music, which is on the next album, Infotainment Scan)
"The selfish smiling fool and the sullen frowning fool shall both be thought wise" (paraphrased for So-Called Dangerous, also on Code: Selfish).
"Folly is the cloak of knavery", (Ed's Babe, 1992, the Code: Selfish era)
"He thinks at dawn / He acts at noon / He stays alone / And in the evening.." (paraphrased version of "Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.", Two Face!, from Code: Selfish)
"Beware the sullen smiling fool / And the shallow frowning fool / Both will be thought wise" (adapted, and not from c1992, Mere Pseud Mag. Ed. of course)
And there's a reference to "Heaven and Hell" in W.B..
See also That Man, and A Figure Walks for lines that appear to be nods at this source.
Anyway, it is interesting that so many lines emerged c1992.
Anyway, thank you for that; I cleaned it up a bit and posted it under all those songs...
The School traces its history back to the College of Commerce, established in 1902. (But this is complicated. See: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/004772908X303412)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Business_School_(University_of_Birmingham)
The Business School has been based at University House, Edgbaston, since 2004.
... bit more complicated than that, though...
Maybe use the new one I posted in comment #37 - it's stored on my site and I've also archived it: Internet Archive
I'm fairly sure it was above one of the doors of one of these buildings. A mate visiting pointed it out once too. Either the one next to the post office or one of the others. Used to notice it when on the top deck of a bus going down New St.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4793844,-1.9013318,3a,75y,229.26h,113.5t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWM32GAsQ_lM13flhLFuwVQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
But can I ask, Tom, comment #49, did you stay in Birmingham post-1991? I ask because the song debuted in December that year, and didn't appear on record until March 1992.
I stayed in Brum till 92 - and made a float (a £50 car) into a U.S flag (with red/white material dragging behind)...covered in defunkt consumer goods... kettles, toasters, etc And it was part of an artist's parade through the city centre as part of the olympic bid I think. The car when I took it to scrapyard in Digbeth, where I had a studio at The Custard Factory, was plonked on top of a massive heap of cars and you could see it from the train as you entered Brum from York.
I stayed in Brum, then moved to Coventry in 92, but I'd bought the Code Selfish CD (probably because of that song), and pointed it out when going out on the lash with a mate who was visiting, played it to him, going up the street that went around the Victoria statue by the Post office. I used to see it every day though. The sign wasn't big I don't think... across the window above an entrance door and led upstairs over three floors. I just zoomed in and it still is an education provider of some sort.
The Post Office was in the old building to the right. You can see the Post Office "wrongly" labelled if you zoom out of Google https://static.everythingability.opalstacked.com/notes/birmingham_school_of_business_school.png
And I'm 99% certain that "Victoria Square House" was it (a it is signed in the Google Map now) (between Eat and the corner building, Supercuts). That grey door is it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Square_House
The "door" next to Eat is labelled Victoria Square House on Google Maps. It is here, above and maybe below that I would swear blind that the sign...
BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL
OF BUSINESS SCHOOL
... and if I was pushed I'd say it was in a sorta bold helvetica font...and maybe navy blue on white.
https://static.everythingability.opalstacked.com/notes/Victoria_Square_-_Google_Maps_
[img=https://static.everythingability.opalstacked.com/notes/Victoria_Square_-_Google_Maps_
Anyway, what are we like? I could be entirely wrong... but it WAS ON THAT SIDE OF THE ROAD and I DID SEE THE SIGN and laugh at it for years before the song came out AND IT DID EXIST :-)
Though it could've been above Greggs or where INGEUS is now, slightly further downhill now I look again... I'm starting to doubt myself after all this. Arrgh!
Where will I pilgrimage to now?
It's main theme =
In Birmingham
It's made for you