The Past #2

Lyrics

What you put in mouth
A lot of things that weren't there
Pre-assumptions don't bring a harvest
But I love the justice and falling for the melancholy (1)
 

[Band vox:]
Don't speak, just think
Look down, shut up
Don't frown, you fucked up
The truth, the lie		 [MES vox:]

The feeling that makes you intelligence species
Truth, the invention of a layer


Captivated in ha-ha juice injustice
The lie-down liar strikes back
Your neck is growing, oh
Only humans carry their fast around (2)
Their past around
Implode into realit...
 

[Band vox:]
Don't drive, don't sleep
Don't laugh, just vibe
The blood, the good
The bad, ha ha		 [MES vox:]

Collaging your memories fast
I'll be good when I'm still but while meek


Pictureless memories dissolve in a panic
Motif: the one can see oneself
In the mould
It can be different
With all boys and girls dead, too
The one can see oneself in the world
It can be different
 

[Band vox:]
Don't speak, just think
Look down, shut up
Don't frown, you fucked up
The truth, the lie		 [MES vox:]
And the fatal, and the up
And the down
And the fatal, and the up
And the down


Boys and the dead too are armed
Like the abdominizers and private investigators (3)
Looking for a cheap coffee
Hunting out limeys
Or I'm just buying a drink    (4)
Wanna be my one, limey?

Notes

1. Don't ask MES what this lyrics are! From Left of the Dial:

"But I love the justice of something something melancholy." I couldn't understand the whole line.

Sometimes I do things like that.

^

 

2. This is thought to allude to the file that was leaked of this song when early bootlegs of Country on the Click were making the rounds, which was erroneously entitled "The Fast."  Zack disagrees, and provides some interesting background information in the process:

Here is my recollection of the COTC leak: I saw The Fall twice on their 2003 American tour: June 29 in Chicago and June 30 in Detroit. At both shows (and I believe at all shows on the tour) we heard tracks from COTC played over the house PA before the group took the stage. By the end of the tour COTC had found its way to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The most likely scenario is that a soundman or other venue personnel ripped or stole a CD-R from the group during the US tour. I found COTC on Soulseek within hours of learning that it had leaked. "The Past" was indeed mislabeled as "The Fast", but I have to say I don't believe this influenced MES's lyrics on "The Past #2" at all. MES deliberately mispronounces words all the time, but I just don't buy the notion that MES would give a shit about (or feel the need to comment on) the internet's misspelling of a leaked Fall song.

^

3. An "abdominizer" is a machine that exercises the muscles of the abdomen. The word also appears in "Noel's Chemical Effluence."  

^

4. Country on the Click has "Moving around, hitting on Limeys/On the west side of the world."

^

More Information

The Past #2: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 2003

Comments (14)

peter
  • 1. peter | 21/06/2013
Last line is surely "wanna be in my world, Limey?"
kenneth
  • 2. kenneth | 03/01/2015
at the beginning i am pretty confident he says FALLING FOR the melancholy \ mellon collie
bzfgt
  • 3. bzfgt | 31/01/2015
Peter: I'm not sure, I inherited "want to be my one" from the Lyrics Parade...I think you're right about "limey," and it connects with the previous line but one. "Want to be in my world" is trickier, to be honest it sounds to me like "Want to be my world?" with maybe the "in" sort of implied or muttered. I changed it to your way but we'll see if there are objections or corrections.

Kenneth: maybe, maybe not, but it looks better than [?], so I went with it...
Zack
  • 4. Zack | 05/06/2015
Here is my recollection of the COTC leak:

I saw The Fall twice on their 2003 American tour: June 29 in Chicago and June 30 in Detroit. At both shows (and I believe at all shows on the tour) we heard tracks from COTC played over the house PA before the group took the stage. By the end of the tour COTC had found its way to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The most likely scenario is that a soundman or other venue personnel ripped or stole a CD-R from the group during the US tour.

I found COTC on Soulseek within hours of learning that it had leaked. "The Past" was indeed mislabeled as "The Fast", but I have to say I don't believe this influenced MES's lyrics on "The Past #2" at all. MES deliberately mispronounces words all the time, but I just don't buy the notion that MES would give a shit about (or feel the need to comment on) the internet's misspelling of a leaked Fall song.
Zack
  • 5. Zack | 21/11/2016
As Wikipedia and Fall Tracks A-Z both note, "The Past" as it appeared on the unreleased Country on the Click was a full-band recording. In an apparent act of self-sabotage, the officially released "The Past #2" omits the guitar and most of the bass from the COTC recording and adds a new lead vocal track that is riddled with deliberate mispronunciations: Besides the aforementioned "fast", we also hear "Truth, the invention of a layer" ("liar" makes infinitely more sense), "Your neck is growing" (Pinocchio is a rather banal reference for MES, but "your nose is growing" would tie in nicely with the "truth" theme of the song) and "realit..." - clearly this is meant to be "reality" but for reasons only known to MES, he cut this word short.

I believe someone on the FOF once had a crack at transcribing the lyrics to the original version, which might be worth including here if we can find them.

One final note: the "hissed" quality of the backing vocals was likely inspired by the Can song "I Want More."
bzfgt
  • 6. bzfgt | 24/11/2016
Yeah, I have Country on the Click and it is quite different...I'll get around to transcribing it eventually if no one else does.
Bradley
  • 7. Bradley | 14/03/2019
I think it is "Wanna be my one, limey?". In the original version, he says something like "hitting on limeys" rather than "hunting out", so it makes sense in that context.

Any particular reason for the headache-inducing yellow font?
bzfgt
  • 8. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
I am not sure why the font was yellow in the cells, or how I wound up with cells...probably pasted from somewhere...the colors now are the result of my trying to make it normal and messing up the background on band vocals and keeping it that way.

How the fuck did we get where we are now? I'm not going to read all the comments, I'd have thought "laddy" but it seems we already have "limey," I'll listen now for the rest of it...
bzfgt
  • 9. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
Funny I posted that about the font before I read the end of your comment...it's gone now, is the upshot; and no, no reason worthy of the name.
bzfgt
  • 10. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
OK yeah I seem to hear an 'M' in "limey," OK. I am listening to COTC (original) right now, I'll check against RNFLP. I'll ponder the other change and you shall see what my verdict is when next you look at it. If I can't make a decision I'll need to enlist more listeners.
bzfgt
  • 11. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
OK it's definitely "my one," I don't know where the hell "world" came from. I guess both are adumbrated in

The one can see oneself in the world
It can be different
bzfgt
  • 12. bzfgt (link) | 27/04/2019
I feel like we actually have this right now. About time, and I hope there are no dissenters as I think you are completely correct, Bradley.
DQ
  • 13. DQ | 04/01/2021
Any reason why you've got the numeral "2" instead of "too"? I get that he seems to pause like he's starting a new thought, but I still think "too" makes more sense here. There's no indication that this is the continuation of a list or anything. And then there's "boys and the dead too" later on.
bzfgt
  • 14. bzfgt (link) | 28/02/2021
No, I just inherited that....your idea makes more sense

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