The Remainderer

Lyrics

(1)

CD VERSION:

He's forgot
How to break loose
Become a tree
Become a tree
Break loose
Whatever it is it is always Rememberance R
Whatever it is it is always Remainderer R

Your scumbag it's true,
Never forget
This is you each week
Rememberance R

You know
Rememberance forgets
And beyond jeopardy that all we are
Beyond, he sees
I think of you
And whatever it is it is always Remainderer R
Remainder R

he throwed his kool-aid, out his stool  (2)
Into the bucket
Never forget
Rememberance is worth nothing

it was a good day
Whatever that is
It was a bright, sunny, rain-riddled morning
Sunny!
But it removed his back flute
Breeding pits
As he kept
There was nothing there
From Rememberance R
He has forgotten
That whatever it is it is always Rememberer R
Whatever you think it is always Remainderer R
And whatever you think it is always Remainderer R

And whatever you think
And whatever you bring
it's true

Rememberence R
Whether 90s or 70s
Your spots in projects
In words

PROMOTIONAL VERSION:

When you're in a state of indecision
Your brain is all heat
Don't you go running to powder
All that you need in your mind is...
For whatever you do you will all be remainderer r

(manipulate into leaving)

And you scumbag
Your scumbag, it's true,
Remembrance r
This is you each day

(manipulate into leaving)

In the north
Rememberance forgets

And beyond jeopardy where all we are
His back brain bent to the quilt
There was nothing left from remembrance r
Remainderer r

(manipulate into leaving)

Remainderer r

The throwed his kool-aid
Out his stool into the bucket
Never forget remembrance is worth nothing

Whatever you say
Whatever you do
Sorry
They removed his back flute

Brain hits
Happy
As he kept

There was nothing there from remembrance r
He has forgotten

Well whatever it is it is always remainderer r
Whatever you think it is always remainderer r
And whatever you think it is always rememberer r
And whatever you think
And whatever you bring
Its true
Remembrance r
Whether 90s or 70s

Notes

1. In the Fall of 2013, the Fall announced that a new six song EP entitled The Remainderer would be released on November 11th of that year, with the press release calling a "bridging point" between 2013's Re-Mit and a new album scheduled for 2014. The Remainderer was finally released in early December, I guess--they were on sale at gigs, and Action records was shipping them, prior to the final release date of December 9, so it's hard to say when it actually came out. But now it is here. 

Mezuzah man on the Fall online forum pointed out that the song may be cribbed from the theme song to Baywatch, and it is indeed hard to deny the similarity...

In an interview on Irish radio staion, when asked if the EP was leftover material from Re-mit, he answered "That's why it's called The Remainder [sic]". There certainly seems to be more to the name than that, though; as with Reformation Post TLC, MES seems concerned with bands that reform after years out of the business, and memory, nostalgia, and mortality seem to be on his mind. "Rememberance R" has a spoken ending in which producer Simon "Ding" Archer intones a speech, presumably written by MES, about a (hypothetical?) band that reforms after 17 years, expecting not only to get paid, but to be treated "as equals" by their peers. One doesn't get the impression that Archer, or MES as the case may be, finds these goals laudable. "Amorator!" also, if a bit more obliquely, seems concerned with the depredations of time, as MES sings "The frost covers up what the summer men made." Here, he delivers the paradoxical injunction: "Never forget, remembrance is worth nothing!"  In fact, the character in the song seems to have a lot of trouble due to not remembering: the song begins "He's forgot," and this report will be repeated, as will the advice to "never forget." In fact, what we learn is that "rememberance forgets." It is perhaps the case that nostalgia is, in fact, amnesic, insofar as it tries to forcibly reload the past, not letting it be truly past. And yet, there is a sense in which the opposite is also true, if what nostalgia has forgotten is that the past never was the past, but was also the present. "He's forgot how to break loose," MES sings, and we get the sense that what has been forgotten can only be remembered in a kind of productive repetition rather than a straightforward retrieval, to use two words which themselves have perhaps lost some of their presence through overfamiliarity in both the scientific study of memory and in philosophy. 

As with most Fall songs, the outline is sketched in just ambiguously enough that it is possible to pontificate endlessly without ever losing a sense of anxiety about the basis of one's discourse in the lyrics; on the one hand they seem to warrant almost any kind of speculation, but on the other any definite statements seem to come unmoored quickly and float off into the indeterminate or, what is perhaps worse, too determinate an interpretation, so it is best not to go too far before returning you to the lyrics themselves; click the little arrow below.   

Thanks to Maldoror and Buy Kurious! on the Fall online forum: the former transcribed the CD version and the latter the promo version of the lyrics.  

^

2. The acute Zack points out that this may be a reference to the saying "(to) drink the kool-aid," i.e. to accept a doctrine or position to the point of fanaticism. This saying originates with Jim Jones's People's Temple group who had a compound in Guyana. Jones had his followers drink Kool-Aid as a suicide drill...until one day, it was not a drill.

^

Comments (8)

Zack
  • 1. Zack | 04/06/2015
Re: "Manipulate into leaving"-

When reading Dave Simpson's "The Fallen" I wondered, why did all these people leave The Fall? Were they fired or did they quit? Ultimately I decided that that distinction really didn't matter. It seemed to me that most were forced into a position where they had no choice but to quit, which is akin to being fired.
Wrayx8
  • 2. Wrayx8 | 06/04/2016
"It was a bright, sunny, re-written morning"

I always hear "rain-riddled."
bzfgt
  • 3. bzfgt | 19/05/2016
I'm going with that although I'm far from confident. But it sounds more "riddled" than "written," although "rain-riddled" cuts against "bright, sunny." Of course "riddled" with rain implies a basic state of morning not itself rainy, on the other hand it's a little bit subtle for the apparent sarcasm of the line.
Zack
  • 4. Zack | 08/03/2017
In the promo version (which is also the vinyl version):

"The throwed his kool-aid" -> "And he throwed his Kool-Aid." Apparently "he" (whoever he is) refused to drink the Kool-Aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid.
Bazhdaddy
  • 5. Bazhdaddy | 28/03/2019
CD version;

02:14 "they throwed his Kool-Aid alkies stool into the bucket" Is alkie (for alcoholic) used outside GB? Not pleasant but too much drinking affects bowel habits, perhaps its like kool-aid whatever that's like?

Two vocal lines from 02:34 get muddled above, separated they would be;

It was a bright, sunny, rain-rid-of morning
Sunny!
[But it removed his back brain pits]
Like he flew, he was happy in there
[As he kept, there was nothing there]
He had nothing to do
[But Remembrance R]
Wisely he ?
[He had forgotten]

whatever it is at the end (your spacts?) I think it "projects inward"

Promo version
02:02 "in the north" is just "you know"

Alkies stool again

some of that double vocal bit again from 03:02

Sunny!
[But it removed his back brain pits]
Like he flew, he was happy in there
[As he kept, there was nothing there]
He had nothing to do
[But Remembrance R]
Wisely he ?
[He had forgotten]

And that impenetrable end bit again
bzfgt
  • 6. bzfgt (link) | 04/05/2019
Yes "alkie" is used here, though now you mention it it does sound English, everything seems to have a cutesy nickname over there...
Dave
  • 8. Dave | 24/10/2020
Some different lyrics on a Dublin 2013 version about Yorkshire fire escapes

(it's basically a slow intro to the song and it's not so illuminating I could basically write (muffled muffled muffled) the entire song, but I started anyway and I'm too lazy to finish the job.

He sits at night, in Yorkshire, on the fire escape
Remembrance
Remembrance R
His ideas are an (aberration?)
(muffled line)
In the the wastage
He forgotten his (muffled)
Remembrance R

What's your favourite record?
When the stereo's?
There are hardly any
Why can't you stay (muffled muffled) group
Get out of your rememberance R
Take that step (muffled) out of your (muffled)

They forgot they merely were remainder R
Whatever you do, whatever you say
There is only one remainderer R

(Muffled) creative energy
It is so definitive and you think you can create
There is only one left, that is remainderer R
(muffled) Not to forget

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