U.S. 80s-90s
Lyrics
Had a run-in with Boston Immigration
And to my name had an aversion
Nervous droplets
Due to sleeping tablets (1)
No beer
No cigarettes
Slam, spikes, gin, cigarettes (2)
Beer in van
The cops are tops (3)
Welcome to the 80s 90s
Welcome to US 80s 90s
I'm the big-shot original rapper (4)
But it's time for me to get off this crapper
Welcome to the US 80s 90s
No beer
No cigarettes
Spikes, gin, cigarettes
Whisky
Like cones of silence (5)
Welcome to the US 80s and 90s
Welcome to the US 80s/90s
Welcome to the 1890s
Kentucky dead keep pouring down
Kentucky dead keep pouring down
By death stadium (6)
Monroe used dressing room
My ambition, but one chance in three million Jack
Like cones of silence
Cast aside over-inflation theory of the panicists
Welcome to the US 80s 90s
Look at page 19, small column, lower right-hand side
Welcome to the 1980s
Notes
1. Max points out the obvious, which obviously should have been in my notes. Why deny the obvious child?
Actually, I didn't know about this, although, like you, I must have read about it in one of the books and forgotten it:
"This probably seems totally obvious to everyone else, but i just realised that the whole "no beer, no cigarettes, spikes, gin, whiskey" probably refers to US Immigration confiscating a load of booze and cigs off Mark, along with a penknife (spike) or similar."
Dan points out below that "spikes" is more likely to mean hypodermic needles.
And from Dan:
MES quote from the pilot issue of LM magazine (given away free with Crash, December 1986), dated January 1987, p.25: "US Eighties And Nineties is about America and how it's changed over the years. When I've been there before it was the freest place I'd ever been to in my life, but the last few times I've been it' s been a very oppressed place – as bad as Russia or somewhere."
And finally, Brix's memoir:
In The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise, Brix Smith-Start confirms that the song was inspired by the group's experiences at customs: "we practically had stickers on our foreheads saying 'Search me'... we would always get tormented by security and feel like we were entering a police state." She recounts an incident at Boston immigration, where the group were questioned about sleeping pills given to Mark and Brix by her mother - the prescription was in her mother's name, hence the problem. However, see note 2 below.
Brix says that this was "our version of a hip-hop track."
rIchincleveland: ""80s-90s" (for me anyway) also seemed to be a veiled reference to traveling across the US. If you want to drive from Boston to Chicago, for example, you'd eventually end up on I-80, the Ohio Turnpike. And you'd likely be in some highway named I-90 eventually."
Routes 80 and 90 span the US from east to west, with 90 being the northern route and 80 being south of it, more in the middle of the north/south axis.
2. To "slam" is to shoot drugs, and "spikes" in this context means hypodermic needles.
3. Dan: "NY cops are tops" was a pro-police slogan in New York from the 1960s. There is a reference here, for example, to Pete Townshend wearing a button badge with the slogan.
Cop cars wore the slogan.
I think it's used quite commonly elsewhere too, for example Canada and Australia.
4. Shawn Swagerty comments: I always took the lines "I'm the big-shot original rapper But it's time for me to get off this crapper" as a slap at Lou Reed, who had a rather lame single called "The Original Wrapper" in 1986.
5. A reference to the classic 1960s Mel Brooks/Buck Henry sitcom "Get Smart." Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, would always insist on using a device called the "Cone of Silence" when the Chief had something top secret to impart, much to the latter's annoyance. Everthing they said would be completely inaudible within the Cone, but could be easily heard from outside.
6. Memorial Coliseum at the University of Kentucky in Lexington was built as a memorial to soldiers from Kentucky who had died in the two World Wars and the Korean conflict, and later added the names of all the Kentucky dead from Vietnam. As far as I can tell, the Fall never played there, or anywhere else in Kentucky, at least as of 1985. If this refers to an actual incident, I haven't discovered it.
Dan:
There were two football stadium disasters in 1985 - Heysel and Bradford. I wonder if they are in mind here at all?
"Kentucky dead". Possibilities might include the 1876 Kentucky meat shower, however to me it looks like an Elvis reference.
In Elvis's song "Kentucky Rain", is the following:
"Kentucky rain keeps pouring down
And up ahead's another town
That I'll go walking thru
With the rain in my shoes,
Searchin for you"
Also perhaps worth noting that the film "The Return of the Living Dead" was released in 1985, and was set in Kentucky. It features a deadly rain.
On the other hand, nkroached points out that the line on the Peel version seems to be "Kentucky death keep pouring down," which s/he takes to refer to bourbon. It does sound like "death" on Peel, although not definitely; it seems to me to be kind of in between "death" and "dead," maybe even "debt," but my ears aren't the best...
There is a version from Roskilde with variants:
My ambition is to walk to work
Not one chance in one million jack
Welcome to the Euro/ US 80s 90s
Blackcurrant
Welcome to the only iron curtain country Britain
^
More Information
Comments (51)

- 1. | 21/04/2013

- 2. | 01/05/2013

- 3. | 20/07/2014
Dan

- 4. | 20/07/2014

- 5. | 20/07/2014
By death stadium"
There were two football stadium disasters in 1985 - Heysel and Bradford. I wonder if they are in mind here at all?
"Kentucky dead". Possibilities might include the 1876 Kentucky meat shower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower), however to me it looks like an Elvis reference.
In Elvis's song "Kentucky Rain", is the following:
"Kentucky rain keeps pouring down
And up ahead's another town
That I'll go walking thru
With the rain in my shoes,
Searchin for you"
Also perhaps worth noting that the film "The Return of the Living Dead" was released in 1985, and was set in Kentucky. It features a deadly rain.

- 6. | 20/07/2014
"The cops are tops"
"NY cops are tops" was a pro-police slogan in New York from the 1960s. There is a reference here, for example, to Pete Townshend wearing a button badge with the slogan: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/who-69.php
Cop cars wore the slogan.
I think it's used quite commonly elsewhere too, for example Canada and Australia.

- 7. | 22/07/2014
welcome to U.S. 1990s
welcome to Euro U.S 1990s
welcome to the the U.S. UK 1990s
No cheese, no tomatoes
My ambition is to walk to work
one chance in 3 million Jack
What have you learnt son?
Read summat you fool.
A leisure society
of severe preponderance
And my fists are bruised
And I cannot write properly
welcome to the UK 2000s
No beer, no cigarettes, no slam, gin, sausages...
No this,
No that,
Like bank holidays in England.
No wonder there's a recession
A very important political statement
Rhinestone, gemstone.

- 8. | 21/09/2014
I have no idea...

- 9. | 04/10/2014

- 10. | 02/02/2015
I thought this was the Whisky(sic) Bourbon.

- 11. | 21/04/2015

- 13. | 23/02/2016
http://pitchandputtproductions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/mark-e-smith-interview-from-1986.html
US Eighties And Nineties is about America and how it's changed over the years. When I've been there before it was the freest place I'd ever been to in my life, but the last few times I've been it' s been a very oppressed place – as bad as Russia or somewhere.

- 14. | 19/03/2016
"Spikes" would be needles, not penknives.

- 15. | 24/03/2016

- 16. | 04/05/2016
we practically had stickers on our foreheads saying 'Search me'...
... we would always get tormented by security and feel like we were entering a police state.
She also says that it was "our version of a hip-hop track".

- 17. | 07/05/2016

- 18. | 14/06/2017
"I'm the big-shot original rapper
But it's time for me to get off this crapper"
as a slap at Lou Reed, who had a rather lame single called "The Original Wrapper" in 1986 -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Am45JrwQ4

- 19. | 07/08/2017

- 20. | 20/10/2017

- 21. | 18/11/2017

- 22. | 05/05/2018

- 23. | 09/07/2018

- 24. | 09/07/2018

- 25. | 17/07/2018
And it does sound like "Monroe used dressing room" on both album and Peel versions to me too.

- 26. | 22/07/2018

- 27. | 22/07/2018

- 28. | 22/07/2018

- 29. | 22/07/2018
Kentucky dead keep pouring down
By death stadium
Monroe used dressing room
On their February/March 1986 tour of the US, The Fall played several venues where Monroe might also have appeared at some point.
However, the proximity of Kentucky perhaps points towards the gig at the Jockey Club, Newport on 18th March. It just so happens, you see, that the Jockey Club at 633 York Street was formerly the Flamingo Casino, a place with mob connections and a hang-out for Sinatra and... Marilyn Monroe.
Some history of the site as a punk/rock venue can be found in George Hurchalla's Going Underground: American Punk 1979–1989. I can read bits on Google Books, but your access may vary.
Seems a plausible connection?

- 30. | 23/07/2018
The convictions of the perpetrators of the Trinity murders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_murders) was in 1986. There's a stadium connection in that case. Victor Dewayne Taylor was sentenced to death in May 1986, but the trial was in the newspapers from February. And of course The Fall were in the US in February and March.
http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/taylor-victor-dewayne.htm
Maybe a connection here? Doesn't feel very strong, but worth the comment anyway.

- 31. | 29/07/2018
29: "Jockey Club" doesn't sound like a stadium, though

- 32. | 31/07/2018

- 33. | 31/07/2018

- 34. | 31/07/2018

- 35. | 20/11/2018
"Monroe used this dressing room" is the line in that.

- 36. | 01/12/2018

- 37. | 21/04/2019
But FWIW, "80s-90s" (for me anyway) also seemed to be a veiled reference to traveling across the US. If you want to drive from Boston to Chicago, for example, you'd eventually end up on I-80, the Ohio Turnpike. And you'd likely be in some highway named I-90 eventually.
Or...perhaps this was already known by everyone and (again) I'm just late to the party.

- 38. | 09/08/2019
Get Smart! Mr Big was on BBC 1965-10-16
Whisky + Gin + Cigarettes: Horizon, Living with Dying https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bb15532e37bf4d7693b5712de45cbf20
Peel session 1981-02-02 had 21 Guns, lots of Bill Nelson, and Various Times. Misc series on TV, plus Brando in The Formula

- 39. | 07/10/2020

- 40. | 13/10/2020
Not "Kentucky dead", but there is a short story titled "Bloodfall" by T.C. Boyle in Twilight Zone magazine, April 1985 (a magazine we know MES saw at least once as he used snippets from the October 1985 issue on the This Nations Saving Grace album sleeve).
Link to the story in archive.org

- 41. | 28/10/2020
My ambition is to walk to work
Not one chance in one million jack
Welcome to the Euro/ US 80s 90s
Blackcurrant
Welcome to the only iron curtain country Britain

- 42. | 28/10/2020
Cones?
Are you sure it's not codes haha.

- 43. | 29/10/2020
Here is what the blue lyrics book has ("cones"):

We can't always take the lyrics books as definitive with respect to what we hear on record, but...

- 44. | 29/10/2020
Whether that's what we can hear is another matter of course.

- 45. | 30/03/2021
Also thinking of Hunter Thompson's article on the Kentucky Derby...probably another rh

- 46. | 03/07/2021

- 47. | 12/08/2021
https://vimeo.com/109486471
"A Leisure Society of Severe Preponderence", filmed by Ian Kerkhof/Aryan Kaganof, Crossing Border festival, 1995.

- 48. | 12/08/2021
https://vimeo.com/109486471
"A Leisure Society of Severe Preponderence", filmed by Ian Kerkhof/Aryan Kaganof, Crossing Border festival, 1995.

- 49. | 24/08/2021

- 50. | 02/11/2021

- 51. | 10/11/2021
On tour in America, I developed a fear of flying. My mother gave me a jar of Valium (in her name.) Mark carried it in his bag through Boston immigration. And got busted. That is what this song is about. For real.
Source: https://twitter.com/Brixsmithstart/status/1458528077827428358?s=20
More intriguingly, it also contains this line:
"And the tryst that curtails the mill shall make us strong".
I have no idea what this could mean.