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The Annotated Lyrics
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- The Past #2
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- W.M.C.--Blob 59
- Way Round
- Weather Report 2
- What About Us?
- What You Need
- Where's the F***in Taxi? C**t
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- Who Makes the Nazis?
- Win Fall CD 2088 AD
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- Wise Ol' Man
- Wolf Kidult Man
- Words of Expectation
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- You Haven't Found It Yet
- You're Not Up To Much
- Your Heart Out
- Youwanner
- Zagreb
- Zandra
-
Arranged By Album
- Live at the Witch Trials
- Dragnet
- Grotesque (After the Gramme)
- Slates
- Hex Enduction Hour
- Room to Live
- Perverted by Language
- The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall
- This Nation's Saving Grace
- Bend Sinister
- The Frenz Experiment
- I Am Kurious, Oranj
- Extricate
- Shift-Work
- Code:Selfish
- The Infotainment Scan
- Middle Class Revolt
- Cerebral Caustic
- Light User Syndrome
- Levitate
- The Marshall Suite
- The Unutterable
- Are You Are Missing Winner
- The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)
- Fall Heads Roll
- Reformation Post TLC
- Imperial Wax Solvent
- Your Future Our Clutter
- Ersatz G.B.
- Re-Mit
- The Remainderer
- Sub-Lingual Tablet
- Wise Ol' Man
- New Facts Emerge
- 2014
- O! ZZTRRK Man
- New Facts Emerge
- Segue
- Ponto
- Smith and Mark
- Afternoon Disco
- Reece Stick
- Home /
- The Annotated Lyrics /
- W.M.C.--Blob 59
W.M.C.--Blob 59
Lyrics
Right we'll go here
Where is he?
Just been to the park (1)
Not the pub, the park
Go on
We too do not recognise the M.U.
We come with our hands open in fiendship
We can lead you to proletariat visions of posterity (2)
W.M.C.!
The social alternative was incredibly frequent (3)
We come with our hands open in fiendship
We can lead you to proletariat visions of prosperity
We merely make cabaret
We are on Gramme Friday (4)
Notes
1. The previous song on Grotesque is called "In the Park."
From the liner notes: "This is a very funny track. It's a pity you can't hear what's going on."
1983 - Month Unknown - Hide (?) Fanzine 'After IN THE PARK on GROTESQUE it sounds like you're in a living room
drinking and you're saying something in the back, 'it leads you to visions of
proletariat..'
M- 'hysteracy'. That's my sense of humour. It's like trying to get into a
working man's club in England which is very hard, you see you've got to be a
member. But you can always get a drink after 'time'. There's a scat on the
front, that we had a working men's club image. Being from the North of
England we're very unique in the fact that we're actually a working class
group. So, everyone answers to that, there's a lot of working class working
men's club outfits. On that thing I was trying to get into a working men's
group. It's this super poet trying to get this guy to let him into the club.
A sort of country & western song is behind it, too. I think that was one of
the most unpopular things I've ever done. People used to write and say I love
the old people on this track, is this a joke? What are you doing this sort of
thing for?'
He definitely does not, however, say "hysteracy" on the record.
3. W.M.C. is "Working Mens' Club," and "M.U." may be "Musicians' Union." W.M.C.'s originated in 19th century Britain; they were intended to both provide opportunities for recreation and social interaction, and also to foster education and cultural growth, among working men. Reportedly, the former functions are more commonly attended to, which may be what the last line of the stanza above is alluding to. Somewhere along the way someone (see below) has started singing what always sounds to me like a traditional spiritual in the background but may be an original song. Live renditions feature MES singing this part of the song. The lyrics to this part of the song, according to Joseph Mullaney's transcription: "The one to deny It was I/Since you became blob 59/I spent a lot of time wondering/ who and what the hell/What the crime."
And from Lee Thacker: "The Blob 59 lyrics are easier to hear on the 'Live in Glasgow' bootleg:
As to who started this in the first place,
I'm not the one to deny it was I.
Since you became blob 59 I spent a lot of time
Wondering who and what the hell was the crime."
However, I can't hear any of that on the track that appears here on Grotesque.
From "The Fall: album by album", in Uncut magazine, July 2019:
STEVE HANLEY: "WMC Blob 59" is Kay singing. Mark had written this supposedly really melodic song but it sounds like he recorded it in his shoe. He was off the wall like that.
From the Reformation! entry on "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul":
[From the version of the track found on the DVD release "Northern Cream" (details above). The review on the webzine issue of this website has this to say:
"About half of an early version of Lie Dream of a Casino Soul, in which the tune isn’t fully formed and we get the lyrics "to deny it was I...I spent a lot of time...wondering who or what the hell was the crime” (also uttered in Blob 59 / Prole Art Threat from 23 February 1981 in Glasgow); and then “all of Britain was a university town..." (prefiguring lyrics in CnC-S.Mithering) The track finishes with MES remarking, “That’s the experimental bit for tonight” (By the time Lie Dream makes its Peel session debut in late March, it has been considerably tweaked and sounds a very different beast.)"
From TamFrmGlsgw, "I'm fairly certain 'We come with our hands open in fiendship' is a reference to the Roman salute; that is the extended arm and open hand which symbolised friendship and peace. It is of course the same salute that was later adapted slightly for the Italian Fascist movement and subsequently Hitler's Nazi Party. I say this not least because 'hands open in fiendship' seems odd in lieu of the more expected 'arms open in friendship/fiendship,' and also because Smith has made reference to ancient Rome in other lyrics."
4. A reference to speed, and to the next song, "Gramme Friday."
Comments (34)
I'm not sure if it's an original or possibly a parody of some other song. The vocals are certainly not in MES's usual style. It sounds to me like a woman singing it on the album version, perhaps Kay Carroll?
Pretty sure it is `posterity'.
The one to deny
It was I
Since you became blob 59
I spent a lot of time
Wondering who and what the hell
What the crime
I say this not least because "hands open in friendship" seems odd in lieu of the more expected "arms open in friendship" and also because Smith has made reference to ancient Rome in other lyrics.
If anything, however, this further validates my point considering the sinister Fascist connotations of the Roman salute.
'As to who started this in the first place,
I'm not the one to deny it was I.
Since you became blob 59 I spent a lot of time
Wondering who and what the hell was the crime.'
Still no idea what it's about though!
"The review on the webzine issue of this website has this to say"
Reformation! changed their text. It now begins:
Then the quotation continues as before.
"Blob" has lots of meanings, of course. One not noted very often is that it is a cricket slang synonym for a "duck" - i.e. a score of nothing, when a batsman fails to get any runs before being out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_cricket_terms
So I wonder if "Blob - 59" might be a cricket batsman's scorecard for two innings. Maybe it's something to do with a Working Men's Club's cricket team.
But there's not exactly masses of textual evidence for that either!
Could be a reference there to The Park Hotel (http://pubs-of-manchester.blogspot.com/2014/06/park-hotel-lowther-road.html).
drinking and you're saying something in the back, 'it leads you to visions of
proletariat..'
M- 'hysteracy'. That's my sense of humour. It's like trying to get into a
working man's club in England which is very hard, you see you've got to be a
member. But you can always get a drink after 'time'. There's a scat on the
front, that we had a working men's club image. Being from the North of
England we're very unique in the fact that we're actually a working class
group. So, everyone answers to that, there's a lot of working class working
men's club outfits. On that thing I was trying to get into a working men's
group. It's this super poet trying to get this guy to let him into the club.
A sort of country & western song is behind it, too. I think that was one of
the most unpopular things I've ever done. People used to write and say I love
the old people on this track, is this a joke? What are you doing this sort of
thing for?'
Thus: 'But you can always get a drink after 'time'.'
https://web.archive.org/web/20201115085438/https://sites.google.com/site/reformationposttpm/Home/bibliography/1980---month-unknown---hide-fanzine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnHIeAjTWio
What does "scat on the front" mean?
I imagine the whole thing is poorly transcribed.
Note that couple of lines:
Is the blob an apostrophe as in '59 (short for 1959)?
It's true that Blob was a drink available in Yates' Wine Lodges. That's what the Hanleys remembered during my appearance on Oh! Brother.
But they did not say, and did not know, and were just speculating, that "Blob 59" was a name of a drink, or that perhaps Yates' numbered their drinks. And that particular fact remains unconfirmed.
See post-Oh! Brother discussion on the FOF: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/oh-brother-fall-podcast-from-the-hanleys-t43923-s713.html
Now, if we can find something along those lines, that would be good.
But would it help us with the lyric? Not really. Because on Grotesque the lyric doesn't mentin "Blob 59", it's just in the title.