What You Need

(1)

How can I? How can I? How can I? 

Get up, make a buck 
Get up, make a buck 
My race was bred on hash
My race was bred on hash
Get up, make a buck, 
Get up, make a buck. 
The stolen dark 
Please don't [muffled].

What you need [band]
How can I? 
What you need [band] 
How can I? 
What you need [band] 
What you need [band]

Turn down a corner I 
Been bleeding some itch 
What you need [band] 
How can I? 
What you need [band] 
What you need [MES] 
What you need [MES and band] 
An oven mitt 
What you need for your verbose kitchen 
What you need [MES and band] 
Present notebook for you 
What you need [MES and band] 
A vid of Iggy Stooge.                 (2)
What you need [MES and band] 
Whay you need [MES and band] 
Reduced smoking habit 
What you need [MES and band] 
Sex but not having it 
What you need [MES] 
One face 
Two face new 
What you need [band] 
Slippery shoes for your horrible feet (3)
We're obsessed with [MES and band] 
What you need [MES] 
What you need is to love her so much 
What you need is us as pressure group 
Out of reach 
What you need [band] 
On this we're all agreed 
What you need [MES and band] 
One: Face with girl past 
What you need 
Two: a profile that is low-key
And to meet your horrible new dad 
With a grudge against me 
What you need [MES and band] 
What you need [band] 
Is a censor for pals like these. 
What you need [MES and band] 
What you need [band] 
What you need [MES and band] 
What you need is 
One. What face? 
Two: face new 
Three. Face mag for arse  (4)
Four. Three rules of audience  (5)
Five. Mug of Geoff Travis, framed (6)
Six. The book Theft is Vision by the brothers Copeland. (7)
What you need [MES] 
Finance luck 
What you need [band] 
What you need [MES] 
Out of reach 
What you need [band] 
What you need [MES] 
What you need [MES] 
What you need [band] 
Get up, make a buck 
What you need [band] 
How can I? 
What you need [band] 
How can I? 
What you need [band] 
How can I? 
What you need

1. Reformation has reproduced the following helpful remarks:

Mark E Smith, from an interview in BravEar magaizine, 1985: "What You Need is a Twilight Zone episode where this old peddler sells this guy what he needs. I got it mixed up with this other Twilight Zone episode which is "The Four of Us Are Dying", where this guy could change his face by looking at a face in the newspaper and have it become his face. It's just a crazy song, really, just images. But it's also...the main theme of the song is that there are a lot of people in Britain, and a lot of people in America, too, telling people what they need. And in America, especially. I find this really scary."

The Twilight Zone episode is actually "What You Need" is based on a short story of the same name by Lewis Padgett (a pseudonym for Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore). Dan points out that it was shown in Britain as a double bill with The Four of Us Are Dying twice in 1983, which could be one reason why they blended together in MES's imagination.

^

2. Or "Iggy's stooge." MES "confirms" this in an interview with BravEar Vol. 3 Issue 5 (1986) by Michael Lang. Unfortunately, there's no way to know if he heard the interviewer saying "Iggy's stooge," or if he just thought he was saying "Iggy Stooge" (the vocal could easily be either):

BE: On "What You Need" you say a "bit" of Iggy's Stooge, is that right?

MS: A vid, a video.

BE: Of Iggy's Stooge

Iggy Pop was credited as Iggy Stooge on the first Stooges album.

^

3. In the Twilight Zone episode "What You Need," a peddlar has the ability to sell people the exact thing they need, before they need it. This leads to his being harassed by a small-time crook; eventually, he gives the latter a pair of shoes with slippery soles, and the thug slips in front of an oncoming car and is killed instantly (in this case, the peddlar came up with what he needed).  

^

4. The Face was a British music, fashion and culture magazine in the 1980s.

^

5. This phrase initially appears in "C'n'C-S Mithering" from Grotesque. We are not told what the rules actually are in that song, either; however, at least once, MES reportedly stated the rules as follows: "'No requests - you do not pay us enough to dictate our actions,'  'we do not play for the ghost dance' and 'if you don't like it, it's already too late.'" The Ghost Dance was a Native American religious movement which spread throughout various tribes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was based on a prophecy that performing the dance would unite Indians with their dead ancestors, unify the tribes, and bring an end to white colonialism. The Ghost Dance is also mentioned in "2nd Dark Age."

Joseph points out that this may be a reference to Death Cult's track "Ghost Dance." Notice, however, that the "rule" about Ghost Dance is reported, accurately or not, from 1979, and "Ghost Dance" came out in 1983.

^

6. Geoff Travis is the founder of Rough Trade records, for whom the Fall recorded several albums, and an associated chain of record stores with the same name; the relationship between Smith and Travis was reportedly not always harmonious. According to Smith:

Rough Trade were soft, boring hippies. They'd go, Er, the tea boy doesn't like the fact that you've slagged off Wah! Heat on this number. And fuckin'...the girl who cooks the fuckin' rice in the canteen doesn't like the fact that you've used the word 'slags'. They had a whole meeting over the fact that we mentioned guns in one song. Y'know...it is not the policy of Rough Trade to be supporting fuckin'... And I'd go, What the fuck has it got to do with you? Just fuckin' sell the record you fuckin' hippy.

^

7. Miles Copeland is the founder of Step Forward records, for whom the Fall recorded Dragnet; Mark E. Smith, whose relations with record labels, it should be said, has rarely been blissful, once called him a "glorified conman." Ian Copeland was a promoter and booking agent, and Stewart Copeland is best known for being the drummer of the Police.  

From the interview cited in note 2 above:

BE:...Then 3 rules of audience, same as from Cash-n-Carry, and then it is the book, "Death Is Vision" by the brothers Copeland.

MS: No, it's just a private joke, Miles Copeland, who used to own IRS and manages the Police, "Theft as Vision." And his brother who runs FBI, and his other brother is the drummer for the Police. He's never paid us any royalties in 5 years, from Dragnet and that, he just paid us 2 weeks ago. Meanwhile, you see Miles Copeland get up and talk at the Conservative Party conference about his ideas for a new Britain. "Why can't we stop all this defeatism in Britain?" I mean the guy is American. He had this program on TV, and it's very strange 'cause we got our money about a week before this program went on where he's talking to all these Liverpool lads and saying, "You can get out of this, say I offered you a record deal." It was a real sick program. And these guys were going, "well I don't want to dress like a fool." These guys were really great. And he'd scream "let's say I offered you 500 thousand pounds to sign with me on my label!" And the guy would go, "it depends on what you were going to offer me...look, I just want to be a bass player." So, Copeland: "you are so defeatist here, you've been brainwashed by the Marxists." Unbelievable. The guy hasn't paid his own fucking debts, he's a glorified con man. Going around telling Britain how to live, and probably America as well, he's got the Bangles...he was brought up in a completely privileged...his father was a CIA hitman. And lives in St. John's Woods. And he's shouting at these Liverpool kids who have been brought up in abject poverty that they haven't got enough drive! Incredible. There was such a reaction to him in Britain, even the rightwingers were going 'the man is an idiot.'

Dan reports: "Miles Copeland spoke to the Conservative Party conference in 1985. The TV programme was part of a Channel 4 series which had various famous people give their view of Britain.

Copeland did the first programme in the series, which was broadcast on Saturday 8th February 1986, at 8pm."

^

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What You Need: Fall Tracks A-Z

The Story of the Fall: 1985