Your Heart Out

Lyrics

(1)

Just take for instance
A time of great depression
Fate out of reason
Bad times in season

Don't shut your heart out
Don't cry your eyes out
Don't shut your heart out

Don't cry for me, Mexico
Or Savage Pencil   (2)
I'm nearly healthy

And they try to take my eyes out
Friends try to work my soul out
But I don't sing, I just shout
Heavy clout, heart out

Now here's a joke
To cheer you up:
Old times no surgeon
Just magicians and dungeons
There they take your heart out
With a sharp knife
It wasn't fake
They had no anesthetic
That joke's pathetic   (3)

Just look at me
Too much speed
But very plain
You're lucky, friend
You've got one to take out
You know what I'm talking about!
I don't sing I just shout
All on one note.
Sing, sing, sing, sing
Look at me, I just ding

Heart is out, out, it's out

Notes

1. Note from Dan:

In a letter to Tony Friel (Friel briefly published a selection of letters online several years ago) dated 7th December 1976, MES refers to "Your Heart Out" as "my latest song - the music is E minor to bar chord E -ish. It is very chart-orientated." And some lyrics are printed.

"Just take for instance
A time of great depression
No bells are ringing
Just start singing

Your heart out
YOUR heart out
Your heart out (higher)
Your heart out ('''''') 

I knew a fellow
Who wrote a horror story 
In which an evil Jake   (i)
With a knife would take,

CHORUS

When you're alone, without respect
Just sit back and then reflect
In olden times they had no surgeons
They'd just clamp you in a dungeon then take

CHORUS

It was the same with men of great position
9 out of ten they were magicians
And cast a spell, cast a spell
And not always fake-to take

CHORUS

AND NOW MY BRAINS ARE DROPPING OUT

Solo repeat last verse the end"

MES says, "That song took me 3 minute to write." Interesting to see here a technique MES uses a few times in lyrics - exploring the different meanings of a word or phrase in turn. See also "Pacifying Joint".

("Sic" throughout MES quotes)

Also from Dan:

On Facebook on 15 February 2018, Una Baines commented that The Fall played an early version of this song as a tribute to Elvis the night he died. She commented:
 

Una Baines (Facebook)It's kind of like what the Elvis mafia did to Elvis



The closest gigs to the death of Elvis are these two (a truncated first gig picked up later at a different venue - see Reformation! for the detail):

19770818 - St Georges Community Centre, Manchester, England
19770818 - The Ranch, Dale Street, Manchester, England

i.  Dan: Note 1, the lyrics in the letter to Friel: "an evil jake". The noun "Jake" is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as "a country lout" and "a yokel". US usage.

To "evil Jake" lyrics :  -^-

To main lyrics:    ^

2. The previous line is an allusion to "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, from the musical Evita; the song, as sung by Julie Covington, was a number one hit in the U.K. in 1977. Savage Pencil (Edwin Pouncey) is a comics artist who designed the sleeve of the Fall's "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul" single, and has done covers for other bands such as Sonic Youth, Big Black, Coil, and Current 93.  

Dan:

Edwin Pouncey/Savage Pencil explains this line in the book Punk 45: The Singles Cover Art of Punk 1976-1980, edited by Jon Savage and Stuart Baker. Soul Jazz Books, 2013. p.169.

"I had featured [Smith] in a "Rock 'n' Roll Zoo" comic strip I had done for Sounds that showed him being beaten up by punks for being too different. It happened, apparently. Mark was saying in the song that I shouldn't worry and he could fight his own battles."

^

3. The implication, seemingly, is that a bad joke has been told, but it's hard to discern one in the preceding lines. According to Joe Mullaney, "I take the joke to be the fact that the title phrase `your heart out', previously used figuratively, is here meant literally." On the other hand, Dan suggests, plausibly I think, that what MES means is that the "magicians" taking your heart out would tell you a joke in lieu of anaesthetic. In this regard, Dan mentions John Arderne, the "father of English surgery" (14th century), citing an article in the Lancet, 23 October 1897: "John Arderne and His Time", by William Anderson:


Also it speedeth that a leech can talk of good tales and of honest that may make the patients to laugh, as well of the Bible 
as of other tragedies, and any other things of which it is nought to charge, while that they make or induce a light heart to the patient or sick man.

Dan also points out that some lines in the next stanza may be seen as a joke, in which case these framing sentences are misplaced (You're lucky, friend/You've got one to take out/You know what I'm talking about!). This seems less likely to me, but it is worth considering.

Whether this is relevant or not I don't know, but Dan also remarks that "in October 1978, it was reported that heart transplants were being started again in Britain, having been discouraged since a fourth failed transplant in 1973."

^

Comments (43)

Joe Mullaney
  • 1. Joe Mullaney | 23/02/2014
Re note 2: I take the joke to be the fact that the title phrase `your heart out', previously used figuratively, is here meant literally.
Joshua Ross
  • 2. Joshua Ross | 28/07/2014
"They had no anaesthetic. That joke's pathetic" may be a reference to the Monty Python Gumby Brain Specialist sketch, in which the patient is not given anaesthetic, wakes up, and is knocked out with the anaesthetic container (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68GeL8PafE&t=3m0s). I could imagine Smith hating Python fans - the constant quotations, smug middle class uni set, similar to the Peter Cook jibe in English scheme
dannyno
  • 3. dannyno | 04/08/2014
A few minor lyrics missing here.

Notably:

"Don't shut your heart out
Don't cry your eyes out"

there's another "Don't shut your heart out" after the "cry your eyes out"
Martin
  • 4. Martin | 23/06/2015
With reference to Joshua Ross's comment above (no.2) and with the knowledge that the lines "They had no anaesthetic. That joke's pathetic" didn't appear in early gig performances of the song, it might be worth finding out if any Monty Python shows (and particularly the one featuring the sketch mentioned) were shown on BBC in the second half of 1979.
dannyno
  • 5. dannyno | 11/07/2015
I've been looking.

Some Python episodes were being shown earlier in the year, but not in the latter half. The autumn of 1979 was all about the controversy over Life of Brian.

But anyway, I don't buy the connection. The Python sketch is about brain surgery, not heart surgery. And they do, in the end, have anaesthetic.

I wonder if there's a Morecambe and Wise link - Eric Morecambe had heart surgery in 1979 and was out of action most of the year, other than the Christmas special. Any heart jokes in the Christmas special, I wonder.
dannyno
  • 6. dannyno | 11/07/2015
The Shah of Iran ended up in exile in Mexico in 1979.
Martin
  • 7. Martin | 28/03/2016
With reference to Dannyno's note above (no.5) asking if there could be a Morecambe and Wise link:

Unfortunately, there seems to be no youtube or other link to the actual show itself, but the IMDb website has the following to say:

"Tradition was continued, with Eric's appearance in this 1979 Christmas special, though due to his heart problems early in 1979 it took the form of an interview session with David Frost. [...] Lots of jokes were made of Eric's ill health.

Eric Morecambe's bypass operation took place in June 1979 and involved open-heart surgery which lasted for seven hours.

From the Reformation! website:

In early live performances the following lines were absent:

"Now here's a joke/ to cheer you up:
Old times no surgeon/Just magicians and dungeons
There they take your heart out/with a sharp knife
It wasn't fake/They had no anesthetic.
That joke's pathetic."

"By December 1979, after the release of Dragnet, the lines had been included in the song, though it's impossible to tell exactly when they were introduced owing to low number of extant recordings from the era."

As the 1979 Morecambe and Wise show was broadcast on 25 December 1979 and the lyrics in question had already been incorporated into the song by then, it seems unlikely that the comic duo influenced Mark E Smith in any meaningful way. I'll listen again when I get time to the recordings of gigs I have of that era to determine this a little more clearly.
Martin
  • 8. Martin | 29/03/2016
Okay, so I've just listened to the recording of the song from the Marquee in London on 11 November 1979 and the "joke" is there in the lyrics, meaning that we can probably discount any Morecambe and Wise allusions, making my previous comment extremely unnecessary and redundant!
bzfgt
  • 9. bzfgt | 14/05/2016
That's a relief, I'm getting tired of updating this shit!
dannyno
  • 10. dannyno | 15/10/2016
Well, it means we can discount the Christmas special. It doesn't mean we can completely discount Morecambe and Wise connections/comments.
bzfgt
  • 11. bzfgt | 21/10/2016
Joe Mullany's comment is how I always took the "joke," too. Not much of a joke, so if there is more to it it would be worth finding out. Interesting comment by Joshua Ross, although the lyric could as easily be an affectionate allusion to Python as a dig, it's just too much of a stretch already to both attribute it to Python and then interpret it on top of that.

Certainly we cannot discount the possibility that some celebrity or other's heart problems were on MES's mind but there is nothing to work with as yet.
dannyno
  • 12. dannyno | 04/09/2017
In a letter to Tony Friel (Friel briefly published a selection of letters online several years ago) dated 7th December 1976, MES refers to "Your Heart Out" as "my latest song - the music is E minor to bar chord E -ish. It is very chart-orientated."

And some lyrics are printed.


Just take for instance
A time of great depression
No bells are ringing
Just start singing

Your heart out
YOUR heart out
Your heart out (higher)
Your heart out ('''''')

I knew a fellow
Who wrote a horror story
In which an evil Jake
With a knife would take,

CHORUS

When you're alone, without respect
Just sit back and then reflect
In olden times they had no surgeons
They'd just clamp you in a dungeon

then take CHORUS

It was the same with men of great position
9 out of ten they were magicians
And cast a spell, cast a spell
And not always fake-to take

CHORUS

AND NOW MY BRAINS ARE DROPPING OUT

Solo
repeat last verse
the end


MES says, "That song took me 3 minute to write."

Interesting to see here a technique MES uses a few times in lyrics - exploring the different meanings of a word or phrase in turn. See also "Pacifying Joint".
dannyno
  • 13. dannyno | 12/12/2017
Note 1, the lyrics in the letter to Friel: "an evil jake". The noun "Jake" is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as "a country lout" and "
dannyno
  • 14. dannyno | 12/12/2017
Let's try that again:

Note 1, the lyrics in the letter to Friel: "an evil jake". The noun "Jake" is defined by the Chambers Dictionary as "a country lout" and "a yokel". US usage.
bzfgt
  • 15. bzfgt (link) | 23/12/2017
Cool, we got the nifty roman numerals in action then!
bzfgt
  • 16. bzfgt (link) | 23/12/2017
And I really should have had it with the original spacing, enjambment etc. to begin with.
dannyno
  • 17. dannyno | 15/02/2018
On Facebook on 15 February 2018, Una Baines commented that The Fall played an early version of this song as a tribute to Elvis the night he died. She commented:

Una Baines (Facebook)It's kind of like what the Elvis mafia did to Elvis


The closest gigs to the death of Elvis are these two (a truncated first gig picked up later at a different venue - see Reformation! for the detail):

19770818 - St Georges Community Centre, Manchester, England
19770818 - The Ranch, Dale Street, Manchester, England
bzfgt
  • 18. bzfgt (link) | 17/02/2018
Cool what's the Elvis Mafia mean? I mean in context, what's the connection?

Oh wait I was asking were there Elvis Mafia members doing their own songs as tributes to Elvis, but she means the lyrics to this, doesn't she? What do you think the EM elements of the lyrics are? "Friends try to work my soul out" or something? I guess if we knew the answer to that, we'd understand this song better (assuming Baines does).
Rhett Morson
  • 19. Rhett Morson | 26/07/2018
The joke.
It’s a play on aesthetics and anaesthetic. The magicians in dungeons and modern surgeons.

I don’t think it’s pathetic!
bzfgt
  • 20. bzfgt (link) | 29/07/2018
Rhett, where are you getting "aesthetics"? I mean "an-aesthetic" is the antonym of "aesthetic," but I don't see how it's otherwise implied here.
Rhett Morson
  • 21. Rhett Morson | 03/08/2018
I think it’s a pun on anaesthetic/aesthetics
bzfgt
  • 22. bzfgt (link) | 06/08/2018
We've established that to my satisfaction. What we haven't established is in which words the pun consists. Because it says "No anesthetic," so canceling out the double negative leaves us with "Aesthetic?" Or...?
dannyno
  • 23. dannyno | 07/08/2018
I think a more fundamental question is why MES would be critiquing the "aesthetics" of magicians/surgeons in the first place.
dannyno
  • 24. dannyno | 07/08/2018
Oh, you mean that's what the joke is. Doh.
bzfgt
  • 25. bzfgt (link) | 16/08/2018
Now you get the joke too? What the fuck is the joke? Where does it suggest anything about aesthetics in the sense you seem to be using it? "Anaesthetic" is something that suppresses sense-experience, hence "aesthetics" literally, but what does that have to do with anything? Where does he critique someone's "aesthetics"?
dannyno
  • 26. dannyno | 17/08/2018
No, I didn't mean I got the joke, I mean i got what Rhett Morson was saying, having misunderstood. I don't think there actually is an anaesthetic/aesthetic pun there at all.
dannyno
  • 27. dannyno | 10/11/2018
"Don't cry for me, Mexico
Or Savage Pencil
I'm nearly healthy"

Edwin Pouncey/Savage Pencil explains this line in the book Punk 45: The Singles Cover Art of Punk 1976-1980, edited by Jon Savage and Stuart Baker. Soul Jazz Books, 2013. p.169.


I had featured him [*MES - dannyno] in a Rock 'n' Roll Zoo comic strip I had done for [music weekly] Sounds that showed him being beaten up by punks for being too different. It happened, apparently. Mark was saying in the song that I shouldn't worry and he could fight his own battles.


https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zjmSUtckL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
dannyno
  • 28. dannyno | 28/12/2018

Now here's a joke
To cheer you up:
Old times no surgeon
Just magicians and dungeons
There they take your heart out
With a sharp knife
It wasn't fake
They had no anesthetic
That joke's pathetic


I've got a new angle on this. It requires that you read the "old times no surgeon.. they had no anesthetic" lines as parenthesised explanatory meat in the "Here's a joke to cheer you up... That joke's pathetic" sandwich.

In medieval surgery manuals, practitioners were apparently recommended to joke with their patients.

There's a particular quotation from a manual by one John Arderne (1307-1392) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arderne), which is widely cited (google it).

Here's some from an article in the Lancet, 23 October 1897: "John Arderne and His Time", by William Anderson.

https://archive.org/stream/b22478280/b22478280_djvu.txt


“Also it speedeth that a leech can talk of good tales and of honest that may make the patients to laugh, as well of the Bible
as of other tragedies, and any other things of which it is nought to charge, while that they make or induce a light heart to the patient or sick man.”


Now, Ardenne recommended opium as an anaesthetic, so it's not true to say that he had none. And I'm not saying that MES is here citing Ardenne. But perhaps it gives us a new perspective on this particular part of the lyric.
dannyno
  • 29. dannyno | 28/12/2018
Also to note that in October 1978, it was reported that heart transplants were being started again in Britain, having been discouraged since a fourth failed transplant in 1973.
dannyno
  • 30. dannyno | 28/12/2018
On the other hand, there is a joke in the lyric, just a few lines later:


You're lucky, friend.
You've got one to take out


It's like MES took the pathetic joke lines and used them to bookend the earlier medieval surgery verse rather than this one.
bzfgt
  • 31. bzfgt (link) | 19/01/2019
I think that's the first time it's ever made sense to me, that might just be it...they told a joke, he doesn't tell one...
dannyno
  • 32. dannyno | 26/01/2019
What's interesting about having the earlier (pre-Presley death) text from the Smith-Friel letter, is that it shows something of MES' writing process. He started, in the letter, with a fairly straightforward set of verses setting out various different angles on "... your heart out". Kind of a bit of antanaclasis (cf Pacifying Joint and others), but not entirely. And then the pay off is a punkish sentiment that develops the narrative - first you lose your heart, then your brains.

But the recorded version is a disruption of that linear text, collapsing verses into each other, introducing phrase and lines with other resonances or by other writers, and generally making it much less clear, more ambiguous and harder to interpret.

So in the original, dungeons and musicians are separate verses focusing on historical heart-removal situations. In the final version, those verses get mixed up. Which perhaps makes my speculation about medieval anaesthetic practices somewhat moot.
bzfgt
  • 33. bzfgt (link) | 16/02/2019
Right, I think it's relatively common (although this is mostly based on speculation) that MES starts out with something more straightforward and breaks it up before it gets to us. This is why I think those (and there are a lot) who think each song has a relatively straightforward "meaning" are on the wrong track. On the other hand, the most insanely garbled individual lines, I have found, are usually ones we have wrong...
bzfgt
  • 34. bzfgt (link) | 16/02/2019
I think he's an "abstract" writer in a sense, but his medium is meanings. The arrangement of meanings is abstract, but at the line level it's more straightforward and coherent.
bzfgt
  • 35. bzfgt (link) | 16/02/2019
"Abstract" feels like the wrong word, but do you get my point?
dannyno
  • 36. dannyno | 26/02/2019
I think so, yes.

He's not usually singing nonsense, I think that's a clear conclusion from all the work done at annotatedfall.
dannyno
  • 37. dannyno | 05/04/2019
aesthetic/anaesthetic

I still don't buy that there's an attempted pun, but just to note that on 22/7/1978, at the Deeply Vale Festival (later released by Ozit), MES prefaced Repetition with this comment:


Good afternoon! When I was on the witch trials of the twentieth century, they said, 'You are an aesthetic anasthetic. Your repetition will never be.' Right, noise!


I guess "will never be" is intended in an existential sense rather than an incomplete sentence.,
dannyno
  • 38. dannyno | 30/03/2021
"Fade out of reason
That time's in season"

It should be:

"Fate out of reason
Bad times in season"

(Source: typed lyric sheet in Excavate, 2021 anthology edited by Tessa Norton and Bob Stanley, p.71)

Other than that the reproduced typescript doesn't entirely follow the Dragnet recording lyrics.
bzfgt
  • 39. bzfgt (link) | 03/04/2021
Just to be sure, no apostrophe in "times"?
Xyralothep's cat
  • 40. Xyralothep's cat | 03/04/2021
Re comment 37, that quote is on the inner inlay of my very old cd copy of LaTWT - in full; when I was at the Witch Trials of the 20th century, they said: "You are white crap. You are aesthetic anaesthetic. Your repetition will never be accepted."
bzfgt
  • 41. bzfgt (link) | 03/04/2021
True...I still don't see the pun, but that might be obliquely relevant here if I can think how....
dannyno
  • 42. dannyno | 03/04/2021
Comment #39 - yup, no apostrophe.
John Reardon
  • 43. John Reardon | 16/06/2022
"Look at me, I just ding"

........... and 24 years later Simon "Ding" Archer joined the group. I trust this puts an end to the debate about MES's alleged pre-cog powers once and for all.

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