The Fall online - Discography

This Nation's Saving Grace

Original UK release

First released 23 September 1985 on Beggars Banquet LP: BEGA67; and cassette: BEGC67

01. Mansion (Smith, B) 1:21

[instrumental]

02. Bombast (Hanley, S/Smith, ME) 3:08

All those whose mind entitles themselves,
and whose main entitle is themselves,
shall feel the wrath of my bombast!

Clanging in my heart.
Bastard! Idiot!

Feel the wrath of my bombast!

Bastard idiot!
Feel the wrath.
Those who dare mix real life with politics
And go on regardless of the..of the discoveries
Will feel the wrath of bombast
clanging in my heart

All those whose mind entitles themselves
and whose main entitle is themselves
shall feel the wrath of my bombast!

03. Barmy (Smith, ME) 5:20

Out of England, I dream of its creamery
When I'm there I dwell on Saxony.
In Turkey when I've been due to World War I
Istanbul is the place 'cos of my birthday.
I am barmy
Bleedin' barmy
I got everything
I got everything I want except for hungry
I got everything I want except for money.
I've got the best round set aside for parties
They'll have one when I've gone
In fact, they said so, good one.
I am barmy
Bleedin' barmy
Friends disintegrate within circles of cash
Residue after years of fab genius
Is a pension for the jews
and a medal from the company which I wiped my butt on
and hung on a laburnum tree.
I am barmy
Bleedin' barmy
I am barmy
Bleedin' barmy
Just call me the first x 10

I lay waiting hopefully on sloped grass green
I am barmy, bleedin' barmy
A dramatic verse x 3

The programs lot
We break into tune
Take and bring a word
Ring a buzzer
Take and bring a word
A dramatic verse

04. What You Need (Scanlon/Smith, ME) 4:49

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 bit of Iggy Stooge.
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
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
Four. Three rules of audience
Five. Mug of Geoff Travis, framed
Six. The book Theft is Vision by the brothers Copeland.
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

05. Spoilt Victorian Child (Rogers/Smith, ME) 4:13

Past trees the fairies are flyin
Past trees with rose bushes in
The child was spoilt Victorian
The child was spoilt Victorian

Spoilt Victorian Child

Sugar and cakes appear mean
Sitting at the table
Tigers pop-up from books

Spoilt Victorian Child

Let`s take it ten years on
You`re looking back from then
Under rough grey blankets
Thread loose stained grey blanket

Spoilt Victorian Child

C.L.O. - Pedia
E.N.C.Y.C.L.O. - Pedia

Musical chairs rouge cheeks he remembers
Thru` the aqueduct of five years
Spoilt Victorian Child shall avoid reflection
The child was spoilt Victorian

Spoilt Victorian Child

Mirrors can`t hid the toxic of disfigured Poxes

Spoilt Victorian Child

Past trees the fairies are flyin
Past trees with rose bushes in
The butterfly shrugs to fly in
Sugar and iced cakes appear mean

The child was spoilt Victorian
The child was spoilt Victorian

Spoilt Victorian Child
C.L.O. - Pedia

And you know that servants keep their order knowledge
And as you walk in on the footsteps steed babe
In the encrusted green unwild
You know you are a spoilt Victorian child

06. L.A. (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 4:09

Odeon
Sky
Uncanny
Bushes are in disagreement with the heat
L.A.
Uncanny
Person
They have filled boulevards with white snow, scum-ball
L.A.
This is my happening and it freaks me out

07. Gut Of The Quantifier (Smith, ME/Smith, B/Rogers/Burns) 5:15

It had taken her a long time
Suddenly back on its own
To sit, friendless & alone
She is friendless and alone
I'm a vixen on its own

The triple gang & the throng
Did not feel helpless or alone
The vixen got no friends
She needs a poison pen
Even in Switzerland
The people cry "vixen"

Silver cross, all alone
The bird had flown
With their omen they'll fly
Had flown, silver cross
All alone
(So millions were broken hearted)
All alone, with no home
It's all alone

And some night, wind moves the leaves
They pick themselves up and run
Perhaps all that night possessed no way of telling time

It had taken her a long time
Suddenly back on its own
To sit, friendless and alone
She is friendless and alone
A man's trust, appalling debt
To sit friendless and alone
With no home, with no home
Vixen's got no home
She is friendless and alone
A long time on its own
It shone around her
Triple gang

08. My New House (Smith, ME) 5:15

My new house
You should see my house
My new house
You should see my new house

No rabbit hutch about it
I bought it off the baptists
I get the bills
And I get miffed
At the damn polyester fills
The interior is a prison unconscious

My new house
Keep away from my new house

Wash the drawers of pills
It's got window sills
With lead centred in the middle of them

My new house
Is no beatnik hang-out

That Halifax copter
Sure dropped me a cropper

Sometimes I think I'll ring Swine-Tax [1]
And go back to my flat

But my new house
I do love the mad things about it

According to the postman
It's like the bleeding Bank of England

Creosote tar fence surrounds it
Those razor blades eject when I press eject

My new house
Could easily crack a mortal, it

The spare room is fine
Though a little haunted
By Mr. Reagan who had hung himself at number 13
Mr. Reagan hung himself at number 13

It'll be great when it's decorated
My new house

Note: [1] In Swinton, Manchester, the local mini-cab firm was called Swin-Tax

09. Paintwork (Smith, ME/Scanlon/Rogers) 6:38

We go two, twice all the way round those things
Two high ones, two low ones, yeah
Right man
Man stopped us at corner
He had a bloody nose
And then he opened his denim jacket
It was under his vest made out of tracing paper
Chest scars portrayed Aztec life in his horrible...
...formation really late. Main sequence stars were no good for making carbon in this way. Red giant stars...
...[surplayed].
Disfigured in a lady, tedious
Was over accountant's and on business
Then I woke up and I decided to recommence my diary
Then I read Paula Yates on vision mopeds
Then I found out we were not going to Italy [1]
Later Mam said 'Those continentals are little monkeys'
And yesterday we has liver and sausage over
And sometimes they say 'Hey Mark you're spoiling all the paintwork'
And sometimes they say 'Your thumbprints are on the paintwork'
Distractors, post-doctors behind come in
Dressed in suits, grow talons
Everyone clenched plaits horror
And sometimes they say...
And sometimes I feel like saying
This is bloody Newark
Or some drive-in slap place
In Breda and in Cologne
With the shirt [on/off]
Sun in vicinity
As if I hadn't done 10 month's service
In the USA
On media guts
[It circles is] where I start
And sometimes they say...
And I think
If I'd wanted to live in Holland
And if I'd wanted to be lived in
I'd have packed up and pissed off
When I was 16
A [Swiss good ass/as/at] this lousy business
Was the last thing I was ever imagining
Hey Mark, why can't I live in England?
[The end of shoes, all warehouse shoe/you've got
Cheap new one, the target is too yahoo
And take over all the desparate
I'll take over discussion and
....humanely regular colours over...
...engineered oxidate zeppelin
Old world style, old man only juke box caught
All power jets on....spectacular facets]
And sometimes they say....
Hey, you're fucking up the paintwork
What is this thing they're so hard-assed about?
I thought I lived in England

Note: [1] Apparently a reference to a proposed Fall tour that was cancelled following the 1985 Heysel football tragedy.

10. I Am Damo Suzuki (Smith, ME/Burns/Smith, B) 5:41

Generous of lyric, Jehovah's Witness
Stands in Cologne Marktplatz
Drums come in
When the drums come in fast
Drums to shock, into brass evil

What have you got in that paper bag?
Is it a dose of Vitamin C?
Ain't got no time for Western medicine
I am Damo Suzuki

The fuck-up like red acid rain
Give it to me Daki every day
Who is Mr. Karlheinz Stockhausen?
Introduce me
I'm Damo Suzuki

Soundtracks, Soundtracks
Melched together, the lights
The lights above you

Listener was in cahoots with Fritz Lieber
And read him every day
Recipe for fear gas, amount of salt ash
I put by [cup of] meine fire, okay
I have no time for Western medicine
I am Damo Suzuki

May we go back to days pre-Virgin
Cannot get on clear vinyl
The handle that was brass, is now brass evil
The rock that was an egg, is in wrong cradle
The hand that cradles the rock, makes egg gooey
I am Damo Suzuki

Is this west latent pattern?
Run it, says Damo's spirit
Is this lesser European?
Speak it, says Damo's spirit
I am Damo Suzuki

11. To Nkroachment: Yarbles (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 1:22

Full credit
Everyday you have to die some
Everyday you have to cry some
For the rumour
All the good times are past and gone
Wipe the tears from your eyes son
On the landing
They found
Full credit
In the bathroom the presence was luminous
Everyday you have to die some
Everyday you have to cry some
All the good times are past and gone....
On the landing they found full credit
In the bathroom the presence was illuminous

(LP side 1: tracks 1-6; LP side 2: tracks 7-11)

The cassette version included the bonus tracks:

12. Vixen (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 4:01
13. Couldn't Get Ahead (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 2:36
14. Petty Thief Lout (Smith, ME/Scanlon) 5:20

(Cassette side 1: tracks 1-6, tracks 12-13; side 2: tracks 7-11, track 14)

Track 12 comes from the Cruiser's Creek single; tracks 13 and 14 come from the Couldn't Get Ahead/Rollin' Dany double A-sided single.

Credits

Mark E Smith - vocals, violin, guitar
Brix Smith - guitar, vocals
Craig Scanlon - guitar
Steve Hanley - bass
Simon Rogers - keyboards, guitar, bass
Karl Burns - drums, vocals

Produced by: John Leckie
Engineered by: Joe Gillingham
Cover artwork: Michael Pollard and Claus Castenskiold

Recording info & notes

Recorded mid 1985.

The album title appears on the LP in green lettering spread over both sides of the gatefold sleeve; on the CD reissues the lettering was changed to red and the title is completely on the front cover (see image gallery).

Overseas releases

Some overseas pressings of the LP replaced Barmy with Cruiser's Creek (the full single version), including pressings in the USA, Canada, The Netherlands, Germany, Yugoslavia, Australia and New Zealand. Some Canadian copies came with an insert photo & magazine article montage.

1988 CD reissue

Reissued in 1988 on Beggars Banquet CD: BEGA67CD. Tracklisting the same as the original cassette release plus:

15. Rollin' Dany 2:23
16. Cruiser's Creek (Edit) 4:16

Track 15 is from the Couldn't Get Ahead/Rollin' Dany double A-sided single. Track 16 is an edited version of the Cruiser's Creek single A-side.

1990 CD reissue

Reissued in 1990 on Beggars Banquet budget price CD: BBL67CD with the tracklisting the same as the 1988 CD reissue.

1997 CD reissue

Reissued in 1997 on Beggars Banquet CD: BBL67CD with the tracklisting the same as the 1988 CD reissue. A repressing with the same catalogue number as the 1990 CD reissue, but the back cover artwork is different.

2009 Vinyl 180 reissue

Reissued on 29 June 2009 on Vinyl 180 LP: VIN180LP015 with the same tracklisting and cover as the original LP. A 180gm vinyl pressing with picture labels.

2011 Omnibus reissue

Reissued on 24 January 2011 on Beggars Banquet Omnibus Edition CD box set: BBQCD 2067 (3 CDs). Deluxe box set with replica LP sleeves and inner liners and bags. 48 page booklet.

CD1:
Original LP tracks.

CD2 (Rough Mixes And Out-Takes):
01. Demo Suzuki (Rough Mix) 5:54
02. Wonderful And Frightened Pt 1 (Rough Mix) 1:22
03. Wonderful And Frightened Pt 2 (Rough Mix) 1:46
04. Gut Of The Quantifier (Rough Mix) 5:31
05. Bombast (Rough Mix) 2:48
06. Barmy (Rough Mix) 4:51
07. My New House (Mark's Mix) (Rough Mix) 5:52
08. Paintwork (Rough Mix) 7:08
09. Ma Riley (Rough Mix) 3:48
10. Spoilt Victorian Child (Rough Mix) 4:26
11. L.A. (Rough Mix) 5:16
12. What You Need (Rough Mix) 4:57
13. Edie (Rough Mix) 4:00
14. Cruiser's Creek (Extended) 7:35
15. L.A. (Take 2) 4:24
16. Bombast (Blackwing Version) 3:05
17. Paintwork (Gloss) 7:03

All tracks are previously unreleased alternate versions.

CD3 (Singles And Sessions):
01. Couldn't Get Ahead 2:37
02. Rollin' Dany 2:26
03. Petty (Thief) Lout 5:23
04. Cruiser's Creek 6:08
05. Vixen 4:03
06. Ma Riley 3:28
07. Barmy (Extended) 6:02
08. Cruiser's Creek (Edit) 4:20
09. Spoilt Victorian Child (Peel session) 4:58
10. Gut Of The Quantifier (Peel session) 4:44
11. Couldn't Get Ahead (Peel session) 2:36
12. Cruiser's Creek (Peel session) 5:53
13. L.A. (Peel session) 4:36
14. What You Need (Peel session) 5:53

Tracks 1-3 are from the Couldn't Get Ahead/Rollin' Dany single; tracks 4-5 are from the Cruiser's Creek single; tracks 6-7 are previously unreleased tracks recorded at the singles recording sessions; track 8 is the edited version of Cruiser's Creek from the previous CD reissues; tracks 9-12 are from John Peel radio session #8; tracks 13-14 are from John Peel radio session #9.