Annotating The Fall
“Smith’s readily aware of the benefits of interpretation as opposed to mere assimilation, active listener participation… being one of The Fall’s most oft-avowed intentions.”
Gill, Andy (1981). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Smith.” New Musical Express, 10 January, p.10. [Link for text via The Fall Online]
Welcome to Annotating The Fall – an annotation project devoted to the works of Mark E. Smith and The Fall.
This site exists because The Annotated Fall, the legendary and groundbreaking site owned and edited by bzfgt since 2013, disappeared from its doomby.com host at the end of October 2024. The Annotated Fall incorporated a significant amount of my research (and that of others) but although much of The Annotated Fall has been preserved by the The Internet Archive, it was and remains a live project. New information is still regularly being unearthed, and new theories or speculatively creative ideas are still being advanced.
Annotating The Fall is not a carbon copy of The Annotated Fall. I have made my own decisions about what to include. bzfgt’s site, for example, focused on the original lyrics of The Fall and therefore excluded instrumentals and cover versions. Both are in my remit.
This site has some fundamental aims which are easy to articulate but not straightforward to put into practice. First, to provide the most accurate possible transcriptions of the lyrics of songs mainly but not exclusively as they appear on records by The Fall (plus significant variants). Second, to contribute to an understanding of the lyrics – their construction, meaning and interpretation. Thirdly, to provide what are hopefully interesting and/or useful annotations on anything and everything in the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall that I feel needs annotating – lyrics, songs, tracks, record art-work, Mark E. Smith’s solo and collaborative work, whatever.
A basic entry now exists for every official song by The Fall, plus unofficial and other material, but there is a lot of work involved and posts may be “in progress” for a long time.
Tribute must be paid to those who came before. Before bzfgt’s Annotated Fall was the Lyrics Parade. From January 1994 to April 2002, the Lyrics Parade was maintained by Jonathan Kandell and Jeff Curtis. Conway Paton took over in April 2002. Paton brought the Lyrics Parade under the umbrella of The Fall Online and eventually the Parade brand disappeared as a separate entity. Although the work of the Paraders, based on fan-sourced transcriptions (originating in contributions to the FallNet mailing list) has long since been superseded, it is right to acknowledge its ancestral significance.
Finally, note that copyright in the texts annotated at this site belongs either to the estate of Mark E. Smith or, in the case of cover versions, to the relevant songwriters or their estates.
dannyno
