Lyrics
One nine eight six generator 1
One nine eight six generator
One nine eight six generator
One nine eight six generator
And that's all he wrote 2
And that's all he wrote
He's living a dream
And he's got no hope
It's déjà-vu 3
It's clear to you but it's a stomp
Gotta move it
Job's gotta do
Stomp on it
One more job and gone through it, stomp on it
And one more line's gonna crack it
One more job's gonna do it
Generator too tight for me
Ol' Phil, he's got the grasp
But he's too tight for me
One more for the ...
One more for the newsagent
Ran out of liquorice papers before he went in 4
Before he went in he took two tabs and his brain went out
Don't wait up the photograph shop
Stomp on the doorstep of the wedding photo shop
He thought one last tab's gonna do it
One more cider's gonna do it
One last cigarette's gonna do it
One nine eight six generator, that's all he wrote
One nine eight six generator, that's all he wrote
He's living in a dream in a time machine
And he's got no hope
It's déjà-vu
One more for the road's gonna do it
One more of the job's gonna do it
He was encased in concern about health so much
He strangled the Dutch shares stock
And he stomped back to the paper shop 5
He thought one more crack's gonna do it
One more job's gonna do it
One more tab's gonna do it
Commentary
Credited to Mark E. Smith and Keiron Melling, “986 Generator” was a bonus track on the vinyl LP version of The Fall’s 2010 album, Your Future Our Clutter. It was never played live.
MES often seems to display an allergy to the straightforward use of numbers in his lyrics. Here the “1” of “1-9-8-6” gets lopped off the beginning of the song title for no apparent reason.
The lyrics mention a time machine. If “one nine eight six” can be interpreted as the year 1986 (which it probably can, but I have hedged my bets in the above transcription), the time machine could obviously be the “1986 Generator”.
The song seems to portray a delusional character (MES himself?), maybe walking up and down a street in search of something that will break him out of a dream-like time-slipped state.
In the song’s entry at annotatedfall.doomby.com site owner bzfgt described the song as “a slow blues with acoustic slide guitar” and noted that the lyrics seem to be something of a pastiche of elements of the lyrics to the Boz Scaggs song “Lido Shuffle” (released on the album Silk Degrees in 1976 and as a single the following year):
Lido missed the boat that day, he left the shack
But that was all he missed, and he ain't comin' back
At a tombstone bar in a juke joint car, he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top
Next stop, Chi-town, Lido put the money down, let it roll
He said, "One more job oughta get it
One last shot 'fore we quit it
One for the road"
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh
He's for the money, he's for the show
Lido's a-waiting for the go
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh
He said, "One more job oughta get it
One last shot 'fore we quit it
One more for the road"
Lido be runnin', havin' great big fun until he got the note
Saying, "Toe the line or blow it, " and that was all she wrote
He be makin' like a beeline headin' for the borderline, goin' for broke
Sayin', "One more hit oughta do it
This joint, ain't nothin' to it
One more for the road"
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh
He's for the money, he's for the show
Lido's a-waiting for the go
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh
"One more job oughta get it
One last shot, then we quit it
One more for the road"
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh
He's for the money, he's for the show
Lido's a-waiting for the go
Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh
"One more job oughta get it"
Songwriters: David Paich / William Scaggs; Lido Shuffle lyrics © Boz Scaggs Music, Hudmar Publishing Co Inc. Source: Musixmatch
Footnotes
- Or, if you like, “1986”, i.e. the year. I’m being cautious. ↩︎
- MES could be referring to himself in the third person here. ↩︎
- A trick of memory; the sense that you have experienced a situation or sequence of events before, when in fact you have not. ↩︎
- Liquorice flavour rolling papers for roll-your-own cigarettes (or joints) [Wikipedia: rolling paper]. ↩︎
- In the UK, a “paper shop” usually refers to a local newsagent’s shop – as mentioned earlier in the lyrics. ↩︎
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “986 Generator” [Archived]
- The Track Record: “986 Generator”
- Wikipedia: “Lido Shuffle” (Boz Scaggs song)