Lyrics
< Instrumental >
Commentary
“Ben’s Instrumental” is the fan-bestowed title for what The Track Record describes as “a fairly repetitive instrumental, mainly featuring guitarist Ben Pritchard”, which opened The Fall’s gig at the Cartoon Club, Croydon, on 15 March 2006.
It is not known whether this was a nascent song idea, or Pritchard noodling as some kind of prelude to Mark E. Smith’s entrance on stage. It doesn’t appear on the gig’s setlist (which in any case is no real guide to what was actually played). It doesn’t seem to have been played ever again and no studio recordings have been released.
As Mark E. Smith enters, he delivers the time-honoured “Good evening, we are The Fall, from the long, long, long days” welcome, but before he does so he says something indistinct followed by “… over four hundred years in Athens.” I am not treating those words as a lyric; maybe I should, but that way madness lies.