Commentary

2 KIDZ:

It is the considered opinion here that New Dads are full of crap, & it’s cruel to the kids. They should butt out and leave it to their respectives.

Transcribed from the scribbled note in the sleeve-notes to Code: Selfish (1992), as far as I can decipher it. There are insertions which I have just accommodated straight.

“Married, 2 Kids” is the penultimate track on The Fall’s 1992 album Code: Selfish (and it is listed as “… 2 Kids” on the record, not “… Two Kids”). It is credited to Scanlon/Smith/Hanley. The group at the time of recording were Dave Bush, Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, Mark E. Smith and Simon Wolstencroft.

The song had remarkably few live performances, only eleven are known: it is first documented at Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, on 15 March 1992, and seems to have been last heard at the Town and Country Club, London, on 22 September 1992. Note that no tapes or setlists exist for a number of gigs that year, so it is highly probable that it was actually played more than eleven times. But that would still be a short life for a song on a recent album (Code: Selfish was only released on 9 March; “Married, 2 Kids” therefore lasted just over six months).

Mark E. Smith’s comment about “New Dads” in the album notes is not targeted at first-time fathers as such, but is a reactionary swipe at the 1990s phenomenon of the “New Dad” – fathers who are more closely involved with bringing up their children than would have been the case traditionally. Smith cited the song during an interview with New Musical Express:

“I call it ‘Married, Two Kids’ (track from next Fall LP). Got married, got a mortgage, can’t afford to take risks. I’ve seen it in the Manchester scene, groups trying to do what someone else has done because it’s safer: ‘Where do I get a guitar like Johnny Marr? I want a haircut like Morrissey, where does Mark Smith get his shoes?’ They’re not musicians, they’re bloody ponces.”

Mark E. Smith, interviewed by Ian McCann, New Musical Express, 29 February 1992, p.23.

Later in the same article:

We talk more about his new songs: ‘Birmingham’ is about someone who fiddled money out of The Fall. There’s a tie-in with ‘Married Two Kids’: Mark says the guy only started conning him once he’d had two kids.

“I hate these New English Dads. I was brought up, you see your dad in the morning and at tea-time if you’re lucky. I’ve had people in the band who are like, ‘l’m not going on the road with yer, I’ve got to bring up my kid’. What are they doing all day! They’re like, ‘Oh the kid did this, did that’ and l’m like, ‘Give ’em a f—-in’ clout!’

They’re going ‘It’s cos you ain’t got kids’, but I probably have got kids I don’t know about. But when a bloke has kids, he goes right down the f—-in’ shaft. They start fiddling, they don’t concentrate on their work. I come from a family of six, I never saw my dad. But these guys with their pony-tails, they’re just hanging around their kids all day. It’s cruel to the kids. When you first go to school or your first job, you miss your mam. But if you have to miss your mam and your dad… people go on about child abuse but that’s child abuse.”

I mention the newspaper reports on two blokes who have contracted polio by changing their babies’ nappies after the nippers had had polio jabs. This cheers him up. “Really! Nappy polio! I’II have to write that down!”

Ian McCann interviews Mark E. Smith, New Musical Express, 29 February 1992, p.48.

“New English Dads” sounds like a “new trend” article he read in a newspaper or magazine, but I haven’t found anything that could be the source. Nonetheless, something along those lines might be out there.

M.E.S. gave the South Wales Echo a similar but not identical explanation:

Married, 2 Kids is about maturing. “All the band are married with two kids. A lot of the risk goes, you go a bit soft. You’ve got bands who write about how beautiful their baby is or global warming. We could never do that.”

Interview by Mick Tems, 1992, p.5.

Not notably a special favourite of fans of The Fall, and to my mind not particularly witty in its targets (as distinct from plain bitter), “Married, 2 Kids” nonetheless manages to attract positive comments.

Tommy Mackay says:

A low, swaggering, almost Stones-like bluesy riff dominates this easy-going little tune… When the riff breaks off, the spacey guitar and sparse piano hits mixed way back, add an extra thrill. Brilliant and succinct touches of character to the average Joe depicted…

Mackay, 2018, p.129.

Steve Pringle also notes the Rolling Stones/bluesy feel and detects some humour:

The swinging rhythm, slide guitar and rock’n’roll piano give ‘Married’ a barroom blues feel – you could almost imagine the Stones playing it. Smith’s laid-back delivery suits both the musical feel of the song and the lyrical content. His vignette of married life is cynical and depressing, as you might expect, but also laced with dark, wry humour…

Pringle, 2022, p.250.

The song even had its supporters among contemporary reviewers. Dele Fadele in New Musical Express called the song a “masterpiece… a critique of conformity and the breeding instinct.” On the other hand, David Cavanagh – who gave the album a disappointed review in Select – seemed to have got the wrong end of the stick entirely, noting that “you’re well into the penultimate ‘Married, Two Kids’, before you laugh aloud, and then it’s over a horribly self-deprecating crack from Smith about his life going nowhere.”

Footnotes

1. Notting Hill Gate is a street in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. It is the stretch of road between Bayswater Road and Holland Park Avenue (the roads are continuous). Historically, the road was a toll road with tollbooths, hence the name. The area of London known as Notting Hill (also in Kensington and Chelsea) gave its name to Notting Hill Gate, but predates the toll road. The area and the road are often mixed up, but the latter is to the south of the hill that the former is named after. The obvious question, therefore, is whether M.E.S. really means Notting Hill Gate, or Notting Hill. “Notting Hill Gate” has more syllables and may have just scanned better. Either way, there are a number of cultural associations that are worth noting. Wyndham Lewis‘ book Rotting Hill (1951) was cited as a favourite by Mark E. Smith. Lewis lived at 61 Palace Gardens Terrace, which is off Notting Hill; the building is marked with a blue plaque.
   
   Since the narrator of the text is married with two kids, and M.E.S. was, as far as we know, childless, the song is not ultimately autobiographical. However, it is possible that M.E.S. may be starting here with an observation about his own life. ↩︎
2. M.E.S. sometimes referred to mobile phones as “porta phones.” Presumably this is supposed to be a portable fax machine (they did exist). ↩︎
3. This line is probably to be understood metaphorically, or just as a fictional conceit. I have been unable to find evidence of any actual pub in the Notting Hill area (or on or near Notting Hill Gate) called “The Spirit of Man”. And I have tried, as you can imagine. ↩︎
4. A phrase borrowed from The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris (1988, p.135): “Can you smell his sweat? That peculiar goatish odor is trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid. Remember it, it’s the smell of schizophrenia.”
   
   The novel was the second by Harris to feature the cannibal serial killer psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter. The first was Red Dragon (1981).
   
   The Fall’s “Hip Priest” had appeared in the film version of The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991). Demme (1944 – 2017) was a fan of The Fall. The line does not appear in the film. ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “Married, Two Kids” [Archived]
• Cavanagh, David (1992). “The Fall: Code: Selfish”. Select, April. p.76. [Text archived by thefall.org]
• Fadele, Dele (1992). “Tales from the Cryptographic Ocean.” New Musical Express, 14 March. p.31. [Page image and text archived by thefall.org]
• Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
• Harris, Thomas (1988). The Silence of the Lambs. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• McCann, Ian (1992). “Love, Love, Love, Love, Love Your Armani.” New Musical Express, 29 February. pp.22-23, 48. [Page image and text archived by thefall.org]
• Mackay, Tommy (2018). 40 Odd Years of The Fall. Place of publication unknown: Greg Moodie.
• Pringle, Steve (2022). You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record. [paperback edition]. Pontefract: Route Publishing Ltd. [Online store]
• Tems, Mick (1992). “The Fall Guy.” South Wales Echo, 13 March. p.5.
• Thompson, Dave (2003). A User’s Guide to the Fall. London: Helter-Skelter Publishing.
• The Track Record: “Married, Two Kids”
• Wikipedia: Notting Hill
• Wikipedia: Notting Hill Gate