Lyrics
All that is gone is shredded by the Automan 1
The glass ceiling it did shake and then it did undulate 2
Don't take the pizza off me
Slumber I told yer
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't take the pizza off me
Birmingham nonsense from city that once was bronze 3
QED each day
QED is quid each day
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take the pizza off me
Your brain splits each day from information anxiety
From me pinch I cringe
You dopey randy acid clone
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Don't take it, don't take it, don't take it, don't take it
Slash fat cats
See vamp watch out
Get rid of straight away
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't take the pizza off me
Don't pick up mind track
Commentary
< Post in progress >
I don’t remember this one.
Simon Rogers, interviewed by Martin for Reformation Post-TPM, 2006. “Don’t Take the Pizza” is credited to Mark E. Smith and Simon Rogers.
The phrase “don’t take the pizza” sounds like it might have started life as “don’t take the piss”, although we have no evidence of that directly from MES or group members. It may be an intentional pun, of course.
Footnotes
- “Automan” has several possible associations, but there is little evidence to help us decide between them.
It could just refer to someone associated with cars, or to a particular car-related business.
There was an American science-fiction/crime-fighting TV series starring Chuck Wagner called Automan, originally aired by ABC from 1983 – 1984. In the UK it was shown on BBC-1 at around the same time. Only twelve episodes were produced. ↩︎ - This might be a literal glass ceiling, I suppose, but the phrase is usually used as a metaphor for the barriers in the way of women’s progression in the workplace (though it is sometimes used more broadly), see Wikipedia. ↩︎
- Birmingham and Manchester compete, in a low-key kind of way, for the unofficial title of “second city” to London. In terms of population, Birmingham is bigger than Manchester if you are counting the actual city boundaries, but Greater Manchester has more people than the wider Birmingham metropolitan area. So what does “city that once was bronze” mean? Third place? The line is ambiguous, since although it is natural to think that the one-bronze city is supposed to be Birmingham, the city from which the “Birmingham nonsense” comes might not actually be Birmingham.
Not implausibly, the reference to Birmingham has been interpreted as a clue that the song might be about Fall manager Trevor Long, on some level. A couple of years later, Long was the target of “The Birmingham School of Business School.” ↩︎
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “Don’t Take the Pizza” [Archived]
- Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
- 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]
- Reformation Post-TPM (2006). “Simon Rogers: Transcript of interview carried out by Martin in 2006.” [Archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, 8 November 2020]
- Smith, Mark E. (2008). vII. The Lough Press & AMarquisManipulationProductions. [AKA the Blue Lyrics Book]
- Smith Start, Brix (2016). The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise. London: Faber & Faber. [Text available online in archive.org]
- The Track Record: “Don’t Take The Pizza”
- Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide: a memoir. Trowbridge: Strata Books. (2nd edition published by Route Publishing, 2017).
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