Elves

Commentary

< Post in progress >

In what ways are you being experimental now?

With the lyrics I think, ’cause I’m surprised, some of the new stuff I’ve been writing is really weird. I’ve got a great song about Scottish groups, and it’s uh, I started out trying to write about how shitty all Scottish groups are and how Scottish groups always lecture everybody on how they are from Scotland, and how hard up they are, and I just tried to make out that this is just a part of the national character, you know? I started writing it like that, but then it started going on about the price of Scotch Whisky, and then it sort of goes into this weird thing about how I can attain to the sky and stuff, and it was really weird and really good. I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk about it anymore ’cause it’s a really good song you know? And the riff is just like, it’s like something the Sex Pistols would do, it’s really good. (laughs) The riff is like completely you know, just not what you’d think from something like that. I mean if it’s going to be a satire it would be something like The Bluebells or something, tinkly things, but the music is just like, how the boys came up with the music is just like, I don’t know, you know, it was one of Brix’s tunes actually. When you heard the music you would have thought, you know, “I’m in hell, I’m living in hell”, do you know what I mean, a sort of like direct, very simple thing, but the lyrics are really, they get more complicated the more I do it.

Mark E. Smith, quoted in Neal (1987, p.102)

Need to check against this lyric sheet which was on sale via Omega Auctions:

Footnotes

1. These lines are borrowed from Michael Moorcock’s 1981 novel, The War Hound and the World’s Pain:
   
   “I have given my word,” I said. “It is all I have. I hardly understand this talk of games, of loyalties, of betrayals. I have promised to find the Cure for the World’s Pain if I can. And that is what I hope to achieve. It is your world, Klosterheim, which is full of its moves and countermoves. But such gamesmanship robs the soul of its savour and destroys the intellect. I’ll have as little part of it as I can.”
   As we rode away Klosterheim shouted fiercely at me:
   “Be warned, war hound! All that is fantastic leagues against you!”
   It was a chilling threat. Even Sedenko, who did not understand the words, shuddered.
   (p.130)
   
   “Everything that is fantastic leagues against me,” I said, repeating Klosterheim’s warning.
   (p.153)
   
   
   
   ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “Elves” [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.
• Moorcock, Michael (1981). The War Hound and the World’s Pain: a Fable. New York: Timescape/Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster. [Available online in The Internet Archive]
• Neal, Charles (1987). Tape Delay: Confessions from the Eighties Underground. London: SAF Publishing. (2001 reprint). [Available online in The Internet Archive]
• Pringle, Steve (2022). You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record. [paperback edition]. Pontefract: Route Publishing Ltd. [Online store]
• Smith, Mark E. (1985). The Fall Lyrik & Texte Von Mark E. Smith. In Deutsch & Englisch. With Drawings by Brix. Berlin: The Lough Press. [AKA The Orange Book. Available online in The Internet Archive]
• 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: “Elves”
• Wikipedia: The War Hound and the World’s Pain
• Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide: a memoir. Trowbridge: Strata Books. (2nd edition published by Route Publishing, 2017).