Lyrics

Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
My cat says eeeee-ack 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Ninety-five percent of hayseeds are corn-pones, guaranteed 
Hit the North 

Computers infest the hotels 
Cops can't catch criminals 
But what the heck, they're not too bad, they talk to God  
Religious

Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Manacled to the city  
Manacled to the city 
Hit the North

All estate agents alive yell down nights in hysterical breath  
Those Northern lights so pretty  
Those big big big wide streets 
Those useless MPs  
Savages 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Manacled to the system

From the back third eye psyche, the reflected mirror of delirium
Eastender and Victoria's lager, the induced call, mysterious, comes forth

Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 
Hit the North 

Hit the North 
Hit the North 

Wow!

Would you credit it?
Bradford, town name 
We're just savages

Computers infest the hotels 
Cops can't catch criminals 
I think, "what the hell", get some, get some 
They're not too bad, they talk to God 
We're just savages 
Savages 

Hit the North 
Hit the North 
You can't get a break on the estates 
What the heck, it's great 

Happiness, is north, west, north, middle, south, east, etcet and so forth 
Those big big wide streets 
Those useless MPs 
Just savages 

Hit the North 
Will you
Hit the North  

To all boys and kids 
Hit the North 
Government say 
Estate agents alive proclaim 
Thank the Lord 
Hit the North 
Manacled to the city 
Manacled to the city 
Northern lights are pretty 
[ ] 
Mitherer

They're just savages 
Savages 

Hit the North
Hit the North
Savages 

Now as, now as the troupe go forth, go forth 
In the reflected mirror of delirium 
Of Victoria's lager, the induced call, mysterious, comes forth 

Hit the North 

Commentary

<Post in Progress>

While The Frenz Experiment is a very live-sounding album, “Hit The North” was a far more programmed affair. But in keeping with the spontaneous approach of the Fall, the song had its roots in a test track that Simon Rogers created when he first bought his Sequential Circuits Studio 440 sequencer/sampler.

“Mark had a sort of love/hate relationship with machines,” Rogers says. “He liked the idea of them, but he didn’t always like the process that you went through. It was slow and he just didn’t want to be dictated to by them. So he would try and subvert the situation. I’d just got this 440 and literally the first thing I put into it was a bass and a snare just on two pads, a little tiny Indian bell which I’ve still got, and a sax note and a bass note from a Gentle Giant record.

“Mark came round to my bedroom studio and I said, ‘Oh, here’s the new sampler, have a look at it’, and just pressed play and out comes the basis of ‘Hit The North’. He said, ‘What’s that music?’ And I said, ‘Well, it’s the first thing I put in.’ He said, ‘I’ll have that, just do me a tape.’”

Simon Rogers, interviewed by Tom Doyle. From a Sound on Sound article about The Fall in the studio. See Doyle, 2015.

Rogers repeats the Gentle Giant story in the booklet accompanying the Beggars Banquet 2xCD/LP 2020 edition of The Frenz Experiment (BBQ 2171 CD /  BBQ 2171 LP).

See Wikipedia for more on the Sequential Circuits Studio 440.

The Video

Footnotes

1. Note the use of American slang, framing Britain’s north/south divide as similar to the American one. “Hayseed” is a pejorative term for an ignorant country yokel. “Corn-pone” is a type of cornbread, a traditional staple food of Southern American states. “Corn-pone” is then also used as an adjective with a similar, but perhaps more regionally specific, meaning to “hayseed”. For example, a “corn-pone accent” is a (supposedly) unsophisticated Southern American country accent. However, the British North/South stereotypes are the reverse of the American situation, with the South seen as sophisticated and countryfied, and the North seen as unsophisticated and “industrial”. Traditionally the North has been seen as politically loyal to the Labour Party, and the South more conservative and Tory. Like all stereotypes there may be elements of truth to this, but it all falls apart under closer scrutiny. ↩︎
2. This is the second time that Mark E. Smith has referenced James Anderton in his lyrics, following “2nd Dark Age” (1980). Anderton (1932 – 2022) was the chief constable of Greater Manchester (i.e. the wider Metropolitan County area) from 1976 to 1991, and a very divisive figure. He had an unusually high public profile for someone in his position, and often clashed with local left-wing politicians, accused of embarking on a ‘moral crusade’ and using his position to promote conservative Christian values and conservative politics. Anderton, a former Methodist turned Catholic, was also the subject of The Happy Mondays’ song “God’s Cop” (from their 1990 album, Pills ‘n’ Thrills and Bellyaches).
   
   It is worth noting that the appearance of “Hit the North” followed a period during which Anderton had made several headline-hitting controversial remarks. On the morning of 18 January 1987, an interview with Anderton was broadcast as part of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday programme. ↩︎
3. Which city? Manchester? Another northern English city? London? If London, should it be “The City” – i.e. the City of London, a partly self-governing business district within London.
   
   Some listeners have argued that the line echoes William Blake’s poem, “London” (published in Songs of Experience, 1794). Here it is in full:
   
   I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
   Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
   And mark in every face I meet
   Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
   
   In every cry of every Man,
   In every Infant’s cry of fear,
   In every voice: in every ban,
   The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
   
   How the Chimney-sweepers cry
   Every black’ning Church appalls;
   And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
   Runs in blood down Palace walls.
   
   But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
   How the youthful Harlot’s curse
   Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear
   And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. 
   
   The case for the Blake connection seems to rest almost entirely on the use of the word “manacles”. If this is an echo, it strikes me as a very faint one and I am not convinced. The poem is about a southern city, not a northern one, and the meaning of the particular line about “mind-forg’d manacles” doesn’t really fit with being “manacled to [a] city”. ↩︎
4. “Estate agent” is the British term for an individual or a firm involved in selling and renting property: land and buildings (houses, offices etc).
   
   “Hysterical breath” sounds like another way of referring to hyperventilation – panic or anxiety-triggered fast-breathing that causes dizziness, chest pains etc (see for example, “Acute Hyperventilation“, from York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust). ↩︎
5. “Northern lights” is the common name of aurora borealis, but that doesn’t seem to be the meaning here. ↩︎
6. “MP”, for the benefit of international readers, is the abbreviation for “Member of Parliament“, i.e. someone who is elected as a constituency representative to the UK’s House of Commons. The political party which is able to command a majority in the House of Commons will normally be able to form the Government. ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “Hit the North” [Archived]
• Doyle, Tom (2015). “The Fall, ‘Hit The North’”. Sound on Sound, March. [Archive]
• Smith, Mark E. (2008). Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark  E. Smith. London: Penguin.
• The Track Record: “Hit the North”
• Wikipedia: Greater Manchester Police
• Wikipedia: James Anderton
• Wikipedia: “London”, by William Blake
• Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide. London: Strata Books.