Lyrics
(Note: Brix sings the italicised words in parentheses)
In these times (a flat season) 1
In these times (vision gone)
In these times (picture frame it)
In these times (say so long)
My Aqua-cat is where it's at, new to mammal range 2
But you know it would never suit territories Alpine
In these times (meeowww)
In these times (fish-cat mother) 3
In these times (spectral filter) 4
In these times (feline nutter) 5
In these times
In these times
A man down south, he did go out, he did kill fifteen 6
What the papers could not grasp or work out, was his life in a flea brain 7
In these times (universal tepid)
In these times (stagnant mind)
In these times (in this time)
In these times (they're both the same)
In these times
Diluted Jesuits pour out of mutual Walkmans 8
From Elland Road to Venice pensions and down the Autobahns 9
In these times (if that's it I'm leaving)
In these times (leave this planet fast)
In these times (it affects my sleeping)
In these times (my dreams are one to miss)
(One to be avoiding in times like this)
I often hope in years ahead my gossamer front gate 10
Will keep out the trash in which my psychic streets are merged
In these times (spectral filter)
In these times (in your midst)
In these times (this song's a belter)
In this time (for times like this)
In these times (in this time)
In these times (in this time]
[ ]
In these times - I picture framed pre-teen rap gangs with Alsatians
On street corners, I imagine beige [ ] and red curtain [ ]
I made enquiries
Scapa Flow steel is inexpensive 11
A first season - vision gone
Picture frame it - and say so long
They say "Give up Buster", cram it down
But I grow stronger, and break their minds
Commentary
“On the LP, the song in These Times was written at a time last year when things were pretty shocking and tasteless. There’s a bit in the song relating to when I went to Italy for the first time in four years for a holiday with Brix. I thought at least I’d get away from cars and U2. And the first thing I heard were these two street-theatre people doing U2 songs on acoustic guitars, mixed with Beatles’ songs. It was a nightmare.”
Source: M.E.S. interviewed by Dave Haslam. See Haslam, 1988, p.27.
“In These Times” was credited – probably unfairly – to Mark E. Smith alone when it first appeared on The Fall’s album The Frenz Experiment (1988).
Versions and Variations
There are two officially released versions of “In These Times”, and one radio session that so far hasn’t had an official release.
- Radio session version: broadcast on Piccadilly Radio 25 February 1988.
- Original studio version: The Frenz Experiment
- Live version: Seminal Live. Arena, Vienna, 16 April 1988.
Footnotes
- “Flat racing” is a form of horse racing without jumps, and “flat season” is the phrase for the time of year in which such races usually take place. See Wikipedia. Whether this is what the lyric is referring to, I don’t know. ↩︎
- There have been lots of guesses as to what “Aqua Cat” means. My favourite it that it refers to a popular type of catamaran originally designed in the 1960s by the American Fiberglass Corp (for more on the company, see SailboatData.Com, and see also that site’s entry for the AQUA CAT 12). However, it’s not obvious what this would have to do with the song. Other suggestions include that it could be a cat that has been bred or evolved to live in water (which would literally make it new to the mammalian taxonomic class), or maybe a fish-cat hybrid (see below). It could be that M.E.S.’s imagination was stimulated by reading something about the catamaran, which maybe he thought sounded amusing, since cats are noted for not being keen on water. ↩︎
- The “fish-cat” might be an Aqua-Cat, see above. ↩︎
- Spectral filtering is the process of selecting or excluding particular wavelengths of light in a signal. A spectral filter is therefore a device that enables this. See Wikipedia (Optical filter). ↩︎
- “Nutter” is a derogatory term for someone who acts in an irrational, eccentric or chaotic way. A “feline nutter” could be a cat that behaves wildly, or a person who is ‘crazy about cats’ (i.e. an odd way of saying “cat nut”). ↩︎
- Probably a reference to the Hungerford massacre, 19 August 1987, in which sixteen people were shot and killed before the gunman turned his gun on himself. Hungerford is in Berkshire, southern England, and the murders took place in Berkshire and the neighbouring county of Wiltshire. M.E.S. miscounts the number of victims.
Mass shootings are very rare in the U.K., and and the killings were carried out using legally owned weapons, but stricter gun control legislation was one outcome of a Government report into the incident, which remains one of the worst of its type in British history (see Wikipedia). ↩︎ - “Flea-brained” is a colloquialism for “stupid”. Hence Gene Vincent’s song “Flea Brain”. ↩︎
- The Fall supported the rock group U2 on 1 July 1987. U2 are Irish, and therefore, for M.E.S., stereotypically Catholic and by extension Jesuit. However, describing them as “diluted” suggests he also sees them as in some sense (musically? politically? theologically?) watered-down. “Walkmans” are portable personal music players, a brand manufactured by Sony since 1979. Originally designed to play cassettes, the range evolved to include CD players, minidisc players and now digital music players. ↩︎
- Elland Road Stadium has been the home of Leeds United Football Club since the club’s foundation in 1919 (the same year as the scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow). It’s also where The Fall supported U2 in 1987. In the intended sense here, a “pension” (“La Pensione” in Italian) is a small family-run hotel or boarding house (to use the nearest British term). Venice has some notably historic examples. The “Autobahn” is the word given to the federal motorway system in Germany (it’s short for “Bundesautobahn“). The Italian equivalent is the Autostrade. ↩︎
- “Gossamer” means thin and insubstantial, but often in the context of describing a luxury fabric like silk, or the material for floaty clothing like wedding dresses. It can specifically refer to spider silk, or a fabric that shares some of the properties of spider silk. A “gossamer front gate” possibly means a gate covered in spiders’ webs. ↩︎
- Scapa Flow is a natural harbour in the Orkney Islands, Scotland. It was the Royal Navy’s main base during the First and Second World Wars (the base closed in 1956), and is probably best known for an incident after the First World War, when, in 1919, 52 of the 74 ships of the interned German High Seas Fleet were scuttled on the orders of the German Admiral von Reuter (see Wikipedia). The sunken vessels have been used as a source of “low-background steel” (steel uncontaminated by radiation from the detonation of nuclear weapons in the 1940s and 1950s, and therefore useful for scientific purposes). ↩︎
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “In These Times” [Archived]
- Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
- Haslam, Dave (1988). “Radio Silence.” Cut, vol. 3 (4), April. p.27.
- 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]
- Smith, Mark E. (2008). vII. The Lough Press & AMarquisManipulationProductions. [AKA the Blue Lyrics Book]
- The Track Record: “In These Times”
- Wikipedia: Hungerford massacre
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