Lyrics

My boys tape what I say
Do it studio way
New equipment all clean
New gear, clothes mean
I answer and take the calls
No trouble with the law
Turn it up for interviewers
Oh yeah, prime movers
I wonder what is next year's thing?
Crash smash crash ring

They've got another side
Pop heroes of the mind
While you suckers queue or work
Money for us in play and tell
We have never sold out 
Spent hours over clever art
Funny advertising quotes 
That make you bite and raise your hopes
That it's the new leather thing
Crash smash crash ring

The broken backs of the real bands
A million closed minds
Re-form the old clans
Year of the average man
The Worst died because of you 
Along with some others too
Erasing of our rainbows
We are men, we have big toes!
It's the new leather thing
Crash smash crash ring

Houdini believed his tricks
That is why he died
Oh, I'm not coming out
There may be a film on tonight
Or Eliot's Untouchables 
Ads for new hotels look like science-fiction films or revival gothic pig-swill
Watch the skies, watch The Thing
Crash smash crash ring

"Rock it!" 

It's the new leather thing
It's the new leather thing
It's the new leather thing
It's the new leather thing
Ba ba ba doo [   ] 
New leather thing
A new leather thing

Ba ba ba doo [   ] 
New leather thing
A new leather thing

Yow!

Commentary

Credited to Mark E. Smith and Martin Bramah, “It’s The New Thing” was the lead track on The Fall’s second single. It’s last documented live performance was at Hazel Grove Youth Club, Stockport, on 28 March 1979. Bramah left the group in April and the song was never played again.

“It’s The New Thing” is one of several examples of songs coming out of the punk movement which critiqued that movement, cf. “How Much Longer” by Alternative TV. You don’t seem to get this kind of thing in other youth music movements, although on the other hand complaints about the music industry are commonplace.

“The New Thing” was a phrase used of free jazz, cf. Ornette Coleman’s New Thing at Newport (1965) [see Wikipedia].

Footnotes

1. Martin Bramah does this bit. ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “It’s The New Thing” [Archived]
• Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
• The Track Record: “It’s The New Thing”