Lyrics
They say nothing ever changes
Which is certainly true of the polyocracy 1
The sweetest sound she had ever heard
Was the whinging and crying due to the recession
In fact, if you get up pretty close enough she had a joker hysterical face
Her back head's full of skriking kids
There's no cure so find a case for it
There's no cure so find a case for it
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Joker hysterical face!
Ted Rogers' brains burn in hell
Ted Rogers' brains burn in hell
And there's no cure so find a case for it
There's no cure so find a case for it
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Joker hysterical face!
By order of the assessor
There's no cure so find a case for it
There's no cure so find a cause against it
He made a mistake three times at least
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Joker hysterical face!
When he came home, the hi-fi was playing
She threw his dinner down on the table
And there's no cure so find a cause for it
There's no cure so find a case for it
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
Let's face it, you don't make the same mistake twice
When he'd finished eating, the hi-fi cried
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Your face!
Commentary
< Post in progress >
Footnotes
- There’s a technical political-studies meaning of “polyocracy”, sometimes used of Hitler’s ‘Third Reich’: although Hitler was autocratic, there were nonetheless competing power structures. The concept came out of historians’ debates about the nature of Hitler’s rule, which it seems was not simply of a case of him telling everyone else exactly what to do.
But the meaning of “polyocracy” apparently intended here is the less technical one of Polytechnic-educated left-wingers. Hence the Daily Mail‘s comment on Peter Tatchell (7 December 1981 p.6): “…No Oxford Union elitist this lad, but a genuine member of the polyocracy…”
The general sense of this was, I believe, coined by Keith Waterhouse (the author of Billy Liar, and not himself Polytechnic-educated – he left school at 15), in his “Keith Waterhouse on Thursday” column in the Daily Mirror of 23 October 1975 (p.12). The piece was entitled “The New Polycrats”. He wrote:
The other day, in one of those rambling, chest-prodding pub arguments I seem to get into from time to time, I was accused of being middle class.
I hotly denied it. I define middle class as Indignant Ratepayer from Surburbiton, with a mortgaged semi, a glass-fronted shelf of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, two children at grammar school, a wife who bottles fruit, and a small ginger moustache.
My accuser then put it to me that, whatever back street I might have once infested, I could at any rate no longer describe myself as working class.
I agreed. I am, I said grandly, a member of the Polyocracy.
You will not have heard of the Polyocracy, since I have just made the word up…” ↩︎
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “Joker Hysterical Face” [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]
- 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: “Joker Hysterical Face”
- 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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