Lyrics
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Armageddon
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
This beautiful tree
Lay
Lay
Lay
Lay
Boo-hoo
Lay
Lay
Give up living
Lay
Lay
Ample
Eye
They give in
On the buses, up the stair, by the television
Pretend to learn
Where's the lay of the land, my son
Where's the lay of the land, my son
What's the lie of the land, my son
The last Briton on the street
He's in a radio fuzz
He's dead and beat
No longer reflects our daft fate
We'll leave this city
Hit a quick coach, take the town in Surrey
There's no-one here but crooks and death
Kerb-crawlers, of the worst order
Where's the lay of the land, my son
What's the lie of the land, my son
Eldritch house, with green moss
Sound of ordinary on the waves
Tiles drip from its roof
Home secretary has a weird look
Where's the lay of the land, my son
What's the lie of the land, my son
The good Book of John surrounds the son
Sound of ordinary on the waves
Italic scribble on horizon
When the height of culture is a bad stew
Space bores, government disorder
Indian clerk, low calorie drink
Where's the lay of the land
Where children circle in cycles
Giving jokes ad-lib by bearded writers who defected to higher realms
(Higher realms)
Advertising realms
Where's the lay of the land, my son
What's the lie of the land, my son
People laughing ... people fighting ... people watching
Between the ticker and the mind lies an air-block of wind
Boo!
Commentary
< Post in progress >
There was a four-part BBC North East series titled The Lie of the Land, broadcast in 1983, in which presenter David Bean explored the countryside and interviewed people who lived there. Newspaper research has uncovered some details of the series. The first episode, titled “The Farm and the Forest”, was broadcast on 12 August and featured an interview with Wark Forest deer farmers Tot and Anne Hutchinson. The second episode was broadcast on 19 August, and was titled “Haaf Time on the Solway” (haaf netting is a traditional method of salmon and sea trout fishing in the Solway Firth). The third episode, broadcast on 26 August, was titled “The Fool on the Hill” and featured landscape artist Peter Liddle, who lived with his wife Sandra and two children in the middle of Whale Moor, near Askham, south of Penrith, in the Lake District. The final episode, broadcast on 2 September, was titled “Yours in Christ” and featured the move of Rev. Bob Burston from Alwinton to Wooler (the former a village and the latter a town in Northumberland). I haven’t seen any of the episodes and am unable to say whether there is anything in them that may have ended up in the lyrics.
Footnotes
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “Lay of the Land” [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: “Lay of the Land”
- Williamson, Tom & Bellamy, Liz (1983). Ley Lines in Question. Kingswood, Tadworth, Surrey: World’s Work Ltd.
- Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide: a memoir. Trowbridge: Strata Books. (2nd edition published by Route Publishing, 2017).