Lyrics
Jump that train school laughed
Jump on train that kids at school laughed
Time of defeat
Time of disease
Time of desserts
I’m a big fat man pushing a little pram
I’m a big fat man pushing a little pram
Shut your trap skinny go or I'll shit in your brain
Ram it up your crack
Shut your trap skinny go and shit your brain
Go and shit your brain
Big man big man big man push pram
Big man big man big man push pram
I’m a big fat man pushing a big pram
I’m a wide problem or a pot-bellied Elton John
I never did nothing ‘cept I’m only one
All my kids are behind Asiatic tech
Big man go push a fucking pram
Big man push pram
Hey shut your trap skinny go and shit your cram pram
Big man push pram
Big man push pram
Jump that train at school man
Jump that train and scoot back
Jump that train and scoot back
Jump that train and school man
Commentary
< Post in progress >
Talk soon turns to a track from the album called “Stout Man” because, well, it’s called “Stout Man” and it sounds like James Williamson-era Stooges as Mark barks about a fat man pushing around a pram.
“That came about because the group are always going on about The Stooges and I’m a lot older than them, so I’m going like you don’t like the fucking Stooges. They think the Stooges is A/E/A/E and I said, you fucking do “Cock in my Pocket” [from the Stooges 1976 live album Metallic KO]. You know, they’re saying about the first Stooges album and I’m like don’t you fucking tell me about that, I bought it when I was 16. So, I said to them “alright then, cunt, learn “Cock in my Pocket”. Try and find that because I know it’s not on any of their LPs but of course they did because it’s on fucking ebay or something or they fucking shazammed it. So I said, learn it. It was a challenge.”
The group took up the challenge, almost too much for Mark’s liking, “They’d been tricking me, they’d been sneaking back into the studio to keep tightening it up. I couldn’t catch them out but in a car on the way down to London I was looking behind the seat and there was this CD, covered in dirt, with the original rough mix of it. I made them use that; they’d been doing about eight or nine different versions of it, it was pathetic. They must have worked more on that song more than any other on the whole album.”
“That’s interesting” I offer.
“No, it’s not fucking interesting, it’s a waste of my fucking time. The fucking smart arses. They should have been working on something else and they were just doing it over and over and over again. So, this little CD was like a little gift from heaven.”
Interview with Daniel Dylan Wray, vice.com (originally published by Noisey), 2015.
“Stout Man” is, musically, a cover of The Stooges’ “Cock in My Pocket“, evidently evolving out of The Fall’s performance of that song (listed as “Cock” on setlists) on half a dozen occasions during 2014 – 2015. On the sleeve of The Fall’s 2015 album Sub-Lingual Tablet, “Stout Man” is credited to Pop/Williamson (i.e. Iggy Pop and James Williamson), but the lyrics are (apparently) Mark E. Smith’s own. It’s rare for MES to give up a chance to claim some publishing royalties; notoriously, “Jerusalem” was credited to William Blake and Mark E. Smith.
Footnotes
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “Stout Man” [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. (2008). vII. The Lough Press & AMarquisManipulationProductions. [AKA the Blue Lyrics Book]
- The Track Record: “Stout Man”
- Wray, Daniel Dylan (2015). “‘I Don’t Like Northern People, I Don’t Like Mancunians’ – Mark E. Smith’s Guide to Britain”. vice.com, 1 June. [Text available online]. Originally published by Noisey [Archived].