Lyrics
Wireless enthusiast intercepts Government secret radio band and uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful type proportions
Aghast, goes next door to his neighbour, secretly excited as aforementioned was a hunter who radio enthusiast wanted friendship and favour of
A new face in hell!
Nearly a new face in hell!
A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbour is at the table, poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of wireless operator's forthcoming revelation
A new face in hell!
A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the realisation hits him that the same Government him and his now dead neighbour voted for and backed and talked of on cream porches have tricked him into their war against the people who enthusiast and dead hunter would wish torture on
A servant of Government walks in and arrests wireless fan in kitchen for murder of his neighbour
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
The dead cannot contradict, sometimes the living cannot
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
A new face in hell!
Commentary
< Post in progress >
‘New Face in Hell’ has a remarkably economical word count, and the events recounted therein would play out in real time in about five minutes. The wireless enthusiast hears an illicit broadcast, nips next door, spots his friend’s body and gets arrested. Roll titles. But the fact that the government agent poisons the neighbour and frames the wireless enthusiast rather than simply killing him opens up a host of narrative possibilities, none of which Mark sees any need to explore – which inevitably forces listeners to fill in the rest of the story’s detail for themselves.
Hanley, Paul (2020), p.32.
Footnotes
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “New Face in Hell” [Archived]
- Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
- Hanley, Paul (2020). Have a Bleedin Guess: the story of Hex Enduction Hour. Pontefract: Route Publishing.
- 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: “New Face in Hell”
- 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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