Lyrics
Pay your rates
Pay your water rates
Pay your rates
Pay your water rates
If your rate's too high
Write a snotty letter
If your rate's too high
Put your life on this bit of paper
Advice on rates
Advice on rates
Pay your rates
Pay your water rates
Pay your rates
Pay your water rates
If your rate's too high
You'd better sign this letter
If you don't pay your rates
You're gonna end up here
Or end up on debtors' retreat estate
Or debtors' retreat escape
Debtors' escape estate
Debtors' escape
Debtors' retreat escape
Debtors' retreat estate
Neurotic red landscape
A socialist state invention
The old government bones working 1
Debtors' escape estate
Debtors' retreat estate
A no motivation estate
Debtors' escape estate
Pay the borough
Pay the borough
Pay your rates
Pay the borough
Pay the borough
Pay the borough
[ ]
Pay your rates
Pay your rates
Pay your rates
[ ]
Pay the borough
Pay the borough
Pay your rates
Pay your rates
Commentary
< Post in progress >
Note that the lyrics to the version heard on Live In London / Legendary Chaos Tape differ slightly.
Footnotes
- “Bones” is rhyming slang for ‘phones, which is fairly obviously what is intended here. MES used rhyming slang quite often in his lyrics. A lot of people presume that rhyming slang is just Cockney rhyming slang, but it is much more widespread than that. ↩︎
Sources / Links
- The Annotated Fall: “Pay Your Rates” [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: “Pay Your Rates”
- 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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