Rainmaster

Lyrics

TV man's tarantula 
TV man 
TV man 
TV man 
TV man 

Rainmaster 
Rainmaster 

Copycats this and that 
What about copycat familiars 
And miserable witches 

Rainmaker 
Changes all rain 

TV man 
TV man 
TV man 
TV man 

Rainmaster 
Rainmaster 

Florida wildlife is under constant threat 

Rainmaster 

TV man 

Curserer of blights once too often 
In the ridiculous muggy envelope stained 
Goin', you sorry fuck 

TV man 
TV man 
All hail
TV man 
TV man 

Rainmaster in Belgique 
Rainmaster in Basingstoke's portaphone traffic 
Maurique assistant crap in hermitage 
Rainmaster in New York 
Rainmaster over cool green layered forest 
Interspersed 

TV man 
TV man 
TV man 
TV man 

With hammers banging 
Fellas tapping slow in hot morning 
Silenced! 
Rainmaster in his benediction 
Smug in the task and knowledge 

Cut to the quick 
Rainmaster whoop! 
Citadel 
Florida three four nine dot dot dot dot dot dot dot 
That's how far we go 

Commentary

< Post in progress >

I was obsessively watching Formula One, and Michael Schumacher was known as the ‘rain master’ because he could really navigate the car in the rain. That’s how that got that name. Mark also refers to ‘rain maker’, a reference to a cartoon character from my childhood called Simon Bar Sinister from Underdog, a 1964 cartoon where this dog would go into a phone booth and explode out in a Superman cape. His mortal enemy was a man called Simon Bar Sinister who had a machine that could control the weather. Mark found that fascinating.

Brix Smith Start, quoted in the booklet to the 2026 5 x CD box set Cherry Red reissue of Cerebral Caustic [CRCD5BOX206].

Michael Schumacher was indeed known as “rain master” (or, in German, “Regenmeister”), see for example this Guardian article.

For more on Underdog, see Wikipedia. The Simon Bar Sinister character is of course named for the heraldic “bend sinister”, after which an album by The Fall was also named.

Underdog (left) and Simon Bar Sinister (right):

Footnotes

1. This line is spoken by M.E.S. ↩︎
2. “Belgique” is the French word for Belgium. ↩︎
3. Basingstoke is a town in Hampshire, southern England. Not long before the recording of Cerebral Caustic The Fall played their first and only gig in the town, at The Anvil on 31 May 1994 [see The Track Record]. ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “Rainmaster” [Archived]
• Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
• Henry, Alan (2000). “Schumacher shines as the rain falls.” The Guardian, 22 May. [Available online]
• 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]
• Smith Start, Brix (2016). The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise. London: Faber & Faber. [Text available online in archive.org]
• The Track Record: “Rainmaster”
• Wikipedia: Regenmeister
• Wikipedia: Underdog (TV Series)
• Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide: a memoir. Trowbridge: Strata Books. (2nd edition published by Route Publishing, 2017).