Lyrics
Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
Beatle bones ‘n’ smokin’ Stones
The dry sands fall
The strawberry mouth
Strawberry moth
Strawberry caterpillar
Strawberry butterfly
Strawberry Fields 1
The winged eel slither on the heels of today’s children
Strawberry Fields forever
Yeah, roosters, ol’ glass roosters, stick to your race
In a drag-queen, live-wood farmhouse
Tractors are clawin’
The folks are crawlin’
Trees in a row climbing a coach and I blow rich
Red, blue, yellow sunset
Where I set and you set
And I’ve loved and you’ve loved
And I’ve seen and you’ve seen
Salt Man has just made his mark - and crumbled
The dark
The light
The dark
The day
Porcelain children see through white lights
Soft-cracker bats
Cheshire cats named
The dark
The light
The dark
The day
Blue veins through gray-felt tomorrows
Cellular sail-boat – ye ole feathered kind
Blow it into a pond swayin’ in circles
Red, blue, yellow sunset
Where I’ve set and you’ve set
And I’ve loved and you’ve loved
What I saw and you saw
Strawberry Fields forever
The Fall
Beatle bones and smokin' Stones
The rise and fall
The strawberry mouth
Strawberry cloth
Strawberry catenkiller 2
Strawberry butterfly
Strawberry Fields
The long eels slither down the lanes of today's children
Strawberry Fields forever
Ahhhhhhh
And Junk Man has just made his mark and crumbled 3
And I'm gonna call the money so the [ ]
Sun is all
And [ ]
And he said, and I said, and I saw, and you know
And I saw, and you saw, and I knew
Porcelain children, see through white lights
The black dark
Red, blue, yellow sunset
And I saw, and you saw, and I know, and I said
And you knew, and I saw, and you loved
Strawberry Fields forever
Porcelain children, see right through white lights on the chairs
And I said, and you said, and you loved, and I seen
And you know, and I loved
The straw [ ] long eel slithered down the throats of today's children
Strawberry Fields forever
Commentary
< Post in progress >
“Beatle Bones ‘n’ Smokin’ Stones” was originally recorded by Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band for the 1968 album Strictly Personal. It was credited solely to Don Van Vliet (i.e. Captain Beefheart). Beefheart’s collaborator Herb Bermann has claimed that he should have been credited for some of the tracks on Strictly Personal, but this is not one of the songs he has specified (see Bermann,2021).
The song is a parody and surreal critique of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
The Fall’s cover version was recorded on 30 June 1996 for their twentieth Peel Session, broadcast on 18 August 1996. The group for the session consisted of Karl Burns, Steve Hanley, Julia Nagle, Brix Smith, Mark E. Smith and Simon Wolstencroft.
Footnotes
- “Strawberry Fields Forever” was a 1967 single by The Beatles, a double-A side with “Penny Lane”. The reference is to Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army childrens’ home in Liverpool. ↩︎
- It sounds like “catenkiller” anyway. I don’t know what one of those is. MES laughs after intoning the word, either because he realises he has mispronounced “caterpillar”, or because of some deliberate private joke of his own. Maybe “caterpillar” just looked like “catenkiller” scribbled on the page he was reading the lyrics from. ↩︎
- Possibly a call-back to The Fall’s cover of The Groundhogs’ “Junk Man” ↩︎
Sources / Links
- Bermann, Herb (2021). The Mystery Man from the Magic Band: Captain Beefheart’s Writing Partner Revealed. Los Angeles: Brass Tacks Press. [First edition, 2015]
- 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. with Austin Collings (2009). Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith. London: Penguin. (Originally published by Viking, 2008). [Available online in the Internet Archive]
- The Track Record: “Beatle Bones ‘n’ Smokin’ Stones”
- Wikipedia: Strawberry Fields Forever
- Wikipedia: Strictly Personal
- Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide. London: Strata Books.
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