Lyrics
<No lyrics available>
Commentary
We know of five documented performances of “Roll The Bones”, between August and November 1977. It first appears on the setlist for The Fall’s gig at the Electric Circus, Manchester, on 21 August 1977. No recordings have emerged and there is no known studio version, which is why I’m unable to provide any lyrics.
However, it does appear in the list of “RECORDED/Presentable” songs in a letter from Mark E. Smith to Tony Friel, dated 25 January 1977, in which MES set out the songs “The Outsiders Group” (they were yet to change their name to The Fall) had been working on to date.
Idiomatically, to “roll the bones” is to cast dice, to gamble, or otherwise or take part in a game of chance.
The lyrics to The Fall’s “Dice Man” include the lines, “throw the bones and the poison dice.”
“Gonna Roll the Bones” is an award-winning fantasy story/novellete by MES-favourite author Fritz Leiber (credit to the late Fall Online Forum user ‘Aubrey The Cat’ for being the first to point this out in a post to the Forum on 16 March 2019). It was first published in 1967 in the Harlan Ellison-edited anthology, Dangerous Visions, and has been reprinted many times since.