Commentary

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A Part of American Therein version

Lyrical variant, as heard on the version of “Totally Wired” included on A Part of America Therein (1982) (quite a bit of uncertainty in the transcription here):

You don't have to be weird to be wired
You don't have to be a dyed hair punk funk shit-hot fucked up tick-tock pad
You don't have to be strange to be strangled
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

The line “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” is taken from Hunter S. Thompson’s essay, “Fear and Loathing at the Superbowl”, originally published in Rolling Stone, 28 February 1974, p.29. (See the notes to the Thompson (1974) citation in Sources/Links, below):

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Who said that?

I suspect it was somebody from the Columbia Journalism Review, but I have no proof … and it makes no difference anyway.

Footnotes

1. This line is borrowed from advertisements in the music press for Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band’s 1974 album, Unconditionally Guaranteed:
   
   
   (Source: New Musical Express, 13 April 1974, p.52) ↩︎

Sources / Links

• The Annotated Fall: “Totally Wired” [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]
• Thompson, Hunter S. (1974). “Fear and Loathing at the Superbowl”. Rolling Stone, #155, 28 February. pp.28-38, 42-52. [Reprinted in The Great Shark Hunt (1979) (originally titled, Gonzo Papers, Vol. 1: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time]. [Note that there is confusion about the year of publication and title of Thompson’s article, apparently because he wrote two with a similar title. “Fear and Loathing at the Superbowl: No rest for the wretched… strobe notes and strange memories on a dreary weekend in Los Angeles” is from Rolling Stone, 15 February 1973. p.10. It’s the 1974 article that is reprinted in The Great Shark Hunt, but the notes to some editions of that anthology – and other sources – get the date and/or the subtitle of the 1974 article wrong. The 1974 article had no subtitle.]
• The Track Record: “Totally Wired”
• Wolstencroft, Simon (2014). You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide: a memoir. Trowbridge: Strata Books. (2nd edition published by Route Publishing, 2017).