And yet all insisted that this “moulding” process meant they could conjure up music way above their expectations. When I tracked down 50-odd of them for my book The Fallen, awestruck ex-members would regale me with tales of flying chairs, being told they’d played “like a bloody pub band”, or drummers being fined a fiver for the heinous crime of hitting the tom tom. Wingsīy the early 1980s, Smith was fascinated by the idea of “creative tension”, and would employ ever more dark and comical methods to instil it in his musicians. Years before Roy Keane’s “prawn sandwiches” outburst or the Premier League, Smith sings of how expensive “Corporate-ulent” facilities will swell with expense-accounted suits (“Hot dogs and seat for Mr Hogg! And his grotty spawn!”) while the disenfranchised former fan stands, “hat in his hands, two lager cans, talks to himself, at the back”. The lyrics comprehensively tackle footy issues from boozing footballers to hooliganism, but there’s particular currency in Smith’s uncanny predictions of how gentrification will ruin the beautiful game. I would have picked this anyway, because of the World Cup, but Smith’s brilliant 1983 dissection of football and how it is run seems ever more prescient with every fresh Fifa scandal. The Fall-mad journalist Paul Morley once fretted that Smith might not be a genius after all: “What if he was just an old drunken tramp that when he got really drunk started to spout phrases that made a kind of sense, and we read too much into it, you know?” At which point you can almost hear the chorus of Fall fans shouting back, “But what about Kicker Conspiracy?” Fifteen years before most of us would even hear of the internet, Smith seems to fortell how social media will imprison the demoralised worker: “Became a recluse / And bought a computer … On the screen /Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear / On the screen / Where’s the cursor?” There are many – including Smith’s first wife, Brix – who believe the Fall frontman has the psychic powers of a seer or prophet, and they certainly seem in evidence here. The song has outlived the 80s Bran Flakes advertising slogan from which the title hails, but Smith typically seized on a contemporary absurdity to build a compelling narrative, this time about social class and consumerism. The relentless rhythm conjured up by the so-called “Jesuit lads” (guitarist Craig Scanlon, bassist Steve Hanley and twin drummers Paul Hanley and Karl Burns) reputedly caused superfan John Peel to faint when he first heard it. This logic can be audibly heard in this killer opener from Perverted By Language, recorded five years later. “Repetition in the music and we’re never gonna lose it,” Smith sang on the 1978 B-side Repetition in what amounted to – and remains – a manifesto. ‘Riot in righteousness’: Mark E Smith dies aged 60 – video obituary 2. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. “Net cap of 58 thousand pounds / Sweat on their way down / Grey ports with customs bastards / Hang around like clowns / The uh-containers and their drivers / Bad indigestion / Bad bowel retention / Speed for their wages / Suntan, torn short sleeves …” By the time the song literally crashes to a halt, The Container Drivers establishes that the Fall are a force to be reckoned with and Smith is a voice to be listened to, however uncomfortable that will occasionally be. Almost certainly drawing on his very brief pre-Fall stint as a docker’s clerk, he skewers the trucking existence with withering relish. Over the years, Mark E Smith’s words have taken on many forms, from intricate, otherwordly science-fiction short stories to barmy one-liners, but this is a brilliant early example of his withering observational style. It’s rockabilly, but far removed from the American original and born of northern pubs, cheap speed and Salfordian back streets. Hurtling along like a HGV on rocket fuel, the band sound like they are playing for their lives (and with Smith’s disciplinarian reputation, maybe they were), but with an audible glee, as they explore what was then a new and refreshing form of music. An early example of the Fall’s early “northern rockabilly”, The Container Drivers has fascinated me since I first heard it as a schoolboy (and managed to miss them playing it as their opening song at Leeds University soon after because I’d been disoriented by my first ever pint of Tetley’s bitter).
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