The Fall: Hip Priest

Track of the Week (part one)- 28 January 2018

Anyone who has been reading these over the last three years may well have noticed that I use Fall songs a lot. You may also have noticed in the news this week that Mark E Smith, the Fall's leader, singer-songwriter, cult leader, tyrant, working-class poet (pick the ones you feel that apply or make your own up) died this week at the age of 60.

Smith had been unwell for sometime but it was still a bit of a shock. The Fall's music (and therefore Smith's personality) had been part of my life for around 35 years. The fact that there will be no new Fall music, that I won't be eagerly anticipating an album release or interview, still feels strange.

I won't give an obituary here*. If you want to you can read many online tributes from from news organisations and fans alike. I saw the Fall live five or six times in the eighties and nineties but not since and never met Smith. I'm not sure that I wanted to and I'm not convinced he would have had any time for someone like me.

Two of my favourite quotes I've seen are from the Washington Post who said that Smith was: "unmistakeably himself at all times" (which is something worth striving for in our own lives I think), and from the Comedian Stewart Lee who said "once it's got you, you never let go". I think I'd probably add to that by saying that while it won't show up in a blood test or brain scan the Fall is in me and will stay in me.

The song I've picked to celebrate Smith's life is Hip Priest. Predictable perhaps but absolutely one of my favourite Fall songs and it features on my favourite album, 1982's Hex Enduction Hour. Recorded in Iceland during one of the many times of tension in the group it starts with Smith repeating the line "he is not appreciated", something that will be re-dressed in the future as he morphs in death from outsider to cultural icon.

Over seven and a half minutes plus it moves from bare bones of a song carried by the vocal to angry rock and back again. It's a contradiction of a man who has struggled for recognition and at the same time is uncomfortable with the idea of having that recognition: "all the young groups know, they can imitate but I teach'. The Hip Priest page of the Annotated Fall website has more interpretations of the song and various lyrics.

Oh, and the keyboard strike at 4:30 is my favourite noise in the history of recorded music.





*obituary no - maybe start a whole new blog and write loads, possibly.