306: my friends, da da dah da da dah daahh.

My friends ain’t enough for one hand,

My friends don’t amount to one hand,

One hand.

My friends don’t add up to one hand,

My friends don’t amount to one hand,

One hand.

My friends don’t count up to one hand,

My friends cannot count on one hand.

My friends don’t amount to one hand.

-Frenz, The Fall

This song has completely hypnotised me.  The bass line bangs away and the lady intones da, da dah da da dah da daah, as Mark E Smith yelps I’ll tell you about my friends; my friends don’t add up to one hand, one hand.  The song begins with a fade-in, ponders along for the customary three and a half minutes, and then fades out again.  Along the way we get no changes or chorus, just the occasional rising of a synthetic organ, and the click of a snare rim-shot; and of course the repetitious my friends, da da dah da da dah daahh.  As soon as it ends (enz?) I just want to press play again.

I know nothing about The Fall except the stuff everyone knows: main (and only constant in an ever changing line-up) member is Mark E Smith from Salford, he once read the Saturday football scores on BBC1 (cos his Theme from Sparta F.C. was the title music to the scores), they were John Peel’s favourite band, and... well that’s it.  They have a million different albums, with a trillion different songs; they have the record for most John Peel sessions recorded, at a staggering 12⁷.  There is no way I can get into that massive confusing world of varied shit and diamonds.  I just happen to have stumbled across the song Frenz, and so far that has sufficed to fill a gap; over and over and over again...

It helps cure me on occasions when I might be suffering from earworms related to Friday or Hip Hop Happy Birthday, both of which continue to haunt my inner monologue regularly.  It’s rounded repetitive edges, combined with Smith’s rough colloquial barks, are the perfect balsam for loosening unwanted stuck tunes.

And if anyone wants to put themselves forward as an expert on The Fall, then please give us some recommendations on how to ease myself into the various styles of the band over the years.  Years ago when I wanted to get into Frank Zappa, the three-CD set Läther was the perfect way in.  It contains a freaky-wide sample of Zappa’s diverse musical output, all strung into a mess that makes sense.  If such a Rosetta Stone exists for The Fall then I need to discover it quickly, before the sun turns supernova and scorches the Earth.