Discord & Rhyme: An Album Podcast

Discord and Rhyme is a podcast where we discuss the albums we love, song by song.

105: The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace (1985)

“We’ve repetition in the music / And we’re never going to lose it.”

–Mark E. Smith


This Halloween we’re celebrating FALLoween, as we hit the north and take on the Mighty Fall! Other than a few singles that barely scraped the UK top 40, the Fall never achieved commercial success, but they built a large cult following due in large part to the personality and antics of their difficult, irascible, intelligent, and borderline unintelligible bandleader, Mark E. Smith. But what we hope to emphasize in this episode is that despite Smith’s outsized influence over the Fall, and his tendency to fire members on a whim, the Fall was always a band. Smith’s ideas formed the bedrock of their songs, but their music was always the product of a back-and-forth between him and incredibly talented musicians who added their own distinctive stamp to every iteration of the Fall. Their discography can be large and intimidating to new listeners, so we’ve chosen their 1985 opus This Nation’s Saving Grace, which is relatively accessible, but also a legit candidate for their greatest album. So even if you don’t come away from this episode as the Fall’s 50,001st fan, we hope you’ll at least understand why anyone would willingly listen to this band.

Miscellany

  • An important figure from the Fall’s early days who we neglected to mention was Kay Carroll, the band’s manager and Mark E. Smith’s partner. Carroll, who passed away in 2020, played a huge role in keeping the band from falling apart amid the grind of recording and touring, and her departure in 1983 left a power vacuum that Mark E. Smith immediately stepped up to fill.

  • After parting ways with the Fall, John Leckie went on to produce critically acclaimed albums such as the self-titled debut by the Stone Roses, The Bends by Radiohead, and Origin of Symmetry by Muse. Whether the Fall could have achieved the same success under his wing is anyone’s guess.

  • The clip we played to illustrate the reverb-heavy bass style of L.A. session musician collective The Wrecking Crew was “The Searchers” by Carol Kaye. Kaye is one of the all-time-great bass players, and very likely a huge influence on Brix Smith, as a Los Angeles native herself.

  • If you need even more writing about the Fall, we recommend Bob Stanley’s 2021 book Excavate! The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall, a wide-ranging collection of previously unseen artwork, rare ephemera and handwritten material, accompanied by essays from fans.

  • Mike found a 10-minute live version of “I Am Damo Suzuki” from 1987 that is much more to his liking. And in case anyone was wondering, here is the setlist from the show John saw in 2003.

  • We tend to retro-engineer a lot of music into being prog, so let us say definitively: The Fall are not prog. The entire concept of progression is antithetical to the Mark E. Smith ethos. 

Other links 

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call 

  • Mike DeFabio (moderator)

  • Rich Bunnell

  • Dan Watkins 

This Nation’s Saving Grace tracklist 

  1. Mansion

  2. Bombast

  3. Barmy

  4. What You Need

  5. Spoilt Victorian Child

  6. L.A.

  7. Vixen (bonus)

  8. Couldn’t Get Ahead (bonus)

  9. Gut of the Quantifier

  10. My New House

  11. Paintwork

  12. I Am Damo Suzuki

  13. To Nk Roachment: Yarbles

  14. Petty (Thief) Lout (bonus)

  15. Rollin’ Dany (bonus)

  16. Cruiser’s Creek (bonus) 

Other clips used 

The Fall:

  • No Xmas for John Quays

  • Spectre vs. Rector

  • Impression of J. Temperance

  • Prole Art Threat

  • And This Day

  • Eat Y'self Fitter

  • Ladybird (Green Grass) (The Twenty-Seven Points version)

  • New Face in Hell

  • On My Own

  • A Figure Walks

  • Hit the North Part 1

  • Frightened

  • Hip Priest

  • Pay Your Rates

  • Disney’s Dream Debased

  • Totally Wired

  • Winter (Hostel-Maxi)

  • Lay of the Land

  • The N.W.R.A.

  • Choc-Stock

  • Elves

  • Athlete Cured

  • Gut of the Quantifier (Peel session)

  • There’s a Ghost in My House

  • Victoria

  • Theme from Sparta F.C. #2

  • Slates, Slags, Etc.

  • The Man Whose Head Expanded

  • Bury Pts. 1 + 3

  • Wolf Kidult Man

  • Mr. Pharmacist 

Others:

  • Calvin Harris feat. Frank Ocean and Migos - Slide

  • The Melomen - Grim Grinning Ghosts

  • The Monkees - Valleri

  • Pavement - Fame Throwa

  • Carol Kaye - The Searchers

  • Blur - Parklife

  • The Cramps - The Way I Walk

  • X - The Hungry Wolf

  • Sister Sledge - Frankie

  • The Doors - The Changeling

  • Jr. Walker & the All-Stars - Shotgun

  • The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog

  • Spinal Tap - Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight

  • Joy Division - No Love Lost

  • Lipps, Inc. - Funkytown

  • Sonic Youth - My New House

  • Ween - Pollo Asado

  • Can - Oh Yeah

  • LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge

  • Arthur Alexander - Every Day I Have to Cry Some

  • Gene Vincent - Rollin’ Dany

Band/album personnel 

  • Mark E. Smith – vocals, violin (14), guitar, harmonica (9)

  • Brix Smith – guitar, vocals

  • Steve Hanley – bass guitar, backing vocals

  • Craig Scanlon – guitar, backing vocals

  • Karl Burns – drums, backing vocals

  • Simon Rogers – keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, drum machine, backing vocals

  • John Leckie – production, engineering

  • Joe Gillingham – engineering

Credits 

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of: 

  • Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf

  • Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste

  • The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...

  • Faith No More - Midlife Crisis

  • Herbie Hancock - Hornets

  • Kraftwerk - Autobahn

  • Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen

  • The Fall - Mansion (this episode only) 

You can buy or stream This Nation’s Saving Grace and other albums by the Fall at your local record store, discogs.com, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Twitter @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.

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