Apr 11, 2025
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The Fall
Look, Know (1982)
today here on the vitamin b glandular show...
i say happy memories leave a bitter taste i got a prison in me our bodies weren’t made for times like these
Forgotten Frenz - 15 Overlooked Fall Songs (Shock Mid-Season Finale!!): No 15 - Look, Know
We're going seriously off-message here. I mean, apparently, allegedly, rumour has it...MES "hates" this song. I mean, he had it taken off the "Hex Enduction Hour" reissue. The booklet of the 1976-2007 box set says he hates it (so quite why it appears on the latter is unclear). Surely this is bordering on heresy, to even posit the slightest suggestion that MES might not be 100% right about everything.
Well fuck him. Seriously, fuck him. His conduct towards some of his ex-colleagues has been appalling of late. Describing Brix and the Hanleys as "subhuman" for getting together to play MUSIC THEY ACTUALLY WROTE was almost within normal parameters but getting that Hex LP listening party pulled was just childish. His recent suggestion that he should have sacked the whole band after "Kurious Oranj" is laughable - Smith’s assertion that the group couldn’t keep in time is especially offensive to the superb Simon Wolstencroft and, lest we forget, within 2 years, he'd stripped the group down to 3 of that very line-up and was calling it the best Fall ever! He's even taken to posting crude drawings seeming poking fun at Steve Hanley's justly celebrated book - these can be found on Ed Blaney's (awful) official website. This can only be the sourest of grapes given the more muted reception afforded to Smith's own books, firstly the one that drove poor Mick Middles round the twist and then the one that was blatantly ghostwritten from a bunch of unrevealing pub interviews. At least Hanley properly credited his co-author, eh? Anyway, let's assume for a second that Daryl Easlea is right and that MES really does hate "Look, Know". I think it was largely assumed at the time that MES had actually withdrawn it from the Hex reissue because the tracklisting leaked before he had signed it off. So he spoiled it. To prove he could. But maybe he really does. Why?
Well, first of all, there's the prominent countervocal from Marc Riley, who had the temerity to actually experience some success as a DJ and presenter after his time in the Fall was cut short. We know MES didn't like that. You're supposed to just fold up and go away once he's finished with you. More currently, there's the fact that it was written by his present target, Steve Hanley;how much this would have influenced him in 2004 is unclear but he was typically uncomplimentary in the BBC documentary made that year. In "The Big Midweek", Hanley recalls that this was the first song he'd written all the music for, from beginning to end. He also says that he'd envisaged it as having a bit of a Dexy's Midnight Runners feel, maybe with some horns (he shares this affection for Dexy's with his brother, of course). Of course, given that it was essayed in a single take in Iceland, there was neither the time nor the budget for such musical indulgence but it's actually not hard to imagine the appropriate brass flourishes and maybe the bass being doubled with some piano. In the event, the sound is very empty during the verses, with a characterful, powerhouse bass matched to insistent drums and those complimentary vocals lines from Riley and Smith. The only other element in the verses is some attractive glittery keyboard - this is a bit too in tune to be Smith and a bit too random to be Riley so answers on a postcard (if it was cut as-live, it could even be Scanlon, given his later turn on "The Man Whose Head Expanded"). By the time the guitars arrive, there's a pent-up tension which Riley and Scanlon release with delight; there's even a bit of the desired soul inflection in some of the more rhythmic guitar parts. It works a treat, collapsing back down to the more simple design of the verses at exactly the right moment. It's an attractive, idiosyncratic brew and whilst the arrangement might not be exactly what Hanley wanted, it sounds properly considered and rehearsed. It's possible that some of Smith's distaste is born of his decision to marry this music to a lyric about what would at the time have been called fashion victims (today's equivalent - "hipster"). This was too easy a target for a sniper as acute as MES was in 1981/82 and one which maybe came back to bite him a few years later when he started wearing Armani at Brix's behest.
The great thing about The Fall is that you can actually have it all. I wrote very positively about "The Remainderer" and yet, I still think "Look, Know" - 31 years its senior - is a peach. I neither need nor want to pretend that the first 30 years of The Fall just didn't happen - hilariously, the discography on the new official site starts with "Imperial Wax Solvent"! This nasty revisionism is spoiling one of the greatest discographies in the history of everything. So yes, MES, bring on "Sub-lingual Tablet", please. But don't dare try and tell me what records I can and cannot enjoy. The Fall’s history is not yours and yours alone. And you’re pissing off lifelong fans with this unnecessary meanness. Myself absolutely included.
Over and out.
