First there's
"Wings", by The Fall. "Wings" has long been one of my favourite Fall songs. Its lack of availability is a puzzle. For a long time it existed only as the b-side to the first disc of the "Kicker Conspiracy" double-seven-inch, and on "Palace of Swords Reversed", one of a number of otherwise superfluous and/or dubious compilations that sprang up, and continue to do so, in the cracks of The Fall's peripatetic label-hopping existence. It appears on the Rough Trade "Totally Wired" set, but not on "50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong", which is otherwise probably the best jumping-off point for youngsters.
But its relative obscurity cannot hide the fact that it is a great song (and, unlike a lot of Mark E Smith's seemingly free-associated, top-of-the-head ranting, it has some kind of structural and even - gasp - poetic lyrical integrity). It immediately hits upon a grinding riff and refuses (or forgets?) to let go. There is also a fine video clip that exists on a VHS tape called, and I could be wrong here, "Perverted By Language BIS", wherein MES intones the words while sitting stony-faced in a pub somewhere in (presumably) northern England, the wallpaper of which clashes spectacularly with the knitted pattern on his jumper. At least that's how I remember it.
And then there's
"Tighten Up", by Yellow Magic Orchestra. I cannot believe I had no idea that this remarkable cover version existed. But a little research set me straight. It is no wonder, actually, that its existence has been buried (or at least kept hidden from me). The original, Japanese version of "X∞Multiplies" is a funny sort of record, a few songs interspersed with lengthy extracts from something called "Snakeman Show", some in Japanese and some in English but all making no sense whatsoever to your average Westerner. Thus, unbeknownst to me, the Australian version of "Multiplies", which is the one I knew back in those golden days, was actually made up of a large part of "Solid State Survivor", together with three of the actual songs from the Japanese "Multiplies". But not, strangely, "Tighten Up". (Possibly the fact that it is divided into two parts (three, arguably, given that Part One itself fades out and comes back in again), much as was the Archie Bell & The Drells original, didn't help the decision makers know what to do with it.) Discogs says it exists independently as a single, but I can't imagine this would have dodged my radar if copies had reached Australia, given that I was [possible understatement alert] a bit of a fan.
Anyway, it is a gloriously faithful ("ersatz"?) and fearsomely infectious rendition of the original, right down to the "Hi everybody, we are YMO" introduction, but they have the good sense to throw in some Vocoder just when you start to get too comfortable.
