Your favourite sad Fall songs - choice of three.
I know many hate these, I love 'em, to buggery. :cry2: :cry2: :cry2:

I think you should have included Clear off, and left a few others off, but never mind, (I bet Shiftwork and WhizzBang dont get any votes)
Time enough at Last a runner up to Living too Late.
Was going to suggest service, but its slow and not necessarily sad.

You just got proved wrong about Frenz. I love it, too...

Why not Paintwork? This is a poll of ur favourite sad song, isnt it? So I had to vote Paintwork, but my first choice was 'U havent found it...'. Outstanding!

All I can say is there have been some sad choices made here.

EDIT: Whoops! As per.

What is 'I'm Going to Spain' doing on this list (if anything, it's comedy Fall...) - and where is 'Service'? :rant:

Well, I voted for these three:
Living Too Late
Paint Work
Rose

In terms of sadness I would have rather picked songs like Bill Is Dead and Disney's Dream Debased. At least Rose seems to fit the description.

Spain is very sad.
Service was a glaring omission, sorry.
No. It's no good I can't go on... :cry2: :cry2:

Another vote for Frenz from me. A brilliant song, which is often overlooked.

Bill Is Dead
I Come And Stand At Your Door
I'm Going To Spain.

There are quite a few other songs which could be classed as "sad Fall songs", but I think the vast majority of their output has a had a strong vein of melancholy running through it...more so since the 90s, but always there.

Which which which?
I want a definitive list.
Spooky - just watching The History of Mancunian Pop on I-Player and Lay Of The Land with M Clarke came on- THAT EXACT SECOND!
x

Then it goes into Simply fucking Red.
What does "bathos" mean again?

I just think there's something intrinsically melancholy about The Fall.
It's more to do with MES and his influence, I think. But everything he writes has that element. To me, anyway.
I'm not just talking about slow, downbeat, mournful songs; The Classical, which is obviously one of the most visceral songs they ever made is also deeply melancholy, as is pretty much the whole of Hex.
I think it's most pronounced on Levitate, though; which I kind of think of as the echo of HEH - the only other time in their history where the gruppe seemed to throw everything against the wall...and they're both as cold, austere and melancholy.
One of the first Fall LPs I bought/heard was Fall Heads Roll. The Early Days Of Channel Fuhrer is one of the most mournful songs they've made; like a funeral waltz or something. It's still one of my favourite songs and, until recently, I thought it was unlike any other song they'd done. But I heard Levitate for the first time this year and I realised that in a lot of ways it's a poor follow up to 'I Come And Stand At Your Door'. There's very little warmth to Levitate (like Hex), but its melancholy is stark and quite frightening in a way. I think ICASAYD is the centrepiece, hence its repeat (of sorts) in 'Jap Kid'...and I think it's the centrepiece because it's the saddest (in a profound sense, almost) song they ever recorded.

The two spoken word LPs are a brilliant example of MES' melancholy style as well. They're both full of that and all the funnier for it. The best comedy plays on fear and sadness after all...

err..list of other "sad Fall songs":

Service
Job Search
Janet, Johnny + James
Early Days of Channel Fuhrer
Coach + Horses
Gentlemen's Agreement
Winter (esp. but all of Hex)
Almost everything since LUS...

erm, there's loads more! *thinks...drools*

Doesn't he sing at the start of 'The Past', "Pre-assumptions don't bring a harvest. But I love them, just as I'm [something] fond of melancholy"?

edit: oh, balls! sorry for novel...

thought we were in for a more literal play on the marqui de sade

S& M etc etc in fall songs

plenty of masochism, songs that arent sad being labelled sad. but no sadism.
Lay of the Land?
One line of criticism doesnt a sad song make.

I think elvis was referring to M. Clark being me avatar, twinz2z; rather than LotL being a sad song.
As for the rest...all is sadness...

Certainly when your feeling sad, everything will be sad too.
But if you start from a neutral position and let your mood drift with the music, I just dont think some of these songs would ever point me that way.
FRENZ?

Agreed re Service being missing, while I don't listen to it a lot, I might have voted for it instead of the classic (imo) Time Enough At Last.

Why? because few (of these at least) Fall songs seem to be genuinely sad songs.

There's different angles to them...many I'd say are 'wistful' more than sad, "multi-faceted" maybe.

Bill Is Dead -
I love this, but I don't consider it that sad.

Day In The Life
I love the Beatles original, the Fall's cover is ok, again it's not all sad is it?

Disney's Dream Debased
This is. I love it...got my vote :)

Ed's Babe
I love this, but I don't consider it to be sad. I like the chuckle as he says the last 'cloak of livery'.

Frenz
yeah this is sad, love it and got my vote :)

I Feel Voxish
powerful more than sad I'd have thought.

I'm Going To Spain
I find this quite cheerful, and like it a lot...I wasn't sure at first about the studio due to the off kilter keyboard...first heard it as a live song, on the Sheffield Sound City live broadcast, and the keyboard is in tune. The fresh sound - those guitars for instance, made me grow to love the studio version, the moment of realisation was hearing it on XFM one sunny afternoon driving, and finding how good and excited it made me feel hearing it then :)

Living Too Late
guess it's sad, but it's the dynamics (Morrissey praised it for that didn't he?) that get me on this one.

Paint Work
I love this but don't consider it particularly sad.

Shiftwork
guess it is, but it's the sort of trance pop thing that gets to me more when I do listen to it.

Rose
another 'wistful' one for me.

Time Enough At Last
at a push I voted for it...I love it but I don't find it *that* sad. There are some positives in the title alone. Would have voted for Service instead if it were listed.

You Haven't Found It Yet
Again I think this is more wistful than genuinely sad. I love the instrumental version that was played at Reading 1990, which sounds positively happy to my ears :)

Whizz Bang
Against sort of wistful...better than Butterflies 4 Brains, but then as the lyrics show it was incomplete. still a near classic tho.

Yes, I agree; up to a point.
I was careful not to use the word "sadness" in my post upstairs, because that's not what I was getting at...melancholy is closer, but still not right...
Hmm, I'm not sure what I mean.
Partly, it's MES' voice too. I mean, a song like 'Winter' isn't sad by any stretch, but it does have that melancholy undertone.
'Blindness' is a blues song, no?

Melancholy is the word, and indeed was in the title of a thread you yourself started on the Fall thread, if memory serves correct.
Thats where nick cave and others miss the point, saying MES is a cry-baby and he needs a tissue,--cheeky sod.
Melancholy is a more thoughtful kind of sadness I suppose.
Sad for others more than for oneself?
(got to catch a train, C-all-2morrow,tw)

went for

time enough at last [gold]
disney's dream debased [silver]
edinburgh man [bronze]

I think it was more down to his interviews , not his songs.

Time, Paint & Disney.

Birthday would have been picked for Mark's incredibly moving vocal, but the totally lacking in atmosphere keyboard presets accompaniament ruins it.

I've very pleased you posted on this poll, MES Made Me Cry! :thumbsup:

;) :cry2:

Only voted for I Come And Stand At Your Door as I think that it's the nicest and saddest. Or the best saddest. Or the Best one that's very sad. Anyway, I voted for it.

I remember that the first ever Fall track that I heard was The Classical. My mate who was playing it to me pointed out that he was singing ,"I've never felt better in my life" and making it sound as miserable as fuck. This has always been one of the funniest things about The Fall.

I Come And Stand At Your Door just sounds sad. :(

Also went for I Come And Stand At Your Door which gives me chills. I don't listen to it too often because I don't want to lessen the effect. As soon as the missus takes this shit film soundtrack off I'm going to play it.