ABSTRACT
The moment occurs towards the end of ‘New Puritan’, one of the tracks off the Totale’s Turns LP that was recorded in ‘other places’; this time ‘at home during which said home was attacked by a drunk, which accounts for the tension on that track’ (Smith 1980). The narrative is all over the place. Mark E. Smith first hails the new puritan, and then he becomes him: ‘All hard-core fiends/Will die by me’, he declares, ‘And all decadent sins/Will reap discipline.’ The lyrics then go on to describe LA, where the ‘window opener switch/Is like a dinosaur cackle’; they next turn to Britain, finding ‘the scream of electric pumps in a renovated pub’. Then we are back with first person declarations. Smith cries out, ‘Don’t call me Peter I can’t go/Salem’s just up the road/I’ve got work to do.’ Finally, after we have been asked to hail the new puritan a few more times, we get this:
I curse your preoccupation
With your record collection
New puritan has no time
It’s only music, John
(The Fall, ‘New Puritan’)
