He Is Not Appreciated

. . . Well not by the lady of the house in this particular household. This may change, however, now that I have persuaded her, finally to come and see the mighty Fall, when they play Edinburgh on the 24th of April, the day after my birthday and 2 days before the release of the gruppe's 28th studio album. Yippee.

Long before the currency crumbled and Britpop faces started making Iceland the place to have a second home, MES took the band to Reykjavik to play a few gigs and a recording session from which three tracks would emerge; two of which would turn up on the next, and in my opinion first great Fall album Hex Enduction Hour.

Hip Priest is probably the most self referential of all Fall songs and also possibly my all time favourite by the band until the next time I listen to Blindness . With lyrics like "and all the young groups know, they can imitate, but I teach" Smith is in no doubt about how good the group is but perfectly aware that others aren't yet aware of his greatness, the "he is not appreciated" line. The Salfordian version of a rapper dissing the other MCs.

The version posted is from the forth Peel session recorded on the 24th March 1981 and first broadcast a week later on 31st March. As is the case with quite a few Fall tracks, I find myself favouring the Peel session over the version included on the album. Indeed this version of Hip Priest was it's debut.

If you thought that you had never heard the track before and have bothered to download it and find it vaguely familiar that may be due to the fact that it used at the climax of The Silence Of The Lambs.

The Fall - Hip Priest (Peel Session)