Its All The Rage lyrics

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Its All The Rage lyrics

suss · In the Long Grass

Just scrawled down my interpretation in the hope others can fill the gaps with either educated guesses or better still the official lyrics. I've never see them listed anywhere that I can recall.

Everybody I meet wants to knock me down

A friend told me it's a new thing that's doing the rounds.

It's all the rage, you're putting me on.

A new craze that's sweeping the town

A new wave, of keeping everybody down.

Down in the street, they're using their feet.

A bloody face is worth a laugh or two. Won't they use their fists these days?

You took a risk and you opened up Pandora's Box.

Well don't ? ? now, someone's gone and stolen all the locks.

It's all the rage.....

Won't they use their feet these days?

Don't talk to me of teenage love and ? and ?

I don't believe in all this ? ? all the same

You're searching round for scapegoats everywhere you go, look in the mirror and you'll know just who's to blame

-- Edited by suss on Monday 27th of September 2010 08:20:29 PM

noelindublin · Loudmouth

suss wrote:

Just scrawled down my interpretation in the hope others can fill the gaps with either educated guesses or better still the official lyrics. I've never see them listed anywhere that I can recall.

Everybody I meet wants to knock me down
A friend told me it's a new thing that's doing the rounds.

It's all the rage, you're putting me on.
A new craze that's sweeping the town
A new wave, of keeping everybody down.

Down in the street, they're using their feet.
A bloody face is worth a laugh or two. Won't they use their fists these days?

You took a risk and you opened up Pandora's Box.
Well don't ? ? now, someone's gone and stolen all the locks.

It's all the rage.....

Won't they use their feet these days?

Don't talk to me of teenage love and ? and ?
I don't believe in all this ? ? all the same
You're searching round for scapegoats everywhere you go, look in the mirror and you'll know just who's to blame

-- Edited by suss on Monday 27th of September 2010 08:20:29 PM

Hi- you've done a pretty good job there and this song is just so hard to make out
fully. I know the song is about the trend for fighting at gigs in the late seventies or early eighties- certain bands whom I shall not mention attracted a certain kind of following,rather like football teams who thought violence was part of the whole scene. I think Geldof had his nose punched a few times by some NF types.

We'll just have to speculate about the missing bits unless someone knows more and can fill in the gaps.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Very hard to grasp in one place in particular, how about:

Don't talk to me 'bout teenage lovers burning in fire, I don't believe it all, 'n this music's all the same

suss · In the Long Grass

Time was when Saturday night was 'time to see what's going down'. Nowadays I find myself indoors repeating our mystery line on Youtube clip of IATR about 100 times through headphones as well as downloading on iTunes and using the 'monitor' to drop instruments and up the vocals channel .

Bit like doing a jigsaw and I've still got missing bits but my latest interpretation is 'don't talk to me of teenage lov ? ? ? ?. I don't believe it. All excuses are obscene.' etc etc.

This seems to me to fit song theme and the line after about looking in mirror and knowing who's to blame. I'm now trying to convince myself the first bit is about teenage loving ? to fight, or something along those lines, in keeping with kicking people and it all being 'fun' and all that.

I need help...in more ways than one!

-- Edited by suss on Saturday 1st of September 2012 11:06:35 PM

suss · In the Long Grass

Ok, given the song theme of consternation towards growing trend for violence, how about

'Don't talk to me of teenage love, it's rare to find. I don't believe it. All excuses are obscene.

You're searching round for scapegoats everywhere you go. Look in the mirror, and you'll know just who's to blame'

Final answer Chris.

Now for the words straight after Pandora's box......

suss · In the Long Grass

OR 'all excuses are insane' ?? Rhymes better smile

Talk about starting an argument in an empty room biggrin

Jules, maybe you can do me a favour and just ask Bob??? wink

noelindublin · Loudmouth

suss wrote:
OR 'all excuses are insane' ?? Rhymes better
Talk about starting an argument in an empty room
Jules, maybe you can do me a favour and just ask Bob???

I always though the line with 'excuses' was 'all excuses are the same', but I am stumped about the line just prior to that. I think there is some obscure Geldof b side which uses a line similar to 'all excuses are the same', but I just cannot think of which song it is. Most songwriters tend to 'recycle' their lyrics, intentionally or not.

Personally I think the words 'insane' and 'obscene' don't fit this line, but in keeping with the sentiment and meaning of the song they are as good a guess as any. Don't talk to me of teenage love and b??? and fire?

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

Well I'm not seeing Bob now until the end of October. Remind me, if you haven't sussed it and I;ll ask him. I'm not sure if I can work it out biggrin wink

suss · In the Long Grass

I'll buy that, rhymes even better and seems a more natural phrase.

So, work in progress :- 'Don't talk to me of teenage love, it's rare to find. I don't believe it. All excuses are the same.

You're searching round for scapegoats everywhere you go. Look in the mirror, and you'll know just who's to blame'

Really not sure about the 'rare to find' bit, but better than da di da, which I've sung for 30 years. smile

Jules, he'll no doubt look at you like you're mad but if you get the chance wink

p.s. and if he can remember bit after Pandora's box even better!

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

I'm used to it. He often does that and has actually asked me if I'm mad

.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Suss - some much better suggestions than mine and I think you're close as you'll ever be (!) unless Jules can elicit the lines for definite from the author himself. It's sad but I have have done exactly the same with my system re prominent vocals setting etc but still to no avail.

Noel - are you thinking of 'An icicle in the sun' and the line 'and all the old excuses'?

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Mark L wrote:
Suss - some much better suggestions than mine and I think you're close as you'll ever be (!) unless Jules can elicit the lines for definite from the author himself. It's sad but I have have done exactly the same with my system re prominent vocals setting etc but still to no avail.
Noel - are you thinking of 'An icicle in the sun' and the line 'and all the old excuses'?

Rather than being an obscure Geldof b side the line I couldn't quite pin down was "all rumours are the same" from Joey's On The Street Again. I once read a really interesting book about forensic linguistics, which is used in criminal trials to try to prove if someone actually wrote a disputed document. One of the proofs is that a writer will use perhaps unusual phrases more than once, so for Bob all excuses and all rumours are the same. Not conclusive but the likelyhood is that the line is "all excuses are the same" in that Geldof uses a more or less exact same line in a song written in the same year.

Forensic linguistics is most famously used to try to establish if all the "Shakespeare" plays were written by the same person.

suss · In the Long Grass

Cheapest I've seen this for a while if anyone is interested?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/THE-BOOMTOWN-RATS-I-Dont-Like-Mondays-1980s-GERMANY-3-CD-single-bob-geldof-80s-/360485675941?pt=UK_CDsDVDs_CDs_CDs_GL&hash=item53ee9ee3a5#ht_577wt_1202

suss · In the Long Grass

Cheaper still via Amazon if you do want IATR on CD. Under £10 at

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00005Q0AN/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

From Bob:
Everybody I meet wants to knock me down
A friend told me it's the new thing that's doing the rounds
It's all the rage
You're putting me on
A new phase
Is sweeping the town
A new way
Of keeping everybody down

They use their fists these days

You took the risk and you opened up Pandoras Box
Looked what jumped out
Now someone's gone and stolen all the locks
Its all the rage etc.,

They use their feet these days

Don't talk to me of teenage love and burning fire
I don't believe it all excuses are the same
You're searching round for scapegoats everywhere you go
Look in the mirror and you'll know just who to blame
Oi Oi

It's about the Summer of '77 and all the violence that erupted out of the Punk/Skinhead/Oy scene fuelled by the middle class music press journalists who thought it was "genuine and real" confusing violence with passion and egging it on. Then it got out of control and swiftly changed their tunes. So the Pandora Box reference is the press and not being able to put what they'd unleashed back in the box. Similarly "the mirror" line is their own self blame. The "teenage love and burning fire" is the confusion of passion with violence. The beginning is obviously me being whacked in the Music Machine by the guy from that "Oi" band and hence the end shouts.

b.g.

Mark L · Loudmouth

Excellent, thanks a lot Jules.

I was pretty sure about the burning fire lyrics, and Noel was close too - although I'd felt there was some Catholic 'hellfire' thing going on - but because I couldn't discern fully the proper intention, it left me open to some self-doubt, allowing Suss to sway me more with his (totally plausible) 'rare to find' theory!

That's put to bed a 32 year old mystery, so thanks again to Jules for a 'straight from the horse's mouth' exercise.

suss · In the Long Grass

Jules,

You are an angel...hippy or otherwise.

Thanks for following up and putting us out of collective misery. Pleased the 'excuses' bit was vindicated after hours on headphones smile , and was always iffy about 'rare to find', although not really sure what burning fire has to do with context confuse . Good aural spot by Mark though.

As ever in these situations, you play the song again, slot the words and think, how on earth was that not obvious in first place?

Any chance Bob will oblige with exact (never to my knowledge printed) words straight after 'Billy! Take a walk with me'?? wink

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Thanks Jules for finally solving the mystery of these lyrics, and thanks to Bob for supplying them. I wonder does he have an old notebook or copybook with all his lyrics? The lines after Pandora's Box 'look what jumped out' now seem fairly obvious but I don't think any of us actually got them.

Perhaps you could persuade Bob to do a q and a about the Rats sometime? I know he's busy but we could submit questions in advance and maybe he might answer them in his own good time. Just a suggestion.

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

Now there's a good idea Noel.

It might be pushing it a bit Suss, maybe if we could have a q and a session it could be included

.

noelindublin · Loudmouth

Jules wrote:
Now there's a good idea Noel.

It might be pushing it a bit Suss, maybe if we could have a q and a session it could be included .

He need not worry. We are all fans of the Rats and some of us even like Bobs' solo records and we would ask intelligent instead of the usual predictable questions.

Jules · The biggest Geldof fan in the world, bar none!

We could combine it with the FB page and suggest the rules are music only questions, Rats or Bob solo. What do you think?

. Can only suggest

.

Derek The Dane · V Deep

I was playing Its All The Rage(and many more Rats b/sides) whilst painting today.Great song,brought back loads of memorys of me jumping around my old bedroom doing bad Bob Geldof impressions.

Mark L · Loudmouth

suss wrote:
Any chance Bob will oblige with exact (never to my knowledge printed) words straight after 'Billy! Take a walk with me'??

I've always gone with ' Down through all this misery, sweethearts swing free' but a mate reckoned back in '78 it was 'Don't you want this misery? Swing high and swing free'

What say others?

jamieuka · House on Fire

I thought it was a combination of the above two: "[Take a walk with me] down through all this misery / Swing high and swing free"

suss · In the Long Grass

suss wrote:
Cheaper still via Amazon if you do want IATR on CD. Under £10 at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00005Q0AN/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

Did anyone (apart from Derek! ) know there was also a German CD single with Rat Trap, Mondays and IATR? Never seen one mind you....

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

Yeah I did on (rat trap) ebay I had bid for it but was unlucky

manatthetop · In the Long Grass

Got the Mondays one for £16 about a year ago b side as we all know It's all the rage