anyone else have a similar thing?

btw, the song, for me, was / is "Cruiser's Creek."

Hell, I wish I could remember the first time I heard The Fall. It's been a problem for me. I did a lot of...stuff...in college plus it's been 20 years at least since my first exposure.

I am fairly certain that Wonderful and Frightening World was the first full album I heard and owned by them, back when it was new, but I am almost certain I had heard "The Classical" before that somewhere...

And for me, yes, both The Classical and Lay of the Land are among my all time faves.

Nah, "Big New Prinz" was my first, "Telephone Thing" was my second, and while I like both I've never considered either a favorite. In fact, it was "15 Ways" -- obviously several years later -- that made me a fan, and *it* might be one of my favorites, so maybe your theory should be:

First Fall song that really hits you = Favorite Fall song.

My first (and the one that got me) was Repetition, but my favourite probably remains Frightened... fairly close in time, I guess, but I remember thinking the LP couldn't possibly live up to its predecessors (despite having heard most of it on the early Peel sessions... "Make sure the album this song is on is in your Xmas stocking" - yeah, in March, sure) and still being blown away by it. I'm on my third now, and I didn't even bother getting the first (single) CD. :)

SMILE = i was a fan....so yes...


but suppose it depends when u get into the band for the 1st time...if they r goin thru a good phase

Had heard Fall stuff on Peel prior to this but the first track on the first Fall record I bought (admittedly a fairly recent and admittedly quite a dispicable compilation) was Edinburgh Man which.. I absolutely loved it from the off, but the interest dwindled over time... then I saw the 120 minutes performance as posted on the Multimedia website recently and it was kind of like a stranger pinching your bum. Reaffirmation.

You know... The Fall are ace, aren't they?

The first time I heard The Fall was when I saw them in concert!
(Curious, I and my pal went at the encouragement of his elder brother who had free passes to the Ritz in NY because he worked at CBGB's)
This was in 1987, (I was a little punker 17 year old) so I believe the Frenz Experiment and some of the Bend Sinister which they played a lot of struck me then.
I think "U.S. 80's-90's" stuck on me, and Guest Informant.
So I don't think those are my fav favs, but my first listening album being Wonderful and Frightening World Of, "Lay of the Land" which they may have played at that show is up there.
I don't have a favorite ever Fall song, sorry, at the moment I'm listening to "You Haven't Found It Yet" and in a stupor I would probably tell you this is my favorite Fall song ever!

live no xmas for j.quays on totales turns. loved that punk fundamentalism and a frontman not afraid to upbraid his band onstage. i immediately bought that album and the then-current one, perverted by language.

Rebellious Jukebox was the first Fall song I heard, way back in 1979... but I didn't know it was the Fall. Took me some years to find out who sang it (heard it again on a local college radio station) and finally get a copy of Live at the Witch Trials. Funny thing is I had picked up PBL in the meantime, but still didn't realize Rebellious Jukebox was by the same group.

As for my favorite song, while Rebellious Jukebox might be in the top ten, Flat of Angles comes to mind as my favorite. Of course that will change in ten minutes.

I had a similar experience, also involving Rebellious Jukebox - I knew that was the Fall but didn't realise it was the band responsible for Repetition... maybe it was the bongos.

First song was Rowche Rumble though I think it is great I would say it is far from my favourite but trying to actually pin down my overall favourite is difficult as it changes but at moment is Wings

The first Fall song I heard was "Victoria" (the video on 120 Minutes). I was intrigued but didn't buy anything for over a year. Oh, and at the time I had no idea it was a cover, wasn't familiar with the Kinks much.

The first Fall track I heard by choice (ie: paying for it) was "Lay of the Land." It may not be my favorite, but is definitely in the top 3-4.

Andy

I think Lay's an ace intro - should be on anyone's "this'll convert you" retrospective. It certainly got me all excited again when I was a bit worried about the direction :)

Ditto here. Soon after Beggar's US sent my student run campus-radio station a copy of the "Curious Oranj" LP and I was hooked. Can't say that that song or album are my favorite now, though -- Foe

Somebody called in to request Athlete Cured at the carrier current radio station I was working at first year of college at Kent State University. It was my favorite for a week until I heard Disney's Dream Debased the next week. I was off to the races.

This was my first too and I do still love it, but there is much that eclipses it - Slates, Paintwork, Flat of Angles, My Ex-Classmates Kids, etc (stop myself from writing huge list of fantastic Fall songs).

"God-Box" was the first Fall song I heard at the age of ten. I was laying back on my bed listening to KDVS, the college radio station in Davis, CA, and I heard the song and kept track of the number of songs in the DJ's set. When the back-announced the track, I wrote the name of the band on a 3"x5" index card along with the other bands that I discovered for the first time that night, Wire, Crispy Ambulance, and Section 25.

I took the index card to the mall in the stucco hell of Fairfield, CA, and at this time, I thought that every record that was ever made was at the Musicland/Sam Goody store there. I had no idea. I was only ten.

The only thing I could find the next weekend was "154" by Wire on cassette. Maybe a few months later, I did find "The Wonderful and Frightening World," and I tried working backwards from there. In the early records, I found the songs that still remain my fave Fall songs.

What's really funny about this first night stumbling upon the college radio station is that I was just some little kid who was obsessed with breakdancing, and I was searching the entire FM dial looking for any hip hop or electro. The first thing I heard when I flipped by 90.3 was Kraftwerk. From there, I think it went into a proto-industrial realm before veering into artpunk and doomy/gloomy British postpunk. I was loving all of it, and this is how I got turned onto unusual music. Needless to say, I got outta my breakdancing obsession pretty quickly after that.

not really, but.. I'd been listening to the Fall for a couple of years, then I bought the Rollin Dany 12" with Petty Thief Lout on t'other side. This was probably the turning point, when I knew I would pay more attenbtion to this band. It still is probably my favourite Fall song.

Good listening - The Fall, Wire & the Crispies all in one sitting! You're far more likely to hear good British postpunk on US independent & college radio than in the country of its creation, and KDVS is still a fine station after all these years. US set announcing does make life difficult for us Brits, accustomed as we are to being spoonfed the title after each song, but it sure beats the Beeb. :)

In 1985, while pretending to receive a college education in a dull-as-teflon mid-sized American city, a friend played a compilation cassette of Fall tunes for me, the first Fall I'd heard. Fiery Jack stuck with me for its propulsive compulsive Johnny Cash-meets-Johhny Rotten aesthetic, the speedy off-center tunefulness mixed with combative-yet-opaque barked-spoken lyrical drawl conveying picturesque storyline. The rest of the tunes, though, seemed so shambolic and collapsible as to be impenetrable, and I didn't take to them as I did to the seductive riot of FJ.

Since then I had a lonnnng spell of writing off rock and its branch subdivisions as a huge steaming slab of passe poseurism, until 4 or 5 years ago regaining curiosity for what I'd missed. I mined the rock quarries, and was disappointed to come across only a small handful of gems, far and away the most intriguing of which has been the Fall. I got Palace of Swords Reversed and Early Years 77-79, and quickly overcame the initial disappointment of nothing else sounding quite as conventionally catchy as I'd initially found Fiery Jack. It took a few months before I acclimated to the a-melodic churnings, but then I went out and got Hex Enduction Hour, Grotesque, TNSG, Dragnet, and a few others, and there's been no looking back. Once the general zeitgeist of Fall-ism started sinking into my consciousness as a consistent whole canon of acerbic aphorism spewing, anti-social vignette spitting anti-rock crusade---maybe similarly to the way that Jarry and Ionesco are anti-theatre theatricians---it's been smooth sailing. Though I confess the few post PBL recordings I've heard make that (this) period seem less vital to me.

Thus, Fiery Jack still sounds to me like a kind of stand-alone, while other Fall favorites over which I froth seem more natural to me within the context of the albums on which they're found.

Close, but not quite. First song of theirs I heard, and of which I could find, was Rebellious Jukebox on that IRS Greatest Hits album, definitely one of the best things on that compilation. Intrigued by the sound and the vocals, it made me go out and buy all that I could find, such as Grotesque, US version of Witch Trials, TT, and Early Fall, and that song has always been a favourite of mine to this day. It's in the top ten songs, for sure, but Smile has been my fave for a long time.

Totally Wired.. it's still in my top 10.. But Wings, New Puritan, Dr Buck's Letter, Ketamine Sun, Leave The Capitol, Last Commands Of Xyralothep, Jung Nev's Antidote and Mere Pseud Mag Ed all vie for my favourite.. Oh and the whole of Witch Trials, and Rowche Rumble.. and The Classical and... and Second Dark Age and.... and.... and... ... ... oh God this is hopeless...................... :confused:

Bingo Master was the first, several years before buying any Fall albums. Having read about them in the Trouser Press Record Guide the song surprised me a bit in that it seemed quirkier, less severe than I expected. I liked it though, and still think it's a pretty fun song. Not really an all-time favorite, though.

I'm Frank. Never heard of the Fall before that, but I was hooked. Funny thing, is this is one of the most UN-Fall songs going and not even close to my favorite.