“Telephone Thing” by The Fall

The Fall's "Telephone Thing" came out as a single in 1990 and turned up on Extricate, the band's twelfth album, and it's the sound of Mark E. Smith letting outsiders into the machine and then grumbling about the results. He wrote it with Matt Black and Jonathan More of Coldcut, who produced and mixed it, and his lyric rails against phone tapping, written when he was sure his own calls were being intercepted.

The partnership went back to "(I'm) In Deep" on Coldcut's debut, What's That Noise?. More recalled that Smith hated the vocals and everything else they'd put on it but liked the guitar, bass and drums, and handed the tape to his band to learn: Martin Bramah and Craig Scanlon on guitars, Steve Hanley on bass, Marcia Schofield on keyboards, Simon Wolstencroft on drums. It stalled at 58 on the UK singles chart, and Smith dismissed it as a flop, and rubbish besides.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.