This Nation's Saving Grace

The album opens with "Mansion", one of the Fall's few instrumentals, which the band often used as live set opener.[10] It is built around a muscular bassline by Steve Hanley.[11] The second track "Bombast" is again dominated by Hanley's bass. Smith's vocals promise to "bring wrath" to "bastard idiots" (including Lloyd Cole, whom Smith described as having a "brain and face...made out of cowpat. We all know that)",[12] and are at times sung through a megaphone.[4][11]

The title of "What You Need" and its lyric "slippery shoes for your horrible feet" are references to an episode of The Twilight Zone.[11] Another lyric, "a bit of Iggy Stooge," refers to Iggy Pop of the Stooges who was a significant influence on the band. The song is formed around a circular guitar riff by Brix Smith.

"Spoilt Victorian Child" is based on lyrics Smith had written in the lead up to the band's 1979 debut album Live at the Witch Trials, but had believed the band until then had never been able to come up with music equal to its "really daft English" lyrics.[11]

Side one ends with "L.A.", Brix's spectral ode to her hometown, and a period when she and Smith spent extended time there. He had a poor impression of the city and later said he "Hated it. It's horrible. Horrible town. If you like a beer, you are regarded as a tramp. Hated it."[10] The track was described in 2011 as an "electro-goth groove" by critic Martin Aston.[7] The song features prominent keyboards played by Simon Rogers. Smith added vocals which he said reflect his impression of the city as "more haunted than any old place. The atmosphere's very still".[8] Dave Haslam dubbed it "the sexiest song of 1985" in the Manchester magazine City Life, an assessment Smith disagreed with yet claimed to understand; he credited its sex appeal to Brix's contribution and remarked that the song was unusually popular among women—"Except," he clarified, "that the Fall are probably the most unpopular group among women ever. We've never had a good review from a woman journalist in the whole world."[13]

"My New House" details the Smith's purchase of a semi-detached in Park Sedgley Park, Prestwich, close to childhood home, where his parent's still lived. A number of visitors remarked how unusual the house was, in particular the blue/grey colour scheme used in all the rooms.[10] The lyrics are humorous and sardonic,[8] and include lines such as "no rabbit house about it, I bought it off the Baptists, I get the bills, and I get miffed".[14]

The album's widely considered highpoint, "Paint Work" is a semi-acoustic tape collage dominated Smith's stream of consciousness lyrics, Karl Burns' cymbal crashes and Craig Scanlon's meandering lead guitar line.[15] Credited to both Smith and Brix, it blends studio recordings with sections recorded on a four track in Roger's flat and audio from Smiths dictaphone. During the mixing, Smith took the master tape home and accidently erased part of the track with a section from a documentary he was listening to from an Open University lecture by the astronomer Patrick Moore on "red giants stars".[8] The sudden jump between Low fidelity home taped and studio recordings fitted the mood of the track, and he and Leckie decided to include on the finished version.[4] The track was described in 2019 as "absolutely sublime" by Vulture,[3][16] and as "mildly psychedelic" in 2011 by critic Mick Middles.

"I Am Damo Suzuki" was written in tribute to Can and their vocalist Damo Suzuki, whom Smith consistently mentioned as a formative influence.[8][17] The lyrics were written by Smith, and describe Suzuki' vocal delivery and stage presence while at times Smith mimics Suzuki's Japanese accent and singing style. The music was composed by guitarist Brix Smith and drummer Karl Burns, and is heavily influenced by the 1971 Can song "Oh Yeah", but also contains elements (especially the descending chords) of other their tracks such as "Bel Air" (1973), "Gomorrah" (1974) and "Midnight Men" (1977). Smith and Suzuki had become friends by this time,[18] while Steve Hanley said that he met Suzuki years later in a club, and that the singer had approached him with the words "I am Damo Suzuki", and after they had talked Hanley believed Suzuki "seemed pleased enough" with the song.[19]

The world "Yarbles" in the title of the bitterly nostalgic song "To NK Roachment: Yarbles"[7] is borrowed from the novel A Clockwork Orange as Nadsat for testicles or bollocks. The song's lyrics "Every day you have to die some/Every day you have to cry some" is an allusion to the Arthur Alexander song "Every Day I Have To Cry Some" or possibly to similar lines in the Lou Reed 1983 song "Home of the Brave".

Two bonus tracks were included on the 1988, 1990 and 1997 CD releases. The music for the album's second single "Cruiser's Creek" is built around another circular and twangy guitar riff by Brix, while the lyrics detail a debauched office-party.[8] Writing for The Guardian in 2014, critic Dave Simpson described the song as "leftfield and outsiderly, yet the insistent tune is surely as catchy as anything by the Beatles."[20] The single was released on 11 October 11, 1985,[21] and was accompanied by a music video directed by both Mark and Cerith Wyn Evans,[22] and stars Leigh Bowery in a role Smith described as resembling "a clerk on acid, like he was from some alternative world".[23] The second bonus was a cover of Gene Vincent's rockabilly song "Rollin' Dany"; critic Tim Riley, the Fall's interest Vincent w "to explore [its] obsessive undercurrents of unrequited desire than to honor rock tradition".[24]

A second bonus track "Couldn't Get Ahead" was recorded before Steve Hanley rejoined, and has Rogers playing bass.[25]

Professional ratings

Retrospective reviews
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[34]
The Guardian	[4]
Mojo	[35]
Pitchfork	10/10[36]
Q	[37]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2001, 4th ed.)	[38]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	10/10[39]
Uncut	9/10[40]

Bruce Tiffee of Pitchfork cited the album as "one of the strongest" Fall releases and "perhaps the best record to emerge from the Beggars Banquet Fall era".[36] In 2011 Dave Simpson of The Guardian wrote that the album showcased the Fall "thrillingly subverting the notion of what pop music is",[4] while John Mulvey of Uncut wrote that it contained the band's strongest configuration "in all their menacing and utilitarian finery".[12]

In 2002, This Nation's... was listed by Pitchfork as the 13th best album of the 1980s.[41] It was ranked at number 46 on Spin's list of the 100 greatest albums from 1985 to 2005.[42] Slant Magazine placed the record at number 93 on its 2012 list of the best albums of the 1980s.[43]

NME ranked This Nation's Saving Grace at number 400 on its 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[44] The record was voted number 441 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[45]

Disc 1 – This Nation's Saving Grace

• As per original UK LP