Victoria Train Station Massacre

Written by

Mark E Smith, Dave Spurr

Initial Release

New Facts Emerge

Date

28 July 2017

Group on initial release

Mark E Smith – vocals; Peter Greenway – guitar; Dave Spurr – bass; Keiron Melling – drums

Notes

  1. Comment and review on the Pitchfork website: “What truth remains in John Peel’s oft-repeated comment about his favorite band (“They are always different; they are always the same”) is Smith’s love of sound. Not just the noise that a great rock group can make, but the possibilities available in the recording process. As co-producer of Emerge (with Melling), he gets especially playful, sending the last few seconds of “Victoria Train Station Massacre” into reverse.”
  2. Quote from the Stereogum website: The title eerily echoes the deadly suicide bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena this month, which resulted in the temporary closure of Victoria railway station. A representative from the Fall’s label, Cherry Red, told Clash, “The track is nothing to do with the events last week, but it is an unfortunate coincidence. The track was recorded and the artwork sent off for manufacture long before the terrible events in Manchester.”
  3. MES in Uncut (September 2017): “I’m actually very fond of the architecture of Victoria Station, but it’s all been trashed to fuck, and that’s what the song’s about. You know all that beautiful Victorian latticework, like they have at Paddington? They ripped it all off. And you know why? Because the students coming to Manchester wanted to have access to north Manchester (pauses). .We don’t want ’em here (laughs). So they put this big canvas canopy up, and about six months ago it fell on all the passengers in the rush hour. There’s summat wrong with Manchester, they can’t leave anything fucking alone.”
  4. MES is skirting with the actuality in (3) –  …it was eleven months from the date stated and it is not a “canvas canopy”, it’s transparent plastic, two panels of which fell off during a torrential rainstorm and two people were injured . The bulk of the original architecture of the station remains intact and has not been trashed.