Medical Acceptance Gate

Written by: Mark E Smith, Paul Hanley

Studio releases:

  • The Collection
  • Slates (Expanded Edition)

Group on initial recording:

Unknown but assumed Smith, Scanlon, Riley, Hanley S, Hanley P.

Commentary:

An outtake with unknown recording date.

Instrumentation appears to be –  piano (or is it a guitar being picked below the bridge?), guitar, bass, drums.  The guitar sound towards the end of the tune is very similar to that on The N.W.R.A. so perhaps from the Grotesque sessions?

The lyric includes reference to a Spalding Street – the only reference to this address we can find is in Leicester. The use of EC1 implies a London address and is indeed the location of St Bartholomew’s Hospital

There is a horror story feel about the narrative which has some resemblance to Impression of J Temperance. A man working as a porter on the night shift in a hospital comes across a strange creature that “reeks of bleach and hospitals”.

LYRICS

I worked for future salary, the night shift, in Spalding Street. The respect is worth it.

1.AM at the front gate it had just been Sunday night stood this man, tall and twisted back.

He spoke loud and said:

Come out of there the grill on the wall contains a crowl (17th century dialect word for a dwarf) and, that twisted shape you call the laundry post, reminds me of my origin. Your criss-crossed fences are avenues.

Paid for by the NHS, you need it more than The patients for mortgage fees and medical pranks. But you wont fix my pork (or quartz) chip Or repair my broken kind. Kindness borne of mousey brain. Twisted with kin of bitter world. Vicious dreams of EC1. And lapland girls and green purse with tall and chaste inducticements (sic)

The porter went to move the man
And we got back to practice time
But his hands went through the man
He was made up of liquid pitch
His legs two propeller sticks
Criss-crossed fence posts were his eyes
His mouth red like a twisted reich
His mouth like a twisted reich
He reeked of bleach and hospitals
He reeked of bleach and hospitals
The porter swears this is true
He reeked of bleach and hospitals
The porter swears this is true
And drinks too much in his brown and white hut
But the thing clings to the acceptance gate
The thing clings to the acceptance gate (x 3)
The thing clings to the med acceptance gate
And nobody says he’s seen it
It only bounces young MDs
We are dedicated to fight disease
To fight disease
Disease
Disease