Category: Morrissey

(Back in the original airings of this series in 2008/09 I was simply intending to feature what was, up until that point in time, just the 37 UK singles.  But then I decided I’d also feature two single released only in the USA)

It really is quite strange that  both Tomorrow and Now My Heart Is Full are among the best tracks Morrissey has  recorded in his solo career and way superior to many of the singles that have been inflicted upon us in the UK.

Tomorrow is the closing track on the 1992 LP Your Arsenal, and once you get past the plodding guitars of the opening 20 seconds you will find the great man delivering one of his most pleading lovelorn lyrics over a tune that does give a reminder of by The Smiths.  I’m assuming that having already lifted three singles from the ten tracks on the LP it was just a step too far for the record label to bring this out, but I reckon it would have been a single that would have gotten radio play and appealed to non-Morrissey fans.

mp3 : Morrissey – Tomorrow

One of the b-sides was Pashernate Love which had already been released in the UK as one of the b-sides to You’re The One For Me Fatty, but Let The Right One Slip In was a new song, a more than decent track that features a really understated vocal delivery and that was probably worthy of a place on Your Arsenal – although with its rather abrupt fade-out it was perhaps thought not to be quite the finished article. And until the re-release of Viva Hate in 1997 as part of the centenary celebrations of EMI Records, it was a track only available on the import single:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Let The Right One Slip In

Now if it was a mistake not to release Tomorrow as a single, it was a despicable crime worthy of hanging for the failure to put Now My Heart Is Full out as a 45.

The opening song on the 1994 LP Vauxhall And I.

It’s my long-held view that this is one of the finest tunes and lyrics that Morrissey has ever produced in his solo career that now stretches back some 20 years…

There’s gonna be some trouble
A whole house will need re-building
And everyone I love in the house
Will recline on an analyst’s couch quite soon
Your Father cracks a joke
And in the usual way
Empties the room

Tell all of my friends
I don’t have too many
Just some rain-coated lovers’ puny brothers

Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt
Rush to danger
Wind up nowhere
Patric Doonan – raised to wait
I’m tired again, I’ve tried again
And now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can’t explain
So I won’t even try to

Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt
Every jammy Stressford poet
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Underact – express depression
Ah, but Bunnie I loved you
I was tired again I’ve tried again,
And now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can’t explain
So I won’t even try to

Could you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Will you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Oh … Now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can’t explain
So … slow …

It’s those three lines about friends…and not having that many that bring a lump to my throat just about every time I play this song. I know many people think a lot of Morrissey’s lyrics are autobiographical – and that may well be true. But in my mind, this song belongs to the same protagonist who just a decade earlier was crying out that he was human and needed to be loved in How Soon Is Now?

Remember how that protagonist had the club where he liked to go, where he stood on his own, and he left on his own and he went home and he cried and he wanted to die? Well…I reckon one day he just plucked up the courage to go to the club and actually meet the someone who really loves him. The problem is, that 10 years later, that the love is dying……slowly and painfully. And our protagonist is left with just a bunch of memories and reference points…..

Or maybe I’m just talking bollocks???

mp3 : Morrissey – Now My Heart Is Full

The UK record label thought Hold On To Your Friends would be a better single – they were clearly correct given that it reached a magnificent #47 in the charts and remains, even to this day, the lowest place any of his singles have ever reached.

The US label included Moonriver as a b-side (as it was with Hold On To Your Friends) but it also added a great live song taken from a concert in Paris in 1992:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Jack The Ripper (live)

You’ll hopefully recall that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the live versions of Jack The Ripper have always been much better than the studio version issued on the Certain People I Know single. Well, now you have the proof.

 

It was back in 2008/09 that I originally ran with the Moz singles series.  Part 35 featured what was then his most recent 45 and this is what I said

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When he played his live gig at Glasgow earlier this year, Morrissey expressed surprise that his latest single from Years of Refusal had been such a monumental flop.

Peaking at #46, this is the lowest chart placing for any of the 37 solo singles other than Hold On To Your Friends, but given the general decline in sales of singles over the past 15 years, it’s reasonable to assume that Something Is Squeezing My Skull is the poorest selling Morrissey product of all time.

On its own it’s a song that doesn’t deserve such a poor testimonial for it is a reasonable romp of a tune with an amusing enough lyric -and I do find it hard to accept that fans were more driven to purchase the drivel that was Roy’s Keen – but then again given the heinous crimes committed on the b-sides of the 2 x CDs and the 7″ bit of plastic, then SISMS really got all that was coming to it:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Something Is Squeezing My Skull
mp3 : Morrissey – This Charming Man (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Best Friend On The Payroll (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – I Keep Mine Hidden (live)

I know I’ve harped on about it before in previous parts of this series, but over the years, his various bands have consistently failed to do justice to originals by The Smiths, and I’m guessing that now the whole approach is now to just to bludgeon them to death. Truly awful.

But to be fair they’ve added a bit of spunk to an otherwise ordinary track from the very ordinary Southpaw Grammar LP.

The one saving grace about the single is the artwork. The cover photos are of the great man beside the grave of Johnny Ramone, while the inner sleeves feature two rather nice paintings, one of The Bowery at Night (1895) by William Sontag that is normally on display at the Museum of the City of New York, while the other is of Camden Town Engine Room (1838) by John Cooke Bourne that is normally on display at the National Railway Museum in York, England.

Will this be the last ever single he releases???? Who knows……and I’m guessing that growing numbers of people will be saying ‘who cares?’.

————————————————————————————

As it turned out, it wasn’t his last ever single but that’s something I’ll turn to in the future (when all’s well…..)

Happy Listening.

And so we approach the final few entries in the Morrissey series with a look at what I reckon is an underrated single from December 1992.

mp3 : Morrissey – Certain People I Know

In addition to the sleeve of the CD single, I’ve sourced a copy of the promo single with its tribute to the T Rex 45s of the early 70s….indeed Mrs Villain still has a number of these kicking around from her teenage years….and its entirely apt given that the tune is near enough a rip-off Ride A White Swan, a record which peaked at #2 in late 1970.

I suppose it’s the fact that I’m quite fond of the T Rex singles myself that makes this one of the most enjoyable Morrissey offerings. And while I never bought any T Rex singles as they mostly predated my passion for pop music,I can recall them being played again and again and again on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show (which was always on as I got ready for school) and of course remember seeing Marc Bolan et al perform the hits on Top Of The Pops.

Certain People I Know was the third single to be lifted from the LP Your Arsenal, but it was a full five months after You’re The One For Me Fatty. It was a strange time to issue a single in the midst of all the novelty records that traditionally appear at that time of year, and it was hardly a surprise when it only reached #35, which at the time was the poorest ever performance by a solo single (and it was the 14th in the career).

But there’s one other things to factor in….namely that it was the first Morrissey release since the infamous August 1992 gig known as Madstock when the donning of a Union Jack at his first UK gig in 18 months led to a near riot and the subsequent pillorying of the great man in the NME as an alleged racist.

The fact that the crowd trouble was subsequently found to have little to do with the parading and discarding of the flag was glossed over. The fact that some of the song titles and sentiments were questionable were enough to have the verdict delivered as guilty.

It was a difficult time to be a Morrissey fan, and there’s no doubt it had an effect on the sales of the single. The real irony of course came two years later when having pilloried Morrissey for use of the Union Jack when it was an emblem associated with the far-right extremist parties, the NME couldn’t wait to picture Noel Gallagher with his Union Jack guitar or talk about Geri Halliwell and her Union Jack dress all the while claiming they were triunphs for British music.

Of the two b-sides on the single, one has become a bit of live staple over the years, although the version of Jack The Ripper banged out on stage by his band is often unrecognisable from the original release, while You’ve Had Her is a worthy enough song thanks to a wonderfully short but bittersweet lyric which is dismissive of the blokes who ditch the girl as soon as they’ve had their wicked way….

mp3 : Morrissey – You’ve Had Her
mp3 : Morrissey – Jack The Ripper

The cover shot was taken by one of his oldest friends, Linder Sterling. There’s an unsubstantiated rumour that the sleeve was changed at the last minute, with the word Morrissey written in black ink rather than being spelled out in red, white and blue.

Enjoy.

When I started out on this quest a few years ago on the old blog  to review every UK single released by Morrissey, I didn’t have all of them in the collection – some 95% of them perhaps, but not all of them. I thought it would be a simple enough task to track down those that were missing.

Wrong.

This one proved a bit awkward unless, at the time  I was prepared to pay over £40 for a copy. (It’s come down in price over the past 5 or so years but would still set you back around £20)

Although I’m a fan of I Just Want To See The Boy Happy (trombone playing on a Morrissey record??? Hurrah!!!) , it was the fourth single lifted from Ringleader of The Tormentors and as far as I was aware, the b-sides only had live versions of old songs. It also was released not long before Xmas 2006 and I’m no different from anyone else in wanting to having other priorities for my pennies and pounds at that time of year. It was sheer stupidity that caused me to overlook the fact that a previously unreleased song was on the CD single…here was me only looking at the two versions of the vinyl.

The three different formats, combined with the new song, and a couple of the best live recordings he’s shoved out, helped generate enough sales to take the single to a more than respectable #16 in the UK charts. But in January 2007, the record label made one final effort to get in some cash with a 12″ picture disc, limited to 1,000 copies, with all the tracks on the different formats brought together. And when I began this series, I was determined to track down an affordable copy of the single, which I did thanks to a seller from Germany.

mp3 : Morrissey – I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
mp3 : Morrissey – Sweetie-Pie
mp3 : Morrissey – I Want The One I Can’t Have (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Speedway (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – Late Night, Maudlin Street (live)

The previously unreleased song, Sweetie-Pie, is a rather strange-sounding but entrancing track which I reckon should have been included on the LP just because it is so different from the majority of songs he was releasing at the time.

I really do like this version of Speedway, which I reckon is one of the best songs he’s recorded at any point in his career, solo or with his old band, while the performance of Late Night, Maudlin Street is also more than passable (and non-fans can take heart from the fact its a couple of minutes shorter than the original studio version).

I will not pass comment however, on the cover of the song by The Smiths.

All three live tracks were lifted from shows at the Royal Albert Hall in September 2002. These were at a time when he was without any sort of record contract and are reckoned by many to be among some of the best he’s ever played as he was determined to show the London media luvvies that he was still worth writing and talking about……it worked as he was back with a vengeance less than a year later.

As with so many of the other releases at this time, the sleeve photos were taken by celebrated Italian fashion photographer Fabio Lovino.

Enjoy.

Back in 1990 there was a bit of a sharp intake of breath when the great man revealed that as a follow-up to his single about disability – November Spawned A Monster – he was intending to deal with another taboo subject matter, that of male prostitution.

Given that I was expecting some sort of gloom-ridden lyric over an equally downbeat tune, I was quite astonished to hear such a jaunty tune coming out (so to speak) over the speakers of an Edinburgh record shop one lunchtime:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Piccadilly Palare

Of all the singles he’s released over the years, this is the one that has unquestionably grown on me more than any other. My initial reaction was that it would be a great record if it had been released by Madness, but I really wanted Morrissey to be much more than a tribute artiste. But after a couple of plays and a close listen to the these lyrics I realised that this was one of the finest records he’d recorded up to that point:-

Off the rails I was
And off the rails
I was happy to stay
Get out of my way
On the rack I was
Easy meat, and a reasonably good buy
A reasonably good buy

The piccadilly palare
Was just silly slang
Between me and the boys in my gang
So bona to vada. oh you
Your lovely eek and
Your lovely riah

We plied an ancient trade
Where we threw all life’s instructions away
Exchanging lies and digs (my way)
Cause in a belted coat
Oh, I secretly knew
That I hadn’t a clue

(no, no. no, no, no. you cant get there that way. follow me…)

The piccadilly palare
Was just silly slang
Between me and the boys in my gang
Exchanging palare
You wouldn’t understand
Good sons like you
Never do.

So why do you smile
When you think about Earls Court ?
But you cry when you think of all
The battles you’ve fought (and lost) ?
It may all end tomorrow
Or it could go on forever
In which case I’m doomed
It could go on forever
In which case I’m doomed

Bona drag …

The song title refers to a slang language first used by Victorian-era male prostitutes, so the near music-hall tune really is a touch of genius. I suspect Morrissey was really disappointed that this only reached #18 in the UK charts, which at the time was the poorest performing 45 he’d yet released, for within a month of its release he was dismissing it in an interview with a UK music magazine as ‘not a particularly strong record’.

I wonder how Morrissey feels about the b-sides…

mp3 : Morrissey – At Amber
mp3 : Morrissey – Get Off The Stage

The former is a reasonable enough song that turned out to be on a par to quite a few that would appear on the LP Kill Uncle,  released just a few months later, which means in the overall scheme of things is quite disposable.

The latter however, (co-written with Andy Rourke), is the sort of thing that many of today’s young turks would probably revel in singing at Morrissey himself, with its barbed lyric about pop stars who have gone on too long and who release song after song after song which all sound the same. If, as is rumoured, it was written as an attack on Mick Jagger/Keith Richards, it is interesting to note that when it was released they were both 47 years of age and regarded by many as well past their prime.

Morrissey is still going strong in 2014 at the age of 55…….. he’s never performed Get Off The Stage live, and I imagine that he now never will.

Oh and trivia fact….the sleeve photo was taken by Anton Corbijn, one of the best known music photographers from the late 70s onwards, and more latterly a move director.

Enjoy.

Ok folks…..you’re going to get short-changed this week.

I’ve endeavoured to bring you all the singles plus all the b-sides that Morrissey has released as a solo artist over the years. But, there’s a couple missing from a single released in February 2008.

It really comes down to the fact that I couldn’t be bothered shelling out three times for the same release, when all I would get in return were a couple of live songs from shows that were part of American tours in May and October 2007. It was bad enough that the single was being used to promote the eighth compilation/greatest hits album – the exact same number as actual studio albums that had been released at this point in time.

So, I only bought one of the two versions of the 7″ single, and here are both sides of the fantastic plastic in all their glory:-

mp3 : Morrissey – That’s How People Grow Up
mp3 : Morrissey – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (live)

The single itself is one of the better offerings in the singles canon, in as much that a bit of a plodding tune is rescued by a fine vocal by Morrissey and a wonderfully strange and glass-shattering intro from backing vocalist Kirsteen Young. (Ms Young had previously supported Morrissey on some of his American dates, and has fronted her own two-piece band featuring pianos and percussion since the late 90s – she kind of sounds like Kate Bush at times and Tori Amos at other times. )

The b-side is a Smiths cover….regular readers will know my views on these. This offering from Omaha in May 2007 is fairly typical and unessential fayre.

The single reached a surprisingly low #14 in the UK charts, which is probably down to the fact that it had received a lot of airplay for about two months before release and most fans had downloaded a copy from somewhere or other. Maybe if a bit more effort had gone into the b-sides it might have charted higher…..but then again, given that the follow-up single performed even more poorly despite having new songs on the reverse blows that theory of mine out the water.

Oh and it is versions of Why Dont You Find Out For Yourself from Salt Lake City and Last Of The Famous International Playboys from New York, both in October 2007 that are missing. I’m sure you’ll forgive me.

 

OK…..time to own up.

A fair bit of the factual information that has accompanied this series doesn’t sit permanently in my brain. I’ve long relied very heavily on a wonderful fan site called Passions Just Like Mine, something that can truly be described as a work of art….

It really has just about everything you would ever want to know about The Smiths and Morrissey, including an incredible live history, which I can look back on and see that I’ve seen the great man play on 18 occasions, including 4 gigs with The Smiths:-

March 2nd 1984 – Glasgow Queen Margaret Union
September 24th 1985 – Edinburgh Playhouse
September 25th 1985 – Glasgow Barrowlands
July 16th 1986 – Glasgow Barrowlands
July 28th 1991 – Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
December 16th 1992 – Glasgow Barrowlands
February 3rd 1995 – Glasgow Barrowlands
February 4th 1995 – Motherwell Civic Hall
December 5th 1999 – Glasgow Barrowlands
May 22nd 2004 – Manchester Arena
August 31st 2004 – Edinburgh Corn Exchange
September 2nd 2004 – Paisley Town Hall
April 23rd 2006 – Stirling Albert Hall
April 26th 2006 – Greenock Town Hall
February 2nd 2008 – Edinburgh Playhouse
May 7th 2009 – Glasgow Barrowlands
June 20th 2011 – Dunfermline Alhambra Theatre
July 30th, 2012 – Edinburgh Usher Hall

While I’m quite proud of that number, it pales into total insignificance alongside the many fans who somehow manage to make the time to follow him across the UK, Europe and indeed further afield on tour. Nor is it a list containing every gig he’s played in my home city as I’ve missed at least three over the years. Two of the gigs turned out to be flukes – the Royal Concert Hall in July 1991 was when someone who had tickets for the original date in May 1991 couldn’t go to the re-scheduled gig, and then the 45th birthday gig in Manchester only came my way as a friend’s football team reached the Scottish Cup final that day, and he just couldn’t miss that for anything…so myself and Mrs Villain landed very lucky. (So if you’re reading this Aldo……thanks for being so wonderful. I’m still not sorry your team lost that day tho’).

All this is just background to this week’s single offering – one released back in March 2005 with a track taken from the LP Live At Earl’s Court and a track from the Manchester gig played on 22nd March 2004.

mp3 : Morrissey – Redondo Beach (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (live)

There has long been an argument a live recording can’t ever match the excitement of actually being there. For a while, I wasn’t sure if this was something true or a mere myth, but my mind was made up the day I bought Dig The New Breed by The Jam which contained two tracks recorded at gigs at the Glasgow Apollo that I had been lucky enough to have tickets for.

That was the day I learned its no myth….

Morrissey has released a fair number of live albums in his career, and in addition, a number of the b-sides of singles have been taken from live performances. Most of the time, the live versions don’t add anything to the previously released versions, although I will hold up my hand and admit that I prefer the version of Disappointed recorded in Utrecht, Holland in May 1991 that can be found on the Pregnant For The Last Time single as being better than the original. And does anyone really think that the solo performances of any of The Smiths back catalogue have been anything other than a letdown?

Please…..I’m not advocating that Morrissey shouldn’t sing any of the songs that helped establish him, but it really is the musical equivalent of a masterpiece painting being reproduced by a talented but well-meaning copyist….

So you can guess my views on There Is A Light…..

As for the cover of the Patti Smith song, well I need to put it into perspective that I don’t own a copy of the original. I’ve certainly heard it as I’ve been in someones room when the Horses LP was played, but here’s another admission that will get me drummed out of the indie-kids club……I think that’s an LP that’s well over-rated, and thus I’ve never bought a copy. Now if Redondo Beach as performed by Morrissey was something that excited me, I might have maybe gone back and listened again. But no.

The CD single came with a previously unreleased extra track:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Noise Is The Best Revenge

Recorded for a BBC radio session back in 2004, it’s a reasonable song but nothing special. If it had ever been placed on an album in recent years, it would most certainly have been considered by most as one of the weaker tracks.

There was also a DVD single released which also had a track this from the same radio session on it.

mp3 : Morrissey – It’s Hard To Walk Tall When You’re Small (radio session)

The original version appeared on the b-side of Irish Blood, English Heart and is one of the best vocals he’s recorded over the past few years…..and part of the tune reminds me of the magnificent Sweet And Tender Hooligan.

Live singles don’t normally do all that well in the charts, but this reached a more than respectable #11, although this might have had a lot to do with fans buying the different formats to get all the different versions (but hey….Morrissey and his record label are far from the worst offenders in that regard). The photo was taken in a cemetery in Hollywood by Sasha Einmann, and the sleeve notes advise that the ‘Johnny Thunders teardrop guitar is courtesy of the Morrissey archive.’

When I originally did this series a few years back, I mentioned at this juncture that within the comments section a reader had taken a pop at me  with a few words to the effect that for someone who is a Morrissey fan I seemed to spend a fair bit of time being critical of his output.

But the simple idea of this series looking at all the singles in his long and distinguished solo career was and is to bring them all together in one place, complete with the numerous b-sides and by doing so, it only throws up the fact that a fair number of the singles were  rather poor efforts, often saved by the inclusion of one or more great b-sides and or cover versions.

Today’s offering is the lead-off single from the much-criticised 1997 LP Malajusted, and what might surprise some of you is my admission that it’s a song I quite like.

Alma Matters was the first song released by Morrissey, in July 1997, for his new record label, Island. I really thought it was a welcome return to something resembling form after the disappointing lack of half-decent tunes on Southpaw Grammar a couple of years earlier.

mp3 : Morrissey – Alma Matters

It was a view that was seemingly shared by a fair number of fans, as we bought enough copies of the single to allow it to reach #16 in the UK Charts, after the previous six singles had all stalled outside the Top 20, and I don’t think I was alone in looking forward to the album which hit the shops about a week later.  Sadly, the album was a bit of a let-down……but I don’t think it is anything as bad as some of the critics made it out to be, and in Trouble Loves Me you have one of the best things he’s ever recorded. Having said that, it also contained the truly appalling Roy’s Keen. And to be fair, the title track from said LP has usually sounded pretty decent when played live.

But back to Alma Matters…..There’s two extra songs on the CD single, one of which I’m fond of, but the other is damn near unlistenable:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Heir Apparent
mp3 : Morrissey – I Can Have Both

For the avoidance of any doubt, it’s the tuneless and dirge-like Heir Apparent I do my best to avoid.

Trivia facts.

The nipple-tweaking photo was taken by Derek Ion and in small print on the back of the sleeve, Morrissey thanks Willie Garcia.  I have no idea why these thanks were offered…….

More trivia facts.

Morrissey has long been known in the UK (or until this year at least)  for going on the road and promoting his new material. However, there were only two UK gigs in December 1997, one at the Battersea Power Station in London and the other at the Northgate Arena in Chester….it would be 1999 before most of us got to hear live songs from the LP. But I’ll save that for another time.

 

The Youngest Was The Most Loved was the second single taken from Ringleader of the Tormentors, finding its way into the shops in June 2006 and peaking at #14 in the UK singles chart. I have to say that I was rather surprised at this being picked out as the second single given it is quite similar to You Have Killed Me. I was certain that one of the slower songs on the LP would have been chosen as these were the tracks that most critics had homed in on as being among the best stuff in his long and distinguished solo career. But then again, that’s why I work hard for a living and other folks get to become record company executives…..

mp3 : Morrissey – The Youngest Was the Most Loved

Once again, a single which was nothing more than average was saved by some of what we found on the b-side or additional tracks on the CD. I’ve been quick enough in the past to put the boot into the various members of the Morrissey backing bands for the way they butcher some of the old classics originally recorded by The Smiths, but every now and again some of the stuff written in conjunction with Alan Whyte reminds me that I should sometimes temper my criticism.

mp3 : Morrissey – Ganglord

I first heard this track when it was played on the tour that accompanied the release of the album (I was lucky enough to get tickets to three Scottish gigs in five days – two of them at really small venues, and it was at Stirling Albert Hall that Ganglord was first aired) and while the recorded version never quite captured the impact of hearing it live, it remains a personal favourite.

I’m also quite fond of this, which could easily have fitted onto the parent LP:-

mp3 : Morrissey – If You Don’t Like Me, Don’t Look At Me

I suppose I’m quite tickled at the idea of Morrissey singing about young men and women running through the glen, which just makes me think of shortbread tins for some reason or other….although as a tune I think it has some similarity to the verses, but not the chorus, of First Of The Gang To Die.

And so to the cover version. One that I’m really not all that sure about. On the plus side, it brought royalties to Howard Devoto. On the minus side, it is a rather lame version of what is without question one of my all time favourite records….when Howard sang he was angry, ill and ugly as sin, I felt he meant it. Morrissey surely has his tongue firmly in his cheek…..

mp3 : Morrissey – A Song From Under The Floorboards

I do like the sleeve mind you, another photo by Fabio Lovino, and unlike many other of the singles which were released on 2xCds and 1×7″ bit of plastic, the same photo was used in all formats. The great man looks awfully dignified…..

Released in April 1990, November Spawned A Monster shocked an awful lot of people with its candid lyrics about disability. Some weren’t sure if Morrissey was mocking the wheelchair-bound or whether he was championing their cause.

Sleep on and dream of love
Because it’s the closest you will get to love
Poor twisted child, so ugly, so ugly
Poor twisted child. oh hug me, oh hug me

One November spawned a monster in the shape of this child who later cried
“But Jesus made me, so Jesus save me
From pity, sympathy and people discussing me”
A frame of useless limbs what can make good all the bad that’s been done?

And if the lights were out could you even bear
To kiss her full on the mouth (or anywhere?)

Poor twisted child so ugly, so ugly
Poor twisted child oh hug me, oh hug me

One November spawned a monster in the shape of this child
Who must remain a hostage to kindness and the wheels underneath her
A hostage to kindness and the wheels underneath her
A symbol of where mad, mad lovers must pause and draw the line

So sleep and dream of love
Because it’s the closest you will get to love

That November is a time which I must put out of my mind

Oh one fine day let it be soon
She won’t be rich or beautiful
But she’ll be walking your streets
In the clothes that she went out and chose for herself

It was a song I found really disturbing on its release, and even all these years later, it still makes me uncomfortable. But then again, I’ve no doubt that was the whole point and intention behind its writing and recording.

It’s a tune which is one of the most unusual across the solo material…it’s almost driven along by a dance-beat akin to Barbarism Begins At Home….and again given the subject matter, that can interpreted as a bit of a sick joke. But just as the tune is bouncing along, and the dancers are in the midst of throwing the Morrissey shapes, it slows right down and Mary Margaret O’Hara comes in and starts screaming….

I read many years ago at the time of its release that she was asked to go to the studio and make noises as if she was having a painful and difficult birth. Given this, the lyric does begin to make some literal sense….the child in question was not planned, and to complicate matters for the mad mad lovers who failed to pause and draw the line, nine months later they have a daughter whose physical appearance and dependencies make it so difficult for them to love her….but who think everything will be fine if there is some sort of miraculous recovery…..

So….maybe the song isn’t really about disability and it’s actually a cautionary tale to those who were prepared to sleep around without thinking of the consequences….

Other people have got their own theories. I read once on a forum one fan’s view that the song is a parallel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – a monster created in November but who was unloved by its ‘parent’. The monster then had to endure a life of misery and loneliness (a regular theme in many Morrissey songs), and this is going to be the fate of the girl in the song. The fan goes as far to comment that Morrissey is making a really strong statement here that society judges people on their looks alone….

Someone else makes reference to the accompanying video which they feel mocks so many others of its time, with Morrissey wriggling around in the desert making himself look ludicrous to emphasise the point that image and beauty isn’t everything…

Your own thoughts dear readers????

mp3 : Morrissey – November Spawned A Monster

Oh and the two extra songs on the 12″ and CD single are well worth a listen as well:-

mp3 : Morrissey – He Knows I’d Love To See Him
mp3 : Morrissey – Girl Least Likely To

The latter is probably the nearest thing we’ve ever had to a song that could have come straight from the days of The Smiths since the break-up – it was co-written by Andy Rourke.

Facts and figures time. It reached #12 in the UK singles charts. The image on the sleeve is by celebrated rock photographer Anton Corbjin…

Oh and just in case there’s any doubt….November remains one of my favourite ever Morrissey releases.

Enjoy.

Released on 11th December 1995. What I’ve long referred to as the outtakes single.

After Boxers was put out in January 1995, Morrissey was no longer obliged to stay with EMI under whom his albums and singles had been issued on the Parlophone label. He chose to move to RCA where he recorded the critically-savaged Southpaw Grammar, from which were taken the disappointingly selling singles Dagenham Dave and The Boy Racer.

So I’ve no idea what possessed his old record label to shove out Sunny just 14 days after the release of The Boy Racer other than assuming it was out of spite and possibly to try to cash in on folk buying Xmas presents for Morrissey fans . The three tracks dated back at least 18 months and more and quite frankly, are rubbish and the #42 placing was at least 200 places higher than it deserved.

Actually that’s unfair as the single borders on the OK.(and it’s not as bad as Roy’s Keen) But the b-sides really should never have seen the light of day….

mp3 : Morrissey – Sunny
mp3 : Morrissey – Black-Eyed Susan
mp3 : Morrissey – A Swallow On My Neck

Better informed fans have said elsewhere that Sunny was originally intended to be part of the Boxers single, and Black-Eyed Susan was considered but rejected for the flip-side of The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get. No mention is made of the original plan for Swallow…..

Sorry for the dip in quality control. I promise to do better next week.

Today’s offering is the third single lifted from the 2006 LP Ringleader of The Tormentors.

Morrissey was riding the crest of a critical wave on back of the album as well as gaining loads of kudos for a UK tour that had taken him to loads of smaller venues in towns that rarely attracted any decent live gigs (e.g. Greenock, Grimsby, Halifax, Whitehaven, Blackburn, Truro, Cheltenham, King’s Lynn). The goodwill extended to his fans who bought enough copies of the single to take it to #17 in the charts.

I was personally surprised that this was released as a single. I’m not arguing that it’s a dull or boring song, but it wasn’t one of the stand-out tracks on the LP by any stretch of the imagination. The opening 20 seconds or so remind of songs by T Rex and Oasis, and I suppose I can never really get those thoughts out of my head as it unravels itself over the next three and a bit minutes…but it is, on reflection, the sort of track that would sound reasonable enough when coming over the radio airwaves.

mp3 : Morrissey – In The Future When All’s Well
mp3 : Morrissey – I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now (live)
mp3 : Morrissey – To Me You Are A Work Of Art (live)

The two live tracks are Ringleader tracks that were recorded on Sunday 28th May 2006 at the London Palladium on what was the last night the UK tour (Morrissey, in a tribute to an old TV variety show had played three Sunday Nights at The London Palladium during May). They’re actually quite good versions of the tracks…..Morrissey is in very good voice while his backing band stick to faithful reproductions….

There was also one new track is one that I think deserved a place on the album itself rather than being thrown away on a b-side….but then again this outstanding tribute to the French fashion designer is probably the reason so many of us bought the actual single:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Christian Dior

Oh and I also love the sleeve on this one. I’m sure I had a jacket exactly like that when I was about 12 years of age….and I certainly would have had an ice cream like that when I was that age….

 

After last week’s near centrefold of the great man, there really could only be one song selected today:-

mp3 : Morrissey – The Last Of The Famous International Playboys

This was his third solo single, and was released at the end of January 1989. It was a track that got a lot of radio play and fared well in the charts, hitting the giddy heights of #6.

In the humble opinion of this particular fan, this is one of the best-ever Morrissey singles. Produced by Stephen Street (who also plays keyboards), it has the benefit of having Andy Rourke on bass and Mike Joyce on drums, as well as Craig Gannon on guitar, which makes it as near a Smiths reunion as you can get sans Johnny. (Incidentally, the other guitarist on the record is Neil Taylor, who lists Morrissey alongside Tears For Fears, Natalie Imbruglia, Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, The Pretenders, Van Morrison, Holly Johnson, Paul Young, Climie Fisher and Robbie Williams as the acts he has played guitar for over the years…..)

On first listen it seems nothing more than a homage to the 1960s East End gangsters, Reggie and Ronnie Kray (who were immortalised on-screen by none other than Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet). But it is also a lyric that links to The Playboy of The Western World a play that caused great controversy when first performed back in 1907….

The anti-Morrissey brigade had a field day when this single emerged, accusing him of glorifying gangsters and violence, when in fact it was an ironic comment on the media’s continual obsession with the twins. And while it is rumoured that Morrissey sent a wreath to Ronnie Kray’s funeral in 1995, I’m sure that this is nothing more than an urban myth, or at worst an ill-conceived media stunt…..

Here’s your rather enjoyable b-sides, neither of which were made available elsewhere:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Lucky Lisp
mp3 : Morrissey – Michael’s Bones

Incidentally, the cover star is Morrissey himself as it is a family photo taken of him at the age of 7 as he climbed a tree (a case of a boy at play……)

Oh and I played a big part in getting the song to such a high chart placing as I bought the CD and cassette versions (and have since picked up the 12″ version)

Enjoy

I once observed, over on the old blog,  Morrissey had never cracked the trick of releasing three great LPs in a row, and I was worried that having got the critics eating out of his hand with You Are The Quarry and Ringleader of The Tormentors, the next album, whenever it came out and whatever it was called, would receive a panning just because it was time to again turn on the great man.

Well, the charm offensive deployed by Morrissey with journalists at the time of the records’ release worked in some ways, because Years Of Refusal, while not being lavished with praise, hasn’t been slaughtered in too many places. But in the views of this long time fan, it is a bit of a disappointment, and in many ways this is demonstrated by the rather lacklustre first ‘new’ single taken from it (remembering that two other tracks were also singles but these were also featured on a previous Greatest Hits compilation from 2008).

I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris isn’t an awful song, but it isn’t all the good either. It’s all just a bit too mundane, and I don’t think a man of the stature of Morrissey should do mundane.

The new songs on the b-side are also fairly average – almost a case of ‘Morrissey By Numbers’ – but Shame Is The Name is worth a listen for the mere fact that it features a backing vocal from Chrissie Hynde.

And the live recording of one of the great old record by The Smiths from 17 October 2007 at the Genesse Theatre, Waukegan in Illinois is an sad illustration and example of the criticism often levelled at his band’s ability to destroy the subtlety, class and poise of the original…..

It only reached #21 on its week of release in the UK back in February 2009, despite the chance for something a great many Morrissey fans of both sexes to finally get their hands on something they had wanted for ages* – a naked image of the singer – thanks to the inner sleeve of the 7″ single.

mp3 : Morrissey – I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
mp3 : Morrissey – Because Of My Poor Education
mp3 : Morrissey – Shame Is The Name
mp3 : Morrissey – Death Of A Disco Dancer (live)

*Not this particular fan I should mention….but Mrs Villain was quite taken by it and wondered why, although he is older than me, Morrissey is skinnier than me. I reckon it’s a combination of photoshop and that he’s clearly holding his belly in….

mp3 : Morrissey – I Have Forgiven Jesus

Released just before Xmas 2004, the song title clearly rattled the controllers at the BBC for they didn’t allow it to be playlisted on either Radio 1 or Radio 2. Other radio stations weren’t so concerned, nor were various music video channels, and so this became the fourth highly succesful single to be taken from You Are The Quarry, hitting #10 on its week of release.

Last week I mentioned that, between 1989 and 1997, only one out of the twenty of the great man’s singles released during that period got as high in as the Top Ten in the UK. Fast forward seven years to the comeback…and all four singles released in 2007 go Top 10. The only other act to enjoy such chart success in the UK that year was boy band McFly…..

The single came out on 7″ and on two CD formats. The b-side on the 7″ and the widely available CD1 is probably the weakest of the three previously unavailable songs – and its a cover of a record released back in 1987 by Raymonde, a band that featured James Maker who appeared as a dancer/backing vocalist with The Smiths at a handful of their very early gigs – but that in some ways is a bit of a harsh criticism as they all have something to offer:-

mp3 : Morrissey – No One Can Hold A Candle To You
mp3 : Morrissey – Slum Mums
mp3 : Morrissey – The Public Image

No One…is the cover version. Slum Mums and The Public Image surely deserved to be on something other than CD2 of the fourth single taken from an LP, for they are among some of the best things he has released since embarking on the comeback. Particularly ‘The Public Image’ which I think is a rather wonderful song….

The cover photo is a still taken from the promo video

Take a look at the personnel playing on this single….

Morrissey (voice)
Kirsty MacColl (vocals)
Craig Gannon (guitars)
Neil Taylor (guitars)
Andy Rourke (the bass)
Mike Joyce (the drums)

And with Stephen Street on production duty, it’s practically a reunion of The Smiths, so by all accounts, this should be a memorable 45. And it almost is:-

mp3 : Morrissey – Interesting Drug

It was the fourth solo single, released in April 1989 (cant believe it was 25 years ago!!!), and the first that didn’t grab my attention on the initial listen. Indeed, it took quite a few plays on the CD player before I began to enjoy it – and in truth, I felt (and still believe) that its most redeeming feature is its lyric. But I’m also happy to say that time has mellowed my views on the actual tune – I now think that its passable as opposed to appalling.

A clear attack on Thatcherism (rampant at the time of the song’s release) and a warning of what can happen if you dabble with the ‘interesting drug’. But what exactly is the ‘interesting drug’? Some have suggested it has a literal meaning and refers to ecstasy, which, at the time, was being hyped-up by the UK tabloids as the next big danger to our youth…..

I’ve another theory….

the one that you took
TELL THE TRUTH
it really helped you
an interesting drug
the one that you took
God, it really helped you
I wonder why you’re only half-ashamed
“because Enough is too much
and look around
can you blame us
can you blame us”

That’s how the lyrics appear on the back of the 12″ sleeve. Couldn’t they be aimed at working-class folk who had been wooed by the evil Tories and had literally bought into a false dream with their newly-owned council homes and shares in the recently privatised public utilities? Just a thought….

Like the first three solo singles, this went Top 10 – peaking at #9 in the UK. Little did anyone realise that of the next 20 singles Morrissey would go on to release in the UK, only one would be a Top 10 hit….

Of the two tracks on the b-side, one was an original and the other a live version of a track by The Smiths, recorded at the now (in)famous free concert given at Wolverhampton Civic Hall in December 1988.

mp3 : Morrissey – Such A Little Thing Makes Such A Big Difference
mp3 : Morrissey – Sweet And Tender Hooligan (live)

Oh and another thing…..I hate the sleeve for this single. It makes the great man look like some sort of villain in a bad sci-fi movie.

Happy Listening.