Everything has the potential to be a song Morrissey never actually wrote
Consider, for example, the guy I saw walking to work this morning with little flakes of ice in his beard. Maybe it was the cold weather or my general reluctance to go to work, but in seconds my inner monologue was off on a rant to rival the King of the English Mopes himself:
“The guy with ice in his beard / As he wanders to work on a Wednesday / Down a road that beats him down / Oh, but who, who would ever notice / As he dreams about the clock striking five and a girl who doesn’t even know his face / And when pressed I find that it may never have been ice at all / But maybe just the froth of yet another latte / For I think you’ll find it’s not that cold in the morning tonight…”
I mean, I’m sorry, but I pulled that out of my ass, and I happen to think it’s pretty good. I’m sure the average person could do it with just about anything. In fact, if I were to take a quick look around the office, I’ll bet I could probably… Okay, here we go, check this out:
“Colin, you’ve neglected your fern! / As she points to the leaves and their wilting / Oh, why do I wonder aloud how I ever ended up here? / How she yearns for a country rain / And when Anne Boleyn laid by the seaside / I heard her say there’s just no parking in this town / No parking to be found in this desolate town / Whoa, a-ha…”
Give it a try sometime. You’ll be glad you did, to the extent that anything involving Morrissey could possibly generate human joy! Why, you might even wonder why people seem to think this clown is such a genius!
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#1 this is the first time i’ve visited your blog because i just realised that you have a blog. even though i’m sure you mention it on fb often. the word “morrissey” pulls me in everytime.
#2 this will delight me for weeks to come.
well done.
Thank you, Bev! You’re very kind. And yeah, I think it automatically gets mentioned on Facebook everytime I post something, which I’ll bet is probably pretty annoying.
By the way, I’m sorry I had to miss your first anniversary show! How did it go?
Okay. Fine. Fine.
You are BOTH lyrical gangsters.
(Morrissey 4ever!!!!!!!)
Look, I’m not saying that we’re both brilliant. I’m saying that basically anyone could be, if that’s how low the bar is set.
it went…mmm…the next show will be great! we’re recording an EP on friday.
Nice! Keep on sending me the show listings and I’ll make sure I get out after things have calmed down.
Yeah, but Morrissey earns bonus carrot sticks for thinking of it first, Matthew. Books have been written and daffodils have been brandished because self-absorption in song isn’t normally presented as something so impish, layered and recyclable.
Moreover, and particularly when he was getting good material from his co-writer(s), the guy was a real guerrilla for song arrangement: he pooh-poohed more rules of songwriting than any other non-musician of his time. I don’t know how many songs you’ve written – lord knows I’ve tried to set words to music and arrangements hundreds of times, and usually ineffectively – but his gift for booby-trapping songs (bridges in place of a proper chorus; nothing in place of a chorus; verse melodies trading places with bridge melodies within the same song; he wrote more pre-choruses than anyone I have ever listened to) puts him on a different plane than most of his copyists.
In 1983, some of your alternative options included Simon LeBon:
“Telegram force and ready,
I knew this was a big mistake
There’s a fine line drawing my senses together
And I think it’s about to break.
If I listen close I can hear them singers
Voices in your body coming through on the radio
The Union of the Snake is on the climb
Moving up it’s gonna race it’s gonna break
Through the borderline.”
and the leather-trousered Mike Reno:
“She’s turnin’ on the heat
She’s got the magic touch
She’s turnin’ on the heat
And it’s a little too much
She’s turnin’ on the heat
And it’s a hundred above yeah
Hot girls in love
I’m in love.”
The first example makes no sense. The second makes too much sense. Pop radio was stuffed with melodically superb songs in those days, but words were so much flotsam and jetsam.
I agree that Morrissey’s a meat-free penis, but I like the guy for essentially doing what Ricky Gervais later did for low-level white-collar office workers: identifying a host of shitty, true-to-life circumstances for people who’ll never be cast on ‘The Bachelor,’ and giving ‘em something to rally around.
Matt wrote a song called Matt Blare Five!
Well, co-wrote, really.
Len, you’re a thorough man! Your comment was much longer than the post that inspired it, and the post itself was admittedly longer than it needed to be. I had forgotten that Morrissey’s fans are a dedicated lot. Now, let’s never quote Duran Duran on this site again.
Co-writes count!
I trust I can still evoke Loverboy in the future.
I have no quarrel with Loverboy.