Coincidentally played this to my girlfriend last night, she’d never heard it. It moved her to tears on the first listen which she says has never happened before. She described it as the saddest song she’d ever heard. Played it again and she cried again. She says she doesn’t want to listen to it anymore, after that. Can’t say I blame her.
It’s absolute peak Morrissey in my opinion. His voice is unsurpassed, his lyrics are still amazing. The tempo and arrangement showcase his talents perfectly. I just wish he’d wait until he had 8-10 songs of this quality before releasing an album (assuming he can get a deal).
Although he’s been heavily mining the themes of alienation, rejection, yearning and disillusionment for almost forty years, he’s sufficiently talented as a writer to provide a new insight into them, and this is the perfect distillation.
Funnily enough, I didn’t much like it when I first heard it, now I think it has a deep emotional power that almost means it needs to handled carefully.
If you strip away all the layers of bullshit, his lack of reliability as a witness and teller of stories, his paranoia, his deeply questionable political affiliations, his haphazard quality control, his attention seeking public statements, Morrissey is ultimately a crooner, in the classic tradition. Arguably the greatest lyricist of all time, and possessor of one of the most magnificent ever voices.
It’s songs like this that mean I can never, ever, walk away as a fan. He’s proven he can hit this level, at this stage in his career, and this is what he needs to aim for every time. Total magic.