Maybe in the next world.
Oh oh, here comes some anti semitism.Why don't Jews get herpes?
Oh oh, here comes some anti semitism.
I thought you might jump in somehow.So come on Pete,why don't Jews get herpes?
Why don't Jews get herpes?
I disagree, but I certainly understand your point of view. I think there are plenty who agree with you. But may I ask you-- when you say "Everyday Is Like Sunday" is a polar opposite of "Handsome Devil", well when-- I mean, what-- exactly do you mean? Surely not quality. If vitality is the measure, are you saying "Everyday" is like a Sunday nap?
It's just such a striking opposition to make. I don't know if I've ever heard it before.
Perhaps it was a bit hasty. I was referring mainly to those rough edges. Edils is instantly likeable, by nerly anyone, for reasons that are clear to you at the first listening. Even the lyrics are quaintly apocalyptic. Absolutely no rough edges. Hd on The other hand is abrasive. Cockily assertive like hand in glove, but musically even more aggressive. And the music is complex, with that jumpy bass and johnny's guitar paying covering the whole gamut within 2 and a alf minutes: driving, cajoling, filling out texture, lilting melody. Then of course there's the lyrics, which are perhaps the most insistently homoerotic in all of morrisseys catalogue, and takes some time and effort to warm to for those of us who are not wired in that direction. One could have chosen two diferent songs for the same point, but you see what I mean? Thing is, anyone would prefer edils on first listen, but 20 years down the road, i find hd is as fresh and impressive as ever, while edils has long since shot its bolt. It's a nice song, but i honestly feel no need to hear it even once more before i die, and wold never put it on a compilation disk.
I love a soundcheck, instrumental-only version of "There Is A Light", but it didn't quite crack my "secondary" Top Ten.
Never heard of such a one. That sounds interesting!
(again, sorry for the miserable ortography etc. Will try to fix when next posting from a proper computer)
Perhaps it was a bit hasty. I was referring mainly to those rough edges. Edils is instantly likeable, by nerly anyone, for reasons that are clear to you at the first listening. Even the lyrics are quaintly apocalyptic. Absolutely no rough edges. Hd on The other hand is abrasive. Cockily assertive like hand in glove, but musically even more aggressive. And the music is complex, with that jumpy bass and johnny's guitar paying covering the whole gamut within 2 and a alf minutes: driving, cajoling, filling out texture, lilting melody. Then of course there's the lyrics, which are perhaps the most insistently homoerotic in all of morrisseys catalogue, and takes some time and effort to warm to for those of us who are not wired in that direction. One could have chosen two diferent songs for the same point, but you see what I mean? Thing is, anyone would prefer edils on first listen, but 20 years down the road, i find hd is as fresh and impressive as ever, while edils has long since shot its bolt. It's a nice song, but i honestly feel no need to hear it even once more before i die, and wold never put it on a compilation disk.
I actually know what you mean here, because it's true that the early Smiths songs were better constructed as live pieces. They have a lot of muscle and energy behind them, which is why the early songs have usually had a lot more appeal to fans who prefer punk or hard rock (that's what I've found, anyway). The songs stand up really well when they're played "naked". Once they began producing the songs themselves, they became more complicated, almost orchestral pieces. Unlike you I think that was an improvement, mostly, but then again maybe I agree with you more than I think, because "Rank" is probably my most-played Smiths album.
It's interesting to imagine what a song like "Reel Around The Fountain" would have sounded like if they'd recorded it in 1986. Lush and orchestral, probably, whereas part of the reason the song is so haunting-- at least in the pared-down radio session version-- is that Johnny's guitar sounds so stark and exposed. Compare it to "I Know It's Over". On the record, the backing music (though brilliant) was softened up by the production, while the live version is much more like "Reel Around The Fountain", with Johnny's guitar soaring and slicing through the vocals without the Hated Salford Ensemble. I guess I prefer the later stuff because it sounds fantastic on vinyl and played live; the band of "Rank" is still very much the band rocking out on the "Handsome Devil" live track on their very first 45.
Well, i hate to seem querulous in the face of understanding, but i don't really see it. To me, their early work seem generally more complex musically speaking than their later.
Oh, he's said it again in many forms but then it seemed as if he was repeating himself. At that point it didn't, even though he had said it before at that point too.
I've never cared for DEATH OF A DISCO DANCER, but I've always liked SHAKESPEAR'S SISTER.
On the other hand, my least favourite Go-Betweens album is 16 LOVERS LANE (no, I'm not so perverse as to say SEND ME A LULLABY is my most favourite - though it is #3), and that is evidently everyone else's favourite, so what do I know?
Tim
Yep. It fluctuates. For instance, Rusholme Ruffians took a good 20 years to advance from largely ignored to one of my favorite tracks. That being said, any top 10 of mine would contain largely the same songs as before - this charming man, there is a light, hand in glove, i know it's over, how soon is now, please please please etc.
Death of a Disco Dancer at No.1? Death of a Disco Dancer? Is this a joke?
I don't really have the musical vocabulary to debate with any accuracy whether or not "This Charming Man" is more or less complex than "Death Of A Disco Dancer". Certainly, from what I've read in the interviews given by Marr, after they began to produce their own songs the music started to become heavily layered, often with dozens of guitars playing at once (his explanation of "The Headmaster Ritual" is amazing), and of course they started to use synths. Maybe it's true that "Handsome Devil", in some counterintuitive way, is more complex despite sounding simpler on the surface. I dunno. I guess it's a matter of taste, and your taste is mistaken.
I'm kidding.
Erm, aren't you being a tad bit unfair here? Of course the first records are going to sound fresher. I thought Morrissey and Marr did plenty to avoid sounding repetitive; in any case, "You will leave me behind" was echoed in "Miserable Lie" and a few other places, so he was repeating himself even then.
Also, while you can say that Morrissey became more self-conscious, it's also true that his lyrics acquired a lot more credibility and authenticity once he stopped stealing from Shelagh Delaney and "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning". I mean, maybe on a cruel day you can argue that he disappeared down the rabbit hole of "fame, money and lawsuits", as time went on, but at least it wasn't a vision of life borrowed from kitchen sink dramas he saw on TV. Don't get me wrong, I love that influence on the early Smiths. I'm just pointing out that Morrissey's 1983-1984 lyrics seem to have been his most artificial.
As a final point, maybe the desperation you cite in "These Things Take Time" is absent in his solo work, but then again the quiet, almost reverent joy in a song like "Dear God, Please Help Me" was utterly beyond the reach of the early Morrissey. He did evolve.
Also it seems obvious to me, so much so that I have never thought to question it prior to this discussion, that their development was in the direction of simpler and more accessible music, where production values increasingly replaced the internal dynamism that drove the earlier songs. A song like You've got everything now, you can listen to it focussing primarily on the bass, or on the guitar, or on the vocals - and it's like three different songs, all of them great. I don't find that on Strangeways.
Yes, that's what I attempted to say - he was already repeating himself, but it still sounded fresh. But maybe a bit unfair yes, you have an obvious point.
Well, I guess that goes to show the relative banality of the merely personal. For my part, I don't think "Dear God" is a particularly good lyric. For one thing, it depends almost wholly for its effect on the listener taking an active interest in Morrissey as a person, which is already arguably a considerable artistic deficiency. I don't have a major gripe about his solo lyrics or anything, they are mostly great in their own way. But equally, I don't really see evolution in a positive sense. Perhaps they have become closer to the real person, but frankly, who cares? I'd rather have This night has opened my eyes from someone who has picked the entire subject matter out of his imagination or from a tv show than a strictly autobiographical Sorry does not help us, any day. I hope he has the sense to make his autobiography a witty and semi-fictious exercise in self-mythification rather than a dreary catalogue of gripes and hardships.