Was Morrissey the first........

[Sunbags]

Were the Smiths, in your opinion, the very first to deal with subject matter like "relationships other than boy-meets-girl ones", the teenage experience, living below the breadline etc., in their songs? Have you ever heard songs (by bands/songwriters before the Smiths, obviously) that were Smith-esque, in either lyrics or music? I can't think of any myself, other than 'Twilight' by U2, but I was just curious to see if anyone had (being a 90's kid n'all, and hence, not knowing everything bout music before then). Opinions please!!

 

[mspendl828]

subject matter like "relationships other than boy-meets-girl ones"

Just to take that first point - That has been done to death forever. 99% of Little Richard's work, for example, is full of gay overtones.

 

[mspendl828]

Relationships other than boy-meets-girl ones - That has been done to death forever. 99% of Little Richard's work, for example, is full of gay overtones. And then there's songs like You've Got To Hide Your Love Away by the Beatles which is about a gay bloke fancying a straight guy.

Pretty much all rock then pop music since the 50s has pretty much been about the 'teenage experience', but it really all depends on what your experience is.

And living below the breadline has been a staple in folk in particular for years.


If you really want I can dig up some proper examples, but you get the idea.

 

[mspendl828]

No idea whats happened with the posts above. Very strange.

 

[sonandheir]

Buzzcocks.

 

[Danny]

Many many great pop love songs are non gender specific.

 

[Sunbags]

And then there's songs like You've Got To Hide Your Love Away by the Beatles which is about a gay bloke fancying a straight guy.

Pretty much all rock then pop music since the 50s has pretty much been about the 'teenage experience', but it really all depends on what your experience is.

And living below the breadline has been a staple in folk in particular for years.


If you really want I can dig up some proper examples, but you get the idea.

Wow, I didn't know that about "You've got to hide your love away". But anyway, I do get the idea, of course all that stuff has been done before, I was wondering if it was ever done in the kind of way the Smiths did it (whatever way you'd describe that). Actually, there's another question! What way did the Smiths do it? If it's been done before, why was the way the Smiths sang about those things more special? More personalised, perhaps? The time they emerged?

 

[Spineless Swine]

Were the Smiths, in your opinion, the very first to deal with subject matter like "relationships other than boy-meets-girl ones", the teenage experience, living below the breadline etc., in their songs? Have you ever heard songs (by bands/songwriters before the Smiths, obviously) that were Smith-esque, in either lyrics or music? I can't think of any myself, other than 'Twilight' by U2, but I was just curious to see if anyone had (being a 90's kid n'all, and hence, not knowing everything bout music before then). Opinions please!!

The Smiths were unique, nuff said

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

no, maybe Hitler was
i am sorry
i cannot get over that mspendl828 has a picture of hitler as their avatar

 

[Lost]

George Formby. The Smiths learned a lot from him.

 

[Spineless Swine]

I know he does love his right wing icons, first Thatcher now Hitler what next? Neil Kinnock??

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

I know he does love his right wing icons, first Thatcher now Hitler what next? Neil Kinnock??

i do not know who that is
but his comb over is funny

 

[Bluebirds]

Hitler? For f***s sake!!! I know we live in a democracy and everything but thats just plain abhorrent!

 

[Lost]

Wow, I didn't know that about "You've got to hide your love away". But anyway, I do get the idea, of course all that stuff has been done before, I was wondering if it was ever done in the kind of way the Smiths did it (whatever way you'd describe that). Actually, there's another question! What way did the Smiths do it? If it's been done before, why was the way the Smiths sang about those things more special? More personalised, perhaps? The time they emerged?

Don't believe that tosh about the beatles song. He's just a wind up merchant.

 

[mspendl828]

Don't believe that tosh about the beatles song. He's just a wind up merchant.

Even Lennon said it was about Brian Epstein. Don't have a go at me for your lack of knowledge

 

[mspendl828]

Don't believe that tosh about the beatles song. He's just a wind up merchant.

Actually, how does disagreeing with you about a couple of things make me a wind up merchant?

 

[suparni]

you know i don't really know how it makes you a wind up anything, but i am going to take his side with that photo of yours. it seems to me, that if you want people to be reminded of hitler every time they speak to you, that you are asking to be read in a harsh light...
asking for trouble.

trouble loves me...

i certainly do not have to tempt, invite, seduce, and beg for it... the way you seem to have done.

what an ugly way to represent yourself.

simply ugly... and there is enough ugliness all around... have a look at our leaders... you are asking for it -
therefor... wind up sounds good to me this time

 

[duchess_of_fork]

well Francoise Hardy certainly didn't write about anything other than l'amour.
and neither did serge gainsbourg.
that's all i listen to these days.
i'm ignorant and limited.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

well Francoise Hardy certainly didn't write about anything other than l'amour.
and neither did serge gainsbourg.
that's all i listen to these days.
i'm ignorant and limited.

now her
I know!

 

[nightandday]

Many many great pop love songs are non gender specific.

To be honest with you... Before I knew that people made all this fuss about Morrissey's lyrics being 'non-gender specific' (not that all of them were), I thought that the majority of songs written in English were non-gender specific. I always thought that was a great advantage of the English grammar. To specify gender, you have to explicitly state it either with 'girl' 'boy', pronouns 'she' and 'he', or a name that is unambigously male or female (BTW I always hated it when people use names in a song, it reduces most people's ability to identify with the song completely). Writing a non-gender specific song in English is actually easier and comes more naturally than writing a gender-specific song. But try doing that in highly gender-specific languages! It's just not possible, because of all the gender-specific inflections. I think it's the case in most Indo-European languages. My native Serb(ocroat)ian is one of the worst in that respect! If we were writing in Serbian here, rather than in English, everybody would learn everybody's gender the moment they used past tense or an adjective to describe themselves. Which means that in a song, it's very hard to avoid specifying gender, and I don't mean just other person's, but your own too. So, if you're, for instance, a woman, and you want to sing a song originally written for a man, if you want to adjust it to yourself, you'd probably have to change quite a few words - and that may be inconvenient because of the syllables and the rhymes.

Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle always say that Morrissey 'stole the idea of non-gender specific lyrics' from them, but I don't really believe that they're the first who ever wrote such lyrics?! They just might be (might be - I'm not saying that they definitely are) the first who planned and made it a part of their esthetics to write in a non-gender specific way.

If there is something new that Morrissey did do, that's sexually ambiguous songs such as "Handsome Devil" or "Reel Around The Fountain"... How many people can write a song with lyrics "let me get my hands on your mammary glands" and "a boy in the bush is worth two in the hand" and still have everybody call it homoerotic?