(no subject)
Although I have complained about my iPod recently, one of its nicest features is the ease of which I can make a playlist on my computer. Here is one I compiled in my head whilst lying in bed fighting off the flu last night...
The BBC's Culture Show is presently running a "Living Icons" contest: "a quest to discover Britain's greatest, living, cultural icon." Cultural in this sense seems to mean the arts, thus other icons of other areas like Thatcher and Beckham are absent from the shortlist. The voting is down to the final three: Naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough, Paul McCartney and Morrissey. Yes, Morrissey. I must say, I was rather surprised to see him make to the top three as well. Especially considering some of his competition in the top 10 was Stephen Fry, David Bowie and Michael Caine (It's more like Kathleen's Cultural Icons list!) Mind you, Kate Moss was also there so clearly it's a younger (and dumber) sort voting.
Anyway, I fear McCartney will win just because you throw the Beatles into any contest and their legion of crazed fans will ride in foaming at the mouth. (Nothing sucks the fun out of a conversation like a Beatles fan. Yes, we get it. They were great. Now shut up.) However, as blasphemous as it sounds, to me The Beatles weren't a very British band. Or at least, they were the least British band of the British Invasion. Aside from a few lines here or there, the most British the Beatles ever got was the double A-side single of "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" which was John and Paul reminiscing about their Liverpool childhoods. No, the Beatles were much more universal, which explains their wide-ranging influence and appeal across the generations.
I can say with absolute confidence that not only were the Kinks the most British band of the '60s but probably of all-time. No other band before or since has dissected the British psyche as well as The Kinks. Heck, they even have an album called: Arthur: Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire! Frankly, it's a crime Ray Davies is overlooked on this Living Icons list. I should do a "Ray Davies' Britain" Tracklist but in the mean time...
Getting back to Morrissey… There's no doubt in my mind that Moz is a huge British cultural icon. His latest comeback from a seven-year absence from recording has cemented his importance to the British music scene. And, apart from Ray Davies, Morrissey is one of the greatest chroniclers of Britain in song. But the most fascinating thing about Morrissey is that he survives despite his best attempts to self-sabotage his career.
Unlike McCartney, who has worked hard to cultivate his "Cute One" nice-guy image, Morrissey has exhibited an almost pathological tendency to alienate as many people from him as possible. That his fans are willing to overlook these faults (but not necessarily forgive) is testament to the power of his music. Still, it's truly bizarre to witness. At times Morrissey seems completely contemptuous of his fans but he clearly craves and needs the adoration. The result is some combination of Stockholm Syndrome and battered wife's syndrome. But sometimes it's hard to tell who is the kidnapper/wifebeater and who is the victim in this equation.
Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a long-winded examination of Morrissey's controversies and career highs lows. The point I'm trying to make is that Morrissey may be a miserable git who exhibits some questionable and frustrating political stances, but there is no doubting his songs drive straight to the heart of the British psyche. They are populated with the outsiders of British society -- criminals, hooligans, bedsit poets and prostitutes.
In no particular order...
1. The Smiths - "The Queen is Dead"
Okay, Morrissey could have written nothing but this song and he'd still be guaranteed a place in the upper echelons of British songwriters. The title track from The Smiths' masterpiece, it's a lyrical tour de force. A scathing indictment of not only the royal family but the overall decay of British society, it's both wickedly funny and deeply sad. It's tough to pick a key lyric but here goes: "Past the Pub who saps your body/And the church who'll snatch your money/The Queen is dead, boys/And it's so lonely on a limb"
2. The Smiths - "Panic"
This makes the list because it's The song That Changed My Life. "Hang the D.J.!" became a mantra for my teenage years. What I didn't know at the time was that it was written by Morrissey after a DJ played that rather incongruous Wham's "I'm Your Man" directly after a news report on the Chernobyl disaster.
3. The Smiths - "The Headmaster Ritual"
Morrissey's ode to the institutionalized brutality of the British school system. It's a lot more danceable than you might expect.
Key lyric: "Belligerent ghouls/Run Manchester schools/Spineless swines/Cemented minds."
4. The Smiths - "Cemetry Gates"
No, that's not a type-o. Nobody said spelling had to be one of the criterion for cultural icon! This is another one of my all-time favourite songs in which our hero discusses the pros and cons of plagiarism whilst name-dropping famous poets.
Key line: "Keats and Years are on your side/While Wilde is on mine"
5. Morrissey - "Now My Heart is Full"
This is the lead-off track from the album I consider to be Morrissey's last masterpiece, Vauxhall and I from 1994. This song is probably as close to happy as Morrissey gets. British characters name-dropped include characters from Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and actor Patric Doonan.
Key lyric: 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"
6. Morrissey - "Piccadilly Palare"
When I first visited London at the age of 15 I wanted to ask the locals what a "Piccadilly palare" was. Thank goodness I didn't since it's slang used by London rent boys! Oddly, male prostitution is not an unfamiliar theme of pop music. (See also: The Ramones' "53rd & 3rd" and the Pogues' "The Old Main Drag.")
Key lyric: "Off the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy."
7. Morrissey - "We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful"
Clearly, tearing down former friends who left town and became successful is not a uniquely English occurrence but only the British press have raised it to an art form.
Key lyric: "We hate it when our friends become successful/And if they're Northern, that makes it even worse
9. The Smiths - "There is a Light That Never Goes Out"
What more can I say about this song that others haven't said? A hearbreaking work of staggering genius.
Key lyric: "If a double-decker bus crashes into us/To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die."
10. Morrissey - "Last of the Famous International Playboys"
Morrissey's tribute to the infamous London gangsters, the Kray brothers. Here Moz examines the public's obsession with celebrity criminals years before the O.J. Simpson trial would launch a million cable news networks.
Key lyric: "In our lifetime those who kill/The newsworld hands them stardom/And these are the ways/On which I was raised."
11. Morrissey - "We'll Let You Know"
This is one of Morrissey's most controversial songs, since it's sung from the perspective of football hooligans. Of course, that doesn't mean Morrissey sympathizes with their violence or actions. For him, it's another exhibit in his Museum of a Decaying Britain.
Key lyric: "We are the last truly British people you will ever know/You'll never never want to know
12. The Smiths - "Suffer Little Children"
This song was the first controversy of Morrissey's career since some people considered this song to be glamorizing child murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Bradley. Taken from the band's debut album, it's the first evidence of Morrissey's ongoing fascination with criminals and their haunting influence on our lives.
Key lyric: "Oh, Manchester/So much to answer for."
13. Morrissey - "National Front Disco"
Now, I'm not saying Morrissey has always been successful in his examinations into the changing face of Britain. Let me make it clear I think "Asian Rut" and "Bengali in Platforms" are awful songs and their attempts to address immigration issues are clunky at best, racist at worst. But I don't think this song deserves the criticism it receives. The song tells the tale of David, a youth who has been drawn into the world of the National Front, the anti-immigration British political party. Like football hooliganism, Morrissey takes the view that the majority of these followers aren't ideologues but rather disaffected youths desperate to align themselves with a cause. David may be at a National Front rally, but it fills the same function to him as a discotheque, hence the song title. He's merely an empty vessel who will align himself with a political cause that reaches out to him, no matter how revolting that political philosophy may be. That doesn't mean these people are any less dangerous but detaching them from the hysteria can go a long way to understanding the roots of the problem.
Key lyric: "David, the wind blows/The wind blows/Bits of your life away"
14. Morrissey - "Jack the Ripper (live)"
The most beautiful song you'll ever hear about a serial killer and an aged prostitute.
15. Morrissey - "Everyday is Like Sunday"
Other rock songwriters are concerned with Friday night and Saturday morning, but it's Morrissey who's made a career of chronicling those rainy Sunday afternoons on your own. Perfect tea and biscuits music.
Key lyric: "This is the coastal town/That they forgot to close down/Armageddon, come Armageddon!"
16. Morrissey - "Speedway"
This is as close to a "coming out" song as Morrissey gets. It's interesting that the two songs which bookend Vauxhall and I are so distinctly difference. Whereas "Now My Heart is Full" shows a happy and content Morrissey, "Speedway" is him at his most combative. It's clearly a love-hate letter addressed to the British music press: "In my own sick way, I've always stayed true to you." I also see it as somewhat of an apology for the Finsbury Park flag-waving fiasco.
Key lyric: "All of the rumours/Keeping me grounded/I never said, I never said that they were/Completely unfounded."
17. Morrissey - "Irish Blood, English Heart"
Morrissey's 2004 comeback single was his most politically-charged song in years. It's a stirring call-to-arms pleading for Britain to move beyond the old trappings and forge a new identity.
Key lyric: "I've been dreaming of a time when/To be English is not to be baneful/To be standing by the flag not feeling shameful/Racist or partial"
Okay, I think I should stop now and go to bed. I'm still fighting off the flu. Thanks a lot, flu shot!!
The BBC's Culture Show is presently running a "Living Icons" contest: "a quest to discover Britain's greatest, living, cultural icon." Cultural in this sense seems to mean the arts, thus other icons of other areas like Thatcher and Beckham are absent from the shortlist. The voting is down to the final three: Naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough, Paul McCartney and Morrissey. Yes, Morrissey. I must say, I was rather surprised to see him make to the top three as well. Especially considering some of his competition in the top 10 was Stephen Fry, David Bowie and Michael Caine (It's more like Kathleen's Cultural Icons list!) Mind you, Kate Moss was also there so clearly it's a younger (and dumber) sort voting.
Anyway, I fear McCartney will win just because you throw the Beatles into any contest and their legion of crazed fans will ride in foaming at the mouth. (Nothing sucks the fun out of a conversation like a Beatles fan. Yes, we get it. They were great. Now shut up.) However, as blasphemous as it sounds, to me The Beatles weren't a very British band. Or at least, they were the least British band of the British Invasion. Aside from a few lines here or there, the most British the Beatles ever got was the double A-side single of "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" which was John and Paul reminiscing about their Liverpool childhoods. No, the Beatles were much more universal, which explains their wide-ranging influence and appeal across the generations.
I can say with absolute confidence that not only were the Kinks the most British band of the '60s but probably of all-time. No other band before or since has dissected the British psyche as well as The Kinks. Heck, they even have an album called: Arthur: Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire! Frankly, it's a crime Ray Davies is overlooked on this Living Icons list. I should do a "Ray Davies' Britain" Tracklist but in the mean time...
Getting back to Morrissey… There's no doubt in my mind that Moz is a huge British cultural icon. His latest comeback from a seven-year absence from recording has cemented his importance to the British music scene. And, apart from Ray Davies, Morrissey is one of the greatest chroniclers of Britain in song. But the most fascinating thing about Morrissey is that he survives despite his best attempts to self-sabotage his career.
Unlike McCartney, who has worked hard to cultivate his "Cute One" nice-guy image, Morrissey has exhibited an almost pathological tendency to alienate as many people from him as possible. That his fans are willing to overlook these faults (but not necessarily forgive) is testament to the power of his music. Still, it's truly bizarre to witness. At times Morrissey seems completely contemptuous of his fans but he clearly craves and needs the adoration. The result is some combination of Stockholm Syndrome and battered wife's syndrome. But sometimes it's hard to tell who is the kidnapper/wifebeater and who is the victim in this equation.
Anyway, I don't want to turn this into a long-winded examination of Morrissey's controversies and career highs lows. The point I'm trying to make is that Morrissey may be a miserable git who exhibits some questionable and frustrating political stances, but there is no doubting his songs drive straight to the heart of the British psyche. They are populated with the outsiders of British society -- criminals, hooligans, bedsit poets and prostitutes.
In no particular order...
1. The Smiths - "The Queen is Dead"
Okay, Morrissey could have written nothing but this song and he'd still be guaranteed a place in the upper echelons of British songwriters. The title track from The Smiths' masterpiece, it's a lyrical tour de force. A scathing indictment of not only the royal family but the overall decay of British society, it's both wickedly funny and deeply sad. It's tough to pick a key lyric but here goes: "Past the Pub who saps your body/And the church who'll snatch your money/The Queen is dead, boys/And it's so lonely on a limb"
2. The Smiths - "Panic"
This makes the list because it's The song That Changed My Life. "Hang the D.J.!" became a mantra for my teenage years. What I didn't know at the time was that it was written by Morrissey after a DJ played that rather incongruous Wham's "I'm Your Man" directly after a news report on the Chernobyl disaster.
3. The Smiths - "The Headmaster Ritual"
Morrissey's ode to the institutionalized brutality of the British school system. It's a lot more danceable than you might expect.
Key lyric: "Belligerent ghouls/Run Manchester schools/Spineless swines/Cemented minds."
4. The Smiths - "Cemetry Gates"
No, that's not a type-o. Nobody said spelling had to be one of the criterion for cultural icon! This is another one of my all-time favourite songs in which our hero discusses the pros and cons of plagiarism whilst name-dropping famous poets.
Key line: "Keats and Years are on your side/While Wilde is on mine"
5. Morrissey - "Now My Heart is Full"
This is the lead-off track from the album I consider to be Morrissey's last masterpiece, Vauxhall and I from 1994. This song is probably as close to happy as Morrissey gets. British characters name-dropped include characters from Graham Greene's Brighton Rock and actor Patric Doonan.
Key lyric: 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"
6. Morrissey - "Piccadilly Palare"
When I first visited London at the age of 15 I wanted to ask the locals what a "Piccadilly palare" was. Thank goodness I didn't since it's slang used by London rent boys! Oddly, male prostitution is not an unfamiliar theme of pop music. (See also: The Ramones' "53rd & 3rd" and the Pogues' "The Old Main Drag.")
Key lyric: "Off the rack I was easy meat and a reasonably good buy."
7. Morrissey - "We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful"
Clearly, tearing down former friends who left town and became successful is not a uniquely English occurrence but only the British press have raised it to an art form.
Key lyric: "We hate it when our friends become successful/And if they're Northern, that makes it even worse
9. The Smiths - "There is a Light That Never Goes Out"
What more can I say about this song that others haven't said? A hearbreaking work of staggering genius.
Key lyric: "If a double-decker bus crashes into us/To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die."
10. Morrissey - "Last of the Famous International Playboys"
Morrissey's tribute to the infamous London gangsters, the Kray brothers. Here Moz examines the public's obsession with celebrity criminals years before the O.J. Simpson trial would launch a million cable news networks.
Key lyric: "In our lifetime those who kill/The newsworld hands them stardom/And these are the ways/On which I was raised."
11. Morrissey - "We'll Let You Know"
This is one of Morrissey's most controversial songs, since it's sung from the perspective of football hooligans. Of course, that doesn't mean Morrissey sympathizes with their violence or actions. For him, it's another exhibit in his Museum of a Decaying Britain.
Key lyric: "We are the last truly British people you will ever know/You'll never never want to know
12. The Smiths - "Suffer Little Children"
This song was the first controversy of Morrissey's career since some people considered this song to be glamorizing child murderers Myra Hindley and Ian Bradley. Taken from the band's debut album, it's the first evidence of Morrissey's ongoing fascination with criminals and their haunting influence on our lives.
Key lyric: "Oh, Manchester/So much to answer for."
13. Morrissey - "National Front Disco"
Now, I'm not saying Morrissey has always been successful in his examinations into the changing face of Britain. Let me make it clear I think "Asian Rut" and "Bengali in Platforms" are awful songs and their attempts to address immigration issues are clunky at best, racist at worst. But I don't think this song deserves the criticism it receives. The song tells the tale of David, a youth who has been drawn into the world of the National Front, the anti-immigration British political party. Like football hooliganism, Morrissey takes the view that the majority of these followers aren't ideologues but rather disaffected youths desperate to align themselves with a cause. David may be at a National Front rally, but it fills the same function to him as a discotheque, hence the song title. He's merely an empty vessel who will align himself with a political cause that reaches out to him, no matter how revolting that political philosophy may be. That doesn't mean these people are any less dangerous but detaching them from the hysteria can go a long way to understanding the roots of the problem.
Key lyric: "David, the wind blows/The wind blows/Bits of your life away"
14. Morrissey - "Jack the Ripper (live)"
The most beautiful song you'll ever hear about a serial killer and an aged prostitute.
15. Morrissey - "Everyday is Like Sunday"
Other rock songwriters are concerned with Friday night and Saturday morning, but it's Morrissey who's made a career of chronicling those rainy Sunday afternoons on your own. Perfect tea and biscuits music.
Key lyric: "This is the coastal town/That they forgot to close down/Armageddon, come Armageddon!"
16. Morrissey - "Speedway"
This is as close to a "coming out" song as Morrissey gets. It's interesting that the two songs which bookend Vauxhall and I are so distinctly difference. Whereas "Now My Heart is Full" shows a happy and content Morrissey, "Speedway" is him at his most combative. It's clearly a love-hate letter addressed to the British music press: "In my own sick way, I've always stayed true to you." I also see it as somewhat of an apology for the Finsbury Park flag-waving fiasco.
Key lyric: "All of the rumours/Keeping me grounded/I never said, I never said that they were/Completely unfounded."
17. Morrissey - "Irish Blood, English Heart"
Morrissey's 2004 comeback single was his most politically-charged song in years. It's a stirring call-to-arms pleading for Britain to move beyond the old trappings and forge a new identity.
Key lyric: "I've been dreaming of a time when/To be English is not to be baneful/To be standing by the flag not feeling shameful/Racist or partial"
Okay, I think I should stop now and go to bed. I'm still fighting off the flu. Thanks a lot, flu shot!!