When you think about it, for such a bigmouth, Morrissey hasn't been up to much but making the gossip pages, one moment who is getting rushed to hospital,, next he is giving Veganism a bad name, then he is suing NME for libel. It gets hard to remember why we give a damn. Here's ten reasons.
1. There's A Light That Never Goes Out – The Smiths – Gothic romance of intense proportions, where even death can be a cause for joy and the light is the light of love. The strings at to a sad fused heaviness till the coda where the truth shines through. Johnny Marr wrote the music and I have to wonder why Marr never wrote this well without Morrissey.
2. I Will See You In Far Off Places – Morrissey – In which our hero leaves Los Angeles for Rome and the arms of an Arabic man. The oriental flavored music swirls beneath him till he finds the perfect mesh of politics and proclivity: ""f your God bestows protection upon you, and if the You S Aaay doesn't bomb you…" they will meet again.. And then Morrissey expresses one reason for his desire for the man, when he imagines next sighting of the object of his desire: "looking at the camera, messing around and pulling faces". And, purely incidentally, expressing one reason for homosexual love, a difference in temperament between the sexes. At the end, Morrissey's ululations are a mix of Arabic pop and girl group.
3. Ask – The Smiths – A perfect pop stroke full of misdirection, fright and "warm summer days indoors". A gorgeous song.
4. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now- The Smiths -When he isn't sighing and pining, he is whining and fleeing from intimacy.
5. You're The One For Me, Fatty – Morrissey – There is a strange compassion and a romantic sleight of hand where "hope and desire" are brought together in his unlikely lover.
6. Shoplifters Of The World Unite – The Smiths – I watched him close and kill a Summerstage gig with this a couple of decades ago and again his politics are inseparable from his character. This should be the theme tune to Occupy Wall Street, "give it over" the rallying cry.
7. Maladjusted – Morrissey – "On this glorious occassion of the splendid defeat…" a brilliant self-portrait from the same named album and I'd call it one of his best, but they're all one of his. "Do you want to hear a story or not…" It's all verbs and adjectives, all movement from before the beginning.
8.Girlfriend In A Coma – The Smiths – One of the bands poppiest and most addidctive songs has a chorus that goes "bye bye baby bye bye" and only goes down an octave for dramatic effect very near the end.
9. We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful – Morrissey – Wow, misanthropic M takes another clear eyed look at the venal nature of humanity. Ps -I love the way the guitars follow his ocal intonations on the break.
10. That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore – The Smiths – A waltz in three quarter time will have you swinging and Morrrisey has never sounded more like Martin Fry: it's like one long sigh…