Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

Morrissey's Blog



I often feel that the comments section is the best part of this blog, which is why I also feel it's a shame that I don't get that many comments, in a way. I'm not complaining, actually, as if I got too many, I probably wouldn't be able to respond to them all, anyway. However, this preamble is my way of leading up to the fact that Abbass very kindly posted a link to a Morrissey song recently in the comments section of this entry. I responded by talking about what the song title (The Lazy Sunbathers) referred to, and by posting some links of my own (though I neglected to point out the Noel Coward reference in the lyrics of The Lazy Sunbathers). One of the links I posted was to the Moz song above. However, it has occurred to me that this song is just too good for me to let the link to it remain hidden in a corner of the comments section, so here it is on the main page, at the top of this entry, the wonderfully titled, Mama Lay Softly On the Riverbed.



I'll come to some of the reasons I think this is an excellent song in a minute. Hmmm, first of all, to address Abbass's observation that I do post rather a lot of Morrissey. He was kind enough to say that there was nothing wrong with this, but this does seem to be a point of contention. So, I'd like to look a little at this contentious bone and then I promise I won't mention Morrissey for at least a week. The David Quantick 'review' to which one of those links should lead, really sums up just about everything that anyone seems to hate about Morrissey. I don't actually want to go through this point by point, because I want to have my lunch soon. What it seems to boil down to is two things: The accusation that Morrissey is racist and the opinion that his latest work is a let-down after the genius of The Smiths. Oh, there's a third thing - that Morrissey is a "vanity-stricken egoist with a persecution complex", but I just don't care about that third thing enough even to analyse it, probably because I'm one too and know how it feels. So, the first point - racism. Until recently I suppose I've thought that the question is a matter of no one being entirely free of racism or the potential for racism. Therefore, those who demand that Morrissey should prove he is not racist should first prove they are not. They can't. I suppose they are trying to prove they aren't by tediously throwing accusations at others, but I've had enough of this kind of prick. So, I have just tended to think that, within the qualification that no one is entirely either racist or un-racist, that I don't really know what Morrissey is, but don't find it, anyway, to impinge on his artistic output. However, having recently re-listened to Irish Blood, English Heart I found myself really struck by it for the first time. (It's never really struck a chord with me before.) I found it suddenly to be a very honest and intelligent response to accusations of racism - a response that is not 'drawn in' in the way his accusers would wish him to be drawn in.

Irish blood, English heart, this I'm made of,
There is no one on Earth I'm afraid of.

I think the word 'afraid' is key here. Inter-racial and inter-cultural relations should be conducted without fear, should they not? I felt this was exactly the right choice of word. Not to be afraid of who anyone else is, and not to be ashamed of who you are - that is what I felt the song to be about.

So, on this score, the mud of the muddied waters is settling for me now. Controversy continues, but I am more inclined to see this as instigated by those who want to make themselves look good.

To continue to the second point: Morrissey is not as good as he used to be/as good as The Smiths. Well, this is, in my opinion, true. I mean, I'm not sure how to be anything else but subjective here. However, I would make the qualification that Morrissey is not consistently as good as he used to be. Sometimes Morrissey the solo artist is as good as The Smiths, and that is something that is rare enough in pop music to be remarkable. In particular, I think he came up to Smiths standard with some of the material on Viva Hate and Vauxhall and I. In fact, You Are the Quarry, his 'comeback album' is pretty much in the same league as those two, in my opinion, particularly if you take some of the B-sides into account.

I think that Morrissey has certainly lapsed into artistic redundancy at points. I didn't hate Kill Uncle as much as many people seemed to, but I didn't rave over Your Arsenal the way some did. Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted I find to be patchy, but pretty good, with some underrated gems on them.

This brings us to the last album, Ringleader of the Tormentors (dodgy commentary in that link), which came out in 2006, and which I have therefore lived with now for almost two years. To review it in brief, I'd say I really like some of the songs, but overall find it a little stodgy and a little bombastic. It was produced by legendary producer Tony Visconti, but, the truth is, I don't think I actually like the production, well, particularly not on I Will See You in Far-off Places and Life is a Pigsty. Some, such as writer Doulgas Coupland, have really rated this album. But I suppose I felt that if this had been Morrissey's school project and I had been a teacher, I would have been writing something like, "Could do better" on his report.



Unfortunately there then followed All You Need is me and That's How People Grow Up, which were 'not bad'. But I should not be describing a Morrissey song as 'not bad'. This is not a good state of affairs. The release of the Greatest Hits album compounded this sense of redundancy. People were beginning to mutter the words 'Las Vegas period'. I think some of them still are. I'm not.

And the reasons I'm not are largely due to some of the newest songs leaked in live form on Youtube, songs such as I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris, and, of course, Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed. These songs don't seem to feature quite the attention to detail lyrically as Morrissey has made his trademark in the past. I do remember one reviewer sayinf that Sheila, Take a Bow did not display Morrissey's usual ability to surprise us with words, and, compared to much of Morrissey's recent output, that song seems to feature surprising words in abundance. However, Throwing My Arms Around Paris does feature a lovely melody, and the incredible line: "Only stone and steel accept my love". And Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed?

At first I found the words disappointing, reminding me of Elvis Costello's claim that Morrissey writes brilliant titles and then forgets to write a song for them. Some of it even seemed awkwardly phrased to me: "Life is nothing much to lose". And there was some laziness going on, too: "Was it the pigs in grey suits persecuting you?" The triteness of the word 'pigs' is slightly mitigated by the combination with the also trite 'grey suits' to make something that, together, is not as trite as the sum of its parts, but still.

However, I have been listening to/watching this clip a great deal, and even my doubts about the lyrics have evapourated. The tale seems to be one of a mother who is driven to suicide by drowning, Opelia-like, in a river. What I like about this is that, although the words themselves don't feature much of Morrissey's well-known invention and wit, the lyrics start from an unusual premise, and present the story with an unusual angle.

Mama, why did you do it?
Mama, who drove you to it?

There are many things to focus on in this world of ours, but Morrissey has asked us to focus not on sailors fighting on the dancehall, but on mother. Who drove you to it? Yes, indeed, what nefarious machinations are taking place here? The persecution of the mother brings into sharp focus the evils of an impersonal society. We can feel it. When asked about Morrissey in an interview once, I responded thus:

I recently had a conversation with a Morrissey fan. I hope she won’t mind me alluding to the conversation here, as it’s possible she’ll read this. She described Morrissey as ‘sacred’. In other words, she wasn’t prepared to accept criticism of him. And I understand the sentiment. I suppose I am slightly more prepared to accept criticism of him now than when I was younger, but the point is, whatever he may be like as a person (and I don’t know) he has managed to express something that to many people is sacred. I think this is to do with people’s innermost feelings about themselves, to which Morrissey has found his way. In Reel Around the Fountain, there’s the line, “It’s time the tale were told/Of how you took a child and you made him old.” It’s really the child that is the sacred thing – that innocence that is destroyed by a corrupt world. I think that’s what people identify with. It’s like when people say, “You can say anything you like about me, but don’t you dare say anything about my mother.” It’s a kind of displacement. The mother is really their innermost self. Or should that be, the Mozzer is really their innermost self?

And here is the Mozzer, in this song, after all, saying, do what you like, but if you touch my mother, I'll kill you:

Bailiffs with bad breath
I will slit their throats for you.

And in the clip you can see that he makes a slitting motion as with an old-fashioned cut-throat razor as he sings this. And who amongst us has not felt this at some time, that nothing mattered, as long as they could storm the offices of the Inland Revenue, or wherever the appropriate place might happen to be, and in the name of vengeance, slits the throats of every fucker there?

And then, that line that at first I thought was awkward:

Life is nothing much to lose.

It's so true, especially in a world that is full of 'un-civil servants', 'bailiffs with bad breath' and all the rest. It also reminds me of a Japanese death poem (jisei) I once read that was translated as something like: "Seen from outside, this world is not worth a box of matches." When there is nothing worth dying for, there is also nothing worth living for, and this line, which is not only true, but is also sung with feeling, brings us a little closer to whatever that very private thing is that is worth dying for, after you have spat out your venom on this putrid and despicable world.

I don't believe Morrissey is a celebrity for this reason - when I listen to his music, I don't want to be him, I feel okay about just being me.

And then, at the end

We're going to run to you
We're going to come to you
We're going to lie down beside you, Mama.
We're going to be with you
We're going to join you
We're going to lie down beside you, Mama.

This reminds me somehow of the bit in Blackadder where Doctor Johnson is trying to explain the plot of the dictionary to Kind George. "There is no hero, unless it be our Mother Tongue." "The mother's the hero? Nice twist."

It feels very right to me that Morrissey should very explicitly place himself on the losing side, on the side of the mother, here, at the end.

Well, I didn't call this entry 'Morrissey's blog' because that's what this blog is becoming, despite what some might think. No, I called it that, because that's pretty much how I'm coming to look at Morrissey's musical output. I don't think he's in a hurry to produce a masterpiece anymore. He's putting out whatever comes to him. He doesn't need more ammunition. Some of the shots he fires off will miss the target, but when they hit, well, you get something like this, something that reminds you, after all, that

Life is nothing much to lose.

Labels: Morrissey