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RE: #81: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 6:59:02 PM

Piles

Posts: 5531
Joined: 6/8/2007
From: Whalley Range

81. The Queen is Dead
Writers: Morrissey (lyrics), Marr (music).
Year of composition: 1986.
Appearances on official releases: Title track on 'The Queen is Dead'. Also appears on the compilation 'The Sounds of the Smiths' and the live album 'Rank'.

The Smiths at their most anti-establishment, 'The Queen is Dead' is often seen as the pinnacle of the band's work; sprawling, energetic, and anarchic, it's the perfect album opener. Not only is it relatively angsty, it has its moments of humor (best line of song; 'so I broke into the palace/with a sponge and a rusty spanner/she said I know you and you cannot song/I said that's nothing you should hear me play pian-eeer'), and musically it's up there with anything The Smiths have ever done. Apparently, it's a song that Marr begun writing as a teenager, honed over years and brought to its final, near-perfect form in 1985. It starts blisteringly, first with a sound sample from Forbes' kitchen-sink drama 'The L-Shaped Room', before kicking into the thumping drum loop, which is probably one of Joyce's finest contributions to any Smiths song. From there, the song is all pace and distortion, Marr's guitar riff building up the tempo, several lines of feedback played throw a wah-wah pedal to create the song's screeching, distorted sound. If there's anything that slightly damages this song for me, it's the positioning of 'Frankly, Mr. Shankly' directly after it on the album. Both are great songs individually, but the latter kind of stunts the momentum built up by the opener. Still, as an individual piece of work, this song is sublime, the fantastically visceral music from Marr complimented by scathing yet witty 'state of the nation' vignette-like lyrics from the singer. Some will be surprised that this track is so low, but it's just a testament to the variety and the quality of the singer's work � both with his band and as a solo artist � that it barely scratches the surface of the top 100.

Listen to the studio version here.
Listen to a live version, at the university of Salford, here.

< Message edited by Piles -- 28/11/2011 5:52:56 PM >

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 7:02:45 PM

Rhubarb

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Toooooo LOOOOOOOOOW.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 7:07:30 PM

Rhubarb

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TQID is amazing, Morrissey at both his wittiest ('you should hear me play piano') and as his most wittheringly angry.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 7:10:11 PM

Piles

Posts: 5531
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rhubarb

TQID is amazing, Morrissey at both his wittiest ('you should hear me play piano') and as his most wittheringly angry.

That's pretty much what I said. Only more eloquently.

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Post #: 94

RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 7:12:37 PM

Rhubarb

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Yeah but it should be about fifty places higher up.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 7:33:05 PM

Piles

Posts: 5531
Joined: 6/8/2007
From: Whalley Range

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rhubarb

Yeah but it should be about fifty places higher up.

Nah, I spent about 20 minutes coming up with this list and I'm almost certain that this is the appropriate placing for it.

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Post #: 96

RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 10:38:43 PM

Rhubarb

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Is it lonely on a limb?

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You organisational skills sicken me, Rhubarb.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 10:47:23 PM

rawlinson

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rhubarb

Yeah but it should be about fifty places higher up.

Sixty.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 19/11/2011 10:52:13 PM

Rhubarb

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Don't worry I've seen the full list, there is loads of this kind of thing to come.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 20/11/2011 10:33:52 AM

MovieAddict247

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The Queen is Dead is amazing - one of the best album openings ever. Great choice.

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RE: #80: No I was not pushing that time! - 20/11/2011 1:48:50 PM

Piles

Posts: 5531
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From: Whalley Range

80. Ouija Board, Ouija Board.
Writers: Morrissey (lyrics), Stephen Street (music).
Year of composition: 1989.
Appearances on official releases: Released as a single in 1989, and on the singles/b-sides collection 'Bona Drag'. Also features on the compilations 'The Best Of Morrissey', 'The HMV/Parlaphone Singles', and 2011's 'The Very Best Of'.

Potentially the most critically maligned and certainly the least commercially successful of Morrissey's early string of solo singles, 'Ouija Board, Ouija Board' has received a revival of sorts in terms of fan favouritism. The explanation for this is very obvious; at the time, it was taken as a sign that Morrissey was being left behind. It was released in the same week as hit singles by other Manchester based artists The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, and at the tender age of 30 Morrissey was already beginning to look like an elder statesman of the Manchester music scene. Looking back, it fits in well with the early Moz singles, and doesn't suffer from such direct comparisons to the new sound of Northern English music. Musically in the same vein as earlier singles like 'Such a Little Thing Makes Such a Big Difference' and 'Piccadilly Palare', but also taking direct influence from early Sparks (thanks to the stuttering keyboard that runs through the spine of the song) and Brian Eno, 'Ouija Board, Ouija Board' is both comically and emotionally satisfying. The lyrics allude to the singer attempting to talk to an ex-lover who has passed on, the punch line � which has unfortunately been removed from live performances of the song since, for some inexplicable reason � being the deceased telling Moz to 'push off', thus taking the singer's self-asserted loneliness to an even deeper level. However, the song could have a darker, more personal streak than that, with many suggesting that the lyrics talk about a potential old flame of Morrissey's who killed herself whilst the singer was still in his teens. This autobiographical element puts a dark slant onto one of Moz's more supposedly frivolous tracks, and this sharp, downbeat edge is only enhanced by the refrain of 'well she has now gone, from this unhappy planet, with all the carnivores and the destructors on it'. It's another return to one of Moz's favourite subjects, suicide, and the understanding of it. It's a shame that this song wasn't as accepted and adored as it should have been upon first release.

Listen to the studio version, with a hilariously camp music video, here.
Listen to a recent live version, sans punchline, here.

< Message edited by Piles -- 28/11/2011 5:53:14 PM >

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RE: #82: No I was not pushing that time! - 20/11/2011 1:54:19 PM

rick_7

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Good tune, great vocal, amazing video, lyrics that oscillate between the sublime and the silly.

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RE: #82: No I was not pushing that time! - 20/11/2011 1:56:08 PM

rick_7

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Was just having a look at it on Wiki and saw this:

quote:

The song is about the protagonist using a Ouija board to contact a dead friend. It caused some debate in the press at the time over claims it promoted occult dabbling or devil worship. Morrissey replied to these claims by retorting "The only contact I ever made with the dead was when I spoke to a journalist from The Sun."[1]

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RE: #82: No I was not pushing that time! - 20/11/2011 2:09:14 PM

Piles

Posts: 5531
Joined: 6/8/2007
From: Whalley Range

quote:

ORIGINAL: rick_7

Was just having a look at it on Wiki and saw this:

quote:

The song is about the protagonist using a Ouija board to contact a dead friend. It caused some debate in the press at the time over claims it promoted occult dabbling or devil worship. Morrissey replied to these claims by retorting "The only contact I ever made with the dead was when I spoke to a journalist from The Sun."[1]

Brilliant. Morrissey's media conversations were so much more entertaining back then. I have a feeling you won't be as positive about the next choice! I think this one was around at about the time you claim Moz went shit (I think that was you).

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RE: #79: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:09:49 PM

Piles

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From: Whalley Range

79. Dagenham Dave
Writers: Morrissey (lyrics), Alain Whyte (music).
Year of composition: 1995.
Appearances on official releases: Released as the lead single from 'Southpaw', and on that album's re-issue.

Another single of Morrissey's that was the victim of poor release timing, 'Dagenham Dave' failed to break into the UK top 20, one of the contributing factors being that the Britpop movement was reaching its peak, the singles war between Blur and Oasis coming just one week before the release of this 1995 track. Critics were saying that Morrissey had lost it, and the fact that two bands very much influenced by both Morrissey and his former band were battling it out for the top spot whilst the singer himself scraped to #26 was pointed out as evidence for Morrissey being somewhat irrelevant in modern music. It's a shame, because although 'Dagenham Dave' isn't as toweringly astonishing as earlier Moz singles � or as some of the tracks on the album it's taken from � it's still an incredibly fun, vibrant pop single with a fantastically vibrant guitar tune courtesy of Alain Whyte. Tailing out in six-stringed madness, the track rifles through its just-over-three-minute length, telling the story of an Essex boy who scoffs pie and shoves his face in women's chests. This kind of grotesquely accurate imagery of mid-90s small-town playboys kind of points to caricature, but Moz brilliantly flips it on its head in the punchline, bringing up some homoerotic imagery and suggesting something about the sexuality of these boys who like nothing more than to assert their hetero-ness. It's one of the very few direct references the singer makes to sexuality, and although it's used to comic effect it could also be construed as evidence towards Morrissey's own philosophy on the subject. The fact that, despite being charismatic and good-looking, and despite having a girlfriend and a mouth full of pie, the one thing that Dave truly craves for is out of his reach due to social norms is actually quite tragic, and I'm quite glad that 'Dagenham Dave' is beginning to get a little bit of a reputation as a fun, worthy single rather than something to be forgotten amongst Morrissey's oeuvre.

Listen to the studio version, with a music video that features a boy buying a used gold vinyl of 'Vauxhall and I', here.
Listen to a live version here.

< Message edited by Piles -- 28/11/2011 5:53:39 PM >

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:23:49 PM

rick_7

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I can't believe I just paused Robeson to listen to that. Wide Morrissey doing slightly-jangly pub rock.

Do you think poor timing was really the problem here? The odd good line, but it's more like a Stuart Maconie reminiscence set to music than a classic Moz lyric. Your review is a lot better than the song - take that as you will.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:39:16 PM

Rhubarb

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I really love Ouija Board, Ouija Board, but I don't like that Morrissey strips the song of its punchline both live and on the George Lucas'd edition of Bona Drag.

Dave is deeply annoying, but its bloody catchy and when its in my head I tend to listen to it about 40 times in a row.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:39:20 PM

Olaf

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The idea of this being placed higher than The Queen Is Dead in anyone's list makes me want to cry.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:52:57 PM

rick_7

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Olaf

The idea of this being placed higher than The Queen Is Dead in anyone's list makes me want to cry.

Me too. It makes me want to cry on your shoulder.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:53:53 PM

Olaf

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rick_7

quote:

ORIGINAL: Olaf

The idea of this being placed higher than The Queen Is Dead in anyone's list makes me want to cry.

Me too. It makes me want to cry on your shoulder.

Only if I can cry on your shoulder too. I haven't figured out the logistics of how to do that yet though.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 2:59:59 PM

rick_7

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Olaf

quote:

ORIGINAL: rick_7

quote:

ORIGINAL: Olaf

The idea of this being placed higher than The Queen Is Dead in anyone's list makes me want to cry.

Me too. It makes me want to cry on your shoulder.

Only if I can cry on your shoulder too. I haven't figured out the logistics of how to do that yet though.

Let me know when you've figured it out. I'd be well up for it. And apologies if we've ended up flirting here, I can't tell.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 3:05:47 PM

Rhubarb

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If you stand face to face and then sink your faces into the frontal part of the shoulder, I believe it could work.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 3:07:52 PM

rick_7

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rhubarb

If you stand face to face and then sink your faces into the frontal part of the shoulder, I believe it could work.

If you pay me, you can watch.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 3:16:55 PM

Rhubarb

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 4:02:26 PM

matty_b

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Ouija Board above The Queen Is Dead?

There are simply not enough shoulders.

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 4:03:30 PM

Rhubarb

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I really like Ouija Board because when he spells out his name, I can spell out my last name and pretend the song is about me.

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RE: #82: The rain that flattens my hair... - 20/11/2011 4:12:43 PM

FritzlFan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Piles

82. The Queen is Dead

Excellent choice, but it should be much higher.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Piles

80. Dagenham Dave

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 4:31:09 PM

rick_7

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quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b

Ouija Board above The Queen Is Dead?

There are simply not enough shoulders.

My life's ambition is now to see this accepted as an idiom. I can just see Huw Edwards staring down the camera after some harrowing report and saying: "Thanks Fiona, there are simply not enough shoulders."

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RE: #80: Head in the clouds and a mouthful of pie. - 20/11/2011 4:32:59 PM

rawlinson

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rick_7

quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b

Ouija Board above The Queen Is Dead?

There are simply not enough shoulders.

My life's ambition is now to see this accepted as an idiom. I can just see Huw Edwards staring down the camera after some harrowing report and saying: "Thanks Fiona, there are simply not enough shoulders."