Some Songs Considered

“Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” – The Smiths
(Words/music: Johnny Marr and Morrissey, available on Hatful of Hollow, Sire 1984)

Three mildly connected thoughts about The Smiths and this song:

1. By the time I started buying albums, the “single” served one of two purposes.  The first, more traditional version, the one where a band recorded a couple songs and put them out on a 7” (or CD, or cassette, or now on iTunes) as a completed project.  Generally, these were the punk bands that weren’t on my radar in the mid-1990s.  Then, there was the idea of a “single” as the track being promoted off the album – the one that got the video and maybe a CD single with a remix or one rarity.  I started digging into music during the era of the overstuffed album, so save for a shoebox of CD singles that I acquired for curious reasons, I didn’t buy singles until I started buying vinyl.  Thus, the notion of a band like the Smiths as a “singles band,” one who had a singles collection out the same year as their debut album, was one I had a hard time wrapping my head around at first. 
2. As lovely as it is, the definitive version of this song for me is the Dream Academy’s instrumental version during the Art Institute scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Even without words, it underscores the melancholy beneath the scene’s playfulness, whether it’s the look of silent despair that Cameron shares with the blank-faced girl in Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte or the fleeting moment Ferris and Sloane share underneath Marc Chagall’s America Windows.  I also appreciated that an oboe (I think) replaces Morrissey’s voice, even if I might have picked a lower woodwind like a bassoon to replicate his voice.
3. My favorite bit of the song comes right at the end.  Johnny Marr plays a mandolin with unexpected speed.  The quick strumming alone feels jarring, but the tone of the instrument blends well and gives the song an appropriately sweet coda.  Before it reaches the two minute mark, the whole thing gently fades away.

More on The Smiths: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Ask” – The Smiths 
(Words/music: Johnny Marr and Morrissey, available on Louder than Bombs, Sire 1987) 

No matter what anyone else says, vagueness is not a virtue.  I had an experience today where hollow thought took precedence over a considerate, well-formed answer, and it bugged me ever since.  Sure, there are times when full-disclosure isn’t wise, and perhaps coyness or discretion is a virtue – knowing when a one word answer or a scaled down version of a story suffices.  But vagueness for the sake of not-committing infuriates me to no end.  To oversimplify it, it too often comes down to an unwillingness to commit to an idea (or, in some cases, avoiding thinking at all).  We’re all entitled to turn off our brains every now and again or to have a knee-jerk reaction to something like a song or a movie without an accompanying defense.  The problem comes when a vague answer garners praise for insight that isn’t there.

I don’t think Morrissey and I are ranting about the same thing here, but I think the sentiments overlap.  The heart of the lyric targets inaction; specifically, that unless you advocate for your thoughts and ideas, don’t’ expect them to go anywhere.  It’s slightly ironic given that many canonize Morrissey as the patron saint of shy souls, but it’s necessary advice.  While his narrator claims that he can’t say no if asked, it’s also not the end of the world if someone says no.  After all, you’re just in the same place where you started, only without the nagging “what if” lingering in the back of your head.  In this case, vagueness about one’s intentions forces people to be mind readers, and when we leave it to others to read our minds we can’t expect to be understood.

So if anything, virtue lies in directness – whether directness in advocating for yourself or just being direct about your perspective.  And if someone asks you a question, give them a real answer.

More on The Smiths: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“First of the Gang to Die” – Morrissey
(Words/music: Morrissey and Alain Whyte, available on You Are the Quarry, Attack / Sanctuary 2004) 

I remember going to my college orientation, and as an awkward teenager I carefully treaded through a weekend of introductions and attachment.  Near the end of the weekend, we were waiting for something – course scheduling, perhaps, but I can’t remember exactly – and were in a classroom in one of the academic buildings.  This was when Comedy Central still played Saturday Night Live reruns, so one was on while we waited for whatever we were waiting for.  Morrissey was on singing “Glamorous Glue,” a fairly typical Morrissey single (even if I only knew him via the Smiths – a recent discovery for me within that year).  Still, one of the people sitting there looked up, directed her friends to the “weirdo” on TV, and returned to whatever they were discussing.  At that point, I was ready to go home to enjoy the rest of my summer working and listening to weirdoes on my discman.

I share this story because I feel like it frames how I approached You Are the Quarry when it came out.  By the end of time as an undergrad, I established a group of people who indulged my weirdo-heavy musical tastes.  When You Are the Quarry came out, I took notice mainly because it sounded as strong as much of his other material even a dozen years later.  “First of the Gang to Die,” a song drawing on Morrissey’s adopted hometown of Los Angeles, sounds particularly focused and polished.  Most importantly, Morrissey sounds the same as he did in 1992 (and, in many ways, in the 1980s as well), his voice dancing through the guitars to the front of the mix.  I’m sure if 2004 Morrissey was playing on the TV that day during orientation, he might have been dubbed “that old weirdo” compared with the pompadour-ed ‘Moz from the early ‘90s, yet it wouldn’t have mattered.  If anything would have changed, I would have fixated on the music rather than dwelled on the difference between myself and a stranger.  Then again, were I 21 and not 18 during that moment, I might have just said hi to a few other people in the first place.

More on Morrissey: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“How Soon is Now?” – The Smiths
(Words/music: Johnny Marr and Morrissey, available on Hatful of Hollow, Sire 1984)

I owe a considerable debt to the Allmusic Guide; for years, this has been one of my favorite resources for learning about music and filling in the gaps in my own personal history.  I’ve told countless people about it, even if it pained me to have to describe it as “the IMDB of music.”  It’s an apt description only because this site is to me what IMDB is to many of my friends – a crucial resource, a great starting point for a deeper knowledge of the medium, and a tremendous timesuck.  If I had even the most remote curiosity about a band or an album, I went straight to Allmusic.  Hell, they also employ (among others) Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom and “Hollywood” Steve Huey of Yacht Rock fame.  If a ten ton truck crushed the internet and only left me a handful of sites, Allmusic would be one of them.

That being said, I take issue with Tim DiGravina’s synopsis of “How Soon is Now? (linked here).  In it, he cites Johnny Marr’s guitar as the focal point, and I don’t take issue with that.  He also compares the track to New Order, suggests that Morrissey whistled on the track because he “knew the band would continue to be revered by a growing army of fans and discussed in tones the British press hadn’t used since the Beatles,” and uses the term “confident depression” without defining the term.  The suggestion that the whistle was Morrissey’s way of putting himself on par with Lennon and McCartney seems like a bit of revisionist history; in 1984, much of the critical acclaim was yet to come, and “How Soon is Now?” was stuck on the b-side of a single (“William, It Was Really Nothing”) that reached number 17 – an impressive showing but not quite the “swagger” DiGravina retroactively imposes on the song.

The New Order comparison, while somewhat dubious, interests me though.  Like I did with “Bizarre Love Triangle,” I see an alternate reading in the lyrics.  The standard (and probably intended) interpretation reads the verse as “I am the son / and the heir / of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.”  However, once I started thinking about the homonyms, I read the line as “I am the sun / and the air.”  With that, DiGravina’s concept of “swagger” gained some steam; rather than feel trapped by a common and pedestrian life he’s doomed to inherit, the narrator revels in his shyness, comparing himself to heavenly bodies.  It’s a sort of existential suburban alienation where the narrator feels empowered (and an elitism) by being excluded rather than being depressed.  Then again, it also feels like sour grapes – it’s easy to put down the mainstream when you’re not part of it.  Regardless, it’s an alternate spin on the protagonist’s predicament; in both cases, he’s looking in from the outside.  On one hand, he’s the shy wallflower moping in the corner, and on the other hand he’s liberated by the exclusion – if nobody cares about him, then he can be as weird as he wants!  Of course, this alternate reading falls apart later in the song – even if he finds empowerment occasionally, he also has that same base desire for acceptance and the same depression when he’s excluded.  In that case, “sun and air” makes it even more stifling – even the basic life-giving elements doom him to an existence of watching while the cool kids have a blast, with the reminders buzzing around his head just like Marr’s divebombing slide guitar. 

Regardless, it’s hard to look towards the lyrics for what DiGravina calls “swagger,” as it’s a little too self-indulgent and mopey to pass for bravado.  Instead, it’s Marr’s relentless tremolo and slide overdubs that make the song feel assertive and remotely confrontational.  Without his punch, the whole thing would collapse upon itself into a heap of wallowing.

More on The Smiths: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Moving to L.A.” – Art Brut
(Words: Eddie Argos, music: Art Brut, available on Bang Bang Rock & Roll, Fierce Panda 2005)

“Moving to L.A.” isn’t as musically sharp as some of the other (arguably better) tracks on Bang Bang Rock & Roll, but that’s not the point.  After all, California (at least to us on the Atlantic Ocean) represents a slower paced, less stressful existence.  Musically, “Moving to L.A.” captures that feel with the bright strums and the guiro keeping the pace.  It seems like the typical escapist fantasy, but Eddie Argos has to put his own twist on it.  For example, rather than just relocate, Argos wonders whether he should get himself deported and at least have some fun before leaving England.  It’s this wicked streak that makes the song so interesting – when Argos co-opts typical rock cliches, he highlights the absurdities of these actions – imagine if Argos really rode down Sunset on a motorcycle.  Of course, Argos’ word choice takes the absurdity to the next level, preferring “strip naked to the waist” to “shirtless” and makes sure to name check Axl Rose, who I can’t imagine spending more than five minutes with Argos before having him removed.  Same with Morrissey – I can’t imagine Argos and the ‘Moz tipping back glasses of Hennessey in the Hollywood hills, but it’s Argos’ dream and he clearly dreams big.

I’m in the process of moving this weekend (and honestly, over the next few weeks in tiny bits and pieces).  It’s not quite Los Angeles (nor the Los Angeles Argos imagines), and in fact it’s much quieter.  Trust me, if I wanted the same excitement that Argos plugs in the song, it would be equally as absurd.  Instead, I recognize that the collision between the dream of moving – the hope and optimism – and the mundane details that go into moving in (utilities, buying toilet paper, building a desk for hours at a time).  It’s worth noting that Argos’ plans never get past considering – he’s merely thinking about it.  At least that way he can always associate L.A. with shirtless rides, Axl Rose, and a new wardrobe.

More on Art Brut: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm