There are multitudes of qualities that make Morrissey’s lyrics so beloved by generations of fans all over the world, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about his gift as a descriptive storyteller, so I wanted to explore that a bit...
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| Morrissey in Texas, 2019 |
I’ve always been a lyrics girl. For me to truly get into an artist, their words need to speak to me. Voice is undoubtedly crucial, and instrumentals can make or break things as well, but I love a song that can draw me in and tell me something about life, myself, or someone else. When I discovered Morrissey, it was not only his beautiful voice, but also his words that gave a jolt and awareness to my heart. It was something I felt I had been missing in life, somehow soothing a sense of loneliness and strangeness that had followed me relentlessly since almost before I can remember.
For many of us, Morrissey’s lyrics are an emotional lifeline, and it’s hard to imagine existence without the guidance of his words. His music provides a soundtrack to our lives. It’s remarkable how certain qualities of his songs continue to jump out at me, years after first delving into his catalogue. For, not only does he connect with his audience on such a deep level emotionally, but he is also a brilliant storyteller.
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| Ringleader era Morrissey looking very fetching in a tux, via Pinterest |
I was trying to cope with post-tour blues, and craving movement in a world of stagnation, so I put on one of my favourite Morrissey records, Ringleader of the Tormentors, and went for a drive. Through a maze of traffic lights and intersections, with trees and buildings whirring by, it struck me how, while my eyes were on the road (don’t worry!) my mind’s eye was transported to entirely different places, and into other people’s lives, through Morrissey’s lyricism. Suddenly, I was running on the streets, down damp dark pitted back alleys, with On The Streets I Ran dancing through my speakers:
At me from the glass and lurches
Oh, forgive me on the streets I ran
Turned sickness into popular song
Streets of wet black holes
On roads you can never know...
The words in this case aren’t necessarily extravagant, they don’t have to be, but the descriptive quality lends an evocative sense of time and place. I can almost feel my feet slamming into the puddles on a dark street, the eerie faces. The Father Who Must Be Killed, from the same album, sends me to another scene, this time urgent, frustrated, violent, desperate:
Stepchild, there’s a knife in a drawer in a room downstairs
And you, you know what you must do
So the stepchild ran with a knife to his sleeping frame
And slams it in his arms, his legs, his face, his neck and says
There’s a law against me now
And the father who must be killed
With his dying breath, he grabs her hand
And he looks into her eyes
He says “I’m sorry” and he dies...
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| Morrissey signing a book on stage |
Switching to 2009 compilation album Swords, even the beauty of a single descriptive line from I Knew I Was Next jumped out at me: “the shadows of trees, they reach to me.” The imagery is enchanting, dark, and a little bit haunting.
Sister, he’s a poet.
It strikes me how Morrissey has the ability to convey, in a 4 or 5 minute song, a transformative experience, where the listener feels as if they are completely enveloped and engaged within a different dimension. This is the art of storytelling, and part of what makes Morrissey’s music so timeless. It is an innate aspect of his talent as an artist, and I believe it is also probably influenced by his love of literature.
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| Morrissey standing in front of a James Baldwin backdrop, Hollywood Bowl, 2019 |
James Baldwin, one of Morrissey’s great influences, once said of writing, “Don’t describe it, show it ... Don’t describe a purple sunset, make me see that it is purple.” I feel Morrissey’s lyrics often give us insight into another world that goes beyond typical description, akin to what Baldwin discusses here: we are shown the places Morrissey is singing about, his words paint a story and our imaginations travel to where he beckons us. Sights, sounds, sensations, make his art living and vibrant, our blood is flowing, and a certain magic takes place.
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| James Baldwin, NY Public Library, Harlem |
I thought I would look at some other Morrissey songs across his discography where sense of place creates these transportive experiences, starting back with his time in the Smiths and Rusholme Ruffians, from Meat is Murder:
The last night of the fair
by the big wheel generator
a boy is stabbed
and his money is grabbed
and the air hangs heavy like a dulling wine...
The atmosphere is deliciously sinister and I can absolutely feel that heavy, heady air sticking to my skin. “The grease in the hair, of a speedway operator, is all a tremulous heart requires” is another spellbinding moment, vivid in the mind's eye.
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| photo by Kevin Cummins |
Boxers, from 1995, makes you feel as if you are at the match yourself, awash in the boxer’s loss:
Losing in front of your home town
The crowd call your name
They love you all the same
The sound, the smell, and the spray
You will take them all away
And they’ll stay
Til the grave
Maladjusted, from the 1997 studio album of the same name, in my opinion, is one of the greatest descriptive moments in music history. It has the poeticism of a classic novel. Those opening lines always give me goosebumps, and I won’t reproduce the entire song here – but it is alluring storytelling at its finest: atmospheric and building, building, building.
I want to start from
Before the beginning
Loot wine, “be mine, and
Then let’s stay out for the night”
Ride via Parkside
Semi-perilous lives
Jeer the lights in the windows
Of all safe and stable homes...
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| Morrissey in London, 2018 |
Come Back to Camden, from 2004’s You Are The Quarry, is exceptionally beautiful, mournful and filled with the ache of loneliness, as you are transported under “slate grey Victorian sky.”
The tile yard all along the railings
Up a discoloured dark brown staircase
Here you’ll find despair and I
...
Drinking tea with the taste of the Thames
Sullenly on a chair on the pavement
...
Where taxi drivers never stop talking
Under slate grey Victorian sky
Here you’ll find despair and I
Istanbul, from 2014’s World Peace Is None Of Your Business, puts the listener directly onto the streets of the Turkish city, with the father looking for his missing son.
Moonlight jumping through the trees
Sunken eyes avoiding me
From dusk til dawn the hunt is on
The father searches for the son
Once I Saw The River Clean, from Morrissey’s most recent release, 2020’s I Am Not A Dog On A Chain, takes one back in time, along on a walk with young Morrissey and his grandmother:
I walked with my grandmother
Along the groan of Talbot road
In the gardens by the graves
I can just about behave
Arrogant and paranoid,
All around, see fathead youth
Look into their brutal eyes
But only if you want the truth
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| Morrissey singing in front of a childhood photo, Las Vegas, 2021 |
Morrissey’s extraordinary ability to invoke a sense of time and place is only one facet of many that make his lyrics so special, and he continues to captivate, inspiring his audience with his words and voice. Music that speaks to the human psyche is incredibly rare these days, and to create with such descriptive, poetic vibrance is indeed even rarer. Despite relentless social media and clickbait ‘journalist’s’ attempts to discredit him, Morrissey stands the test of time as a unique and irreplaceable artist, holding a special place in the hearts of his many fans around the world.
His words are engraved on our spirits, minds, hearts, and skin.
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| Morrissey headlining Riot Fest, 2021 Photo by Armando L. Sanchez |
Well written.
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