THAT MORRISSEY LP TRACK BY TRACK
CRITICAL opinion is unanimous on this one—with “Viva Hate!”, Morrissey has returned to the apex of pop spokesmanship and furnished us with an album of redoubtable fables and clarion calls our time. From the wistful and retrospective, to the assertive and plain speaking, this is Morrissey at his fey best, trailing swathes of falsetto glory behind him. Here, the Maker's experts rally round to offer an indispensible and exclusive TTT track-by-track assessment of the latest meisterwerk.
ROUGH BOYS
A searing account of the playground traumas of the introverted, bespectacled boy who Dared To Be Different, in a hostile Northern environment where introspection earned you a thick ear and the jeers of the shopfloor girls in the Hovis factory across the way. Contains the unforgettable lines, “Rough boys/In the dinner queue/Pushing and shoving like brutes at the trough/No, I didn't mean to touch your bottom/l was pushed from behind/You wouldn’t hit a boy/Wearing glasses, would you/You would?/Oh well, fair enough . ..”
JESS IN SKEGNESS
(That’s 'Jest In Skegness’! — angry Morrissey) The harrowing, but humorous account of one small boy’s misery in a provincial seaside town, as the cold winds that blast the seafront snatch the exercise book from his hand, sending it soaring, soaring over the rooftops of the “Golden Sands Chalet Park”. Most poignant lines include: “The burly fellow/Lifts me with hairy arms onto the donkey/Bumpety bumpety bump/The beach is coarse and rocky/l feel a throbbing/l felt it once on the top deck/Of the bus to Blackburn”
HELLO, LITTLE ASIAN FELLOW
A brave, sympathetic gesture to the Asian community in which, as ever, Morrissey breaks with taboos and breaks barriers. “Aie, aie, Mr Singh/Though your flares are revolting/Your tie laughable/Your moustache an embarrassment/And you’re into crass disco music/And you probably own a sweetshop/l consider you a friend, of sorts”.
STOP MINCING (WORDS)
A brave statement of intent, in which Morrissey answers back to those who would berate him for his flaunting of “unmanly” ways, his ostentatious dandyism and his flouting of convention. Other tracks include “I’d Electrocute Myself (Only There's A Power Cut)” and “Slap Wrists Margaret” which goes “Margaret/You have committed the greatest sin of all/You bore me to distraction/With your suburban ways/When people bore me I like to chop their heads off/That’s why they put me away/Aiaiy. Aiaiy, Aiaiy”.
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