Mike Natale:Listened to: CD
I should warn you all, this post will be short. I have to rush, as I have a lot of things to do today before I head into Manhattan to see The Swell Season in concert. To be honest, I find it fitting that the album would be The Smiths, as I feel the same honesty from Hansard as I do Morrisey, and I wish I had time to elaborate on that. Eh, fuck it, they have 3 more albums on the list for me to do that.
It was Halloween, senior year. We were flipping stations on the radio, me in my John Lennon costume next to my Yoko, Eve, and Fat Albert. It was then I heard a familiar voice on the radio, singing a song I’d never heard before. I was entranced. Could my favorite singer, who ominously drowned in 1997, have really sung the lyrics “The sea, it wants to take me”? He had, in fact, as the radio host later stated “That was a new posthumous release from the late Jeff Buckley, performing a cover of The Smiths’ ‘I Know It’s Over’.”
It was then I was convinced I had to track down that song. I bought the Buckley album it came from, the 45 they released to promote the aforementioned album, and, one day while buying an array of CDs at Borders, the original Smiths album it came from. I had heard of The Smiths, but they just struck me as more whiney musicians for indie-loving loners to praise on blogs…such…as…the one…I’m about…to praise them…on…my god, what have I become?
Anyway, when I decided to listen to the album, realized that either I had turned into the indie-loving loner I had so despised, or I had misjudged The Smiths, and a lot of me is banking on the latter of the two (after all, if I was an indie-loving loner, I wouldn‘t hate Sonic Youth, but more on that at a later time). Starting with a quip from 60’s cinema, a passion of Morrissey’s, we head into a very bass-heavy, too-rock-for-80’s music rock track entitled “The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty)”. Of course, this track depresses me a tad for personal reasons. There was a girl who I knew, and we were so in sync mentally that I could just tell what she’d think of things without her even being there, and every time I hear this track, when it gets to the line “So, I broke into the palace/With a sponge and a rusty spanner/She said : "Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing"/I said : "That's nothing - you should hear me play pian-er" I could hear her giggling and saying “Oh, that’s lame.”
Only a few of these tracks are forgettable (Frankly Mister Shankly/Vicar In A Tutu/Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others), and even those have some nice poetry, but where this album really shines is it’s tragic ballade ring tracks like Never Had No One Ever, the Wee Small Hours for the emo-set. “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side” and “Bigmouth Strikes Again” have a guitar sound that reminds me of Crazy On You, and are even more fun than that for lacking that sometimes grating wailing of Heart. As I love john Keats, W.B. Yeats, and Oscar Wilde, “Cemetery Gates” could be the crappiest song ever and I’d still enjoy it (it is, in fact, nothing special) but it does remind me of “Here's Where the Story Ends” by The Sundays, and there’s nothing I can say about “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” that can’t be said on one million (500) Days Of Summer fan-sites better than I would, except that I truly wish I had written the lyrics “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die”.
Without a doubt, though, the finest track on the album is the one that drew me to it. “I Know It’s Over” has some of the most beautiful lyrics and melody combinations of heard since Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (with which it shares chord structure and progression). The lyrics: "If you're so funny/Then why are you on your own tonight?/And if you're so clever/Then why are you on your own tonight?/If you're so very entertaining/Then why are you on your own tonight?/If you're so very good-looking/Why do you sleep alone tonight?/I know …/'Cause tonight is just like any other night/That's why you're on your own tonight/With your triumphs and your charms/While they're in each other's arms..."*
have such a power and potency to them that they alone almost justify when Jeff buckley declared that everything from the 80’s was shit “…except The Smiths”.
-Mike
*Lovingly reprinted without permission from Morrissey.
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Everyone, please welcome back Nick Young, who has chosen to guest spot on albums of his choosing rather than throw his life away on a silly internet endeavor that about 2 people read on a regular basis. I, however, will continue doing this daily to stave off the desire to leap off the roof. So, without further ado, here’s Nick Young.
Nick Young:
How can an album sound punk without once attempting to be punk?
Upon first listen there's something transformative and tragic about The Smith's third studio album, "The Queen Is Dead." There's something beautiful about Morrissey's ability to emote without ever raising his voice above a polite melody. Melancholy genius actually bombards you so consistently on "The Queen Is Dead" you find yourself at odds keeping up with it. Frankly, the album is quite intimidating upon first listen. Paradoxically, there's also something brilliantly welcoming about the LP's jangly guitars and woozy vocals leading us into musical kingdom come. If I haven't caught your interest by now, just know that we wouldn't have "(500)Days of Summer" or "(500) Days of Singers" without it.
The first eighteen seconds of the opening cut, "The Queen Is Dead," sound like the death of a Disney song. First an indistinct voice that sounds like a zombified Disney cartoon informs us that life is basically bullshit. "I don't bless them," the voice croaks, disregarding everyone in the world in four blunt words. Here is where the egg of life cracks and falls apart for anyone caught in the maelstrom of Morrissey’s crooning intonation. "Farewell to this land's cheerless marshes," he drunkenly salutes (as if he's actually escaping somehow). His words drip with bitterness. The lyric, "No one talks about castration," turns weakness and feelings of inferiority into art. The verse that follows speaks volumes:
We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
Like love and law and poverty
Oh, these are the things that kill me
"Frankly, Mr. Shankly" (fame, fame, fatal fame) is lyrically flawless. Any starry-eyed Indie-rocker can relate to the yearning in the lyric "I want to live and I want to love." Who doesn't want those things? "I Know It's Over" is so fucking tragic that I think it really can only be heard when you're alone. I'm almost positive that the song won't play if there's another person in the room. "Oh mother I can hear the soil falling over my head," Morrissey tearlessly laments as the cold hand of death escorts him across the river Styx inside his mind.
And do we really have to go over why "Never Had No One Ever" is significant to my, er, well, basically everybody's love life (somewhere along the line)? I mean come on! If you can't relate to these lyrics, then you've never truly felt alone before:
When you walk without ease
On the streets where you were raised...
I had a really bad dream
It lasted 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days
And I know that, I know that
I never had no one ever
-Nick
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Well, tomorrow will be #194: Transformer by Lou Reed. Hopefully it’ll be up before 2 pm, but come on, guys, I have the Swell Season concert tonight. My ass is gonna Falling Slowly well into the night.
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