I've never understood Morrissey's appeal (except to similarly overwrought teenagers), though I could see tolerating him in the Smiths to hear Johnny Marr's guitar work.
And to think you were once the Hero.
Are you lauding Morrissey or dissing Marr?
Lauding Morrissey, whom I believe wrote most of the Smiths' songs.
Sigh. I hate to do this...
You priss.
If I ever do have a gay sexual encounter, you can rest assured that "Ask" will be blaring in the background. And if you can't appreciate a line like, "Writing frightening verse/To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg," then your soul is dead.
A co-worker loaned me one of Morrissey's latest (You Are The Quarry) because he said I had to hear it. It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
The best thing about Morrissey is his name check in Stupid Day Job by Wally Pleasant which, conveniently, someone just put online last week.
If I ever do have a gay sexual encounter
You know, Tim, when I worked at a mental healthcare agency, they always taught us that the best way to evaluate the likelihood of a person doing something was to ask them "Do you have a plan?"
Let us all pause a moment to savor that pwnage.
OK...
It had so crossed the line over into unintentional self-parody it was actually kind of amusing.
I told my brother once that I thought that, with the Smiths, the self-parody and amusingness was intentional (insert lengthy explanation about how this does not mean that I am dismissing the Smiths out of hand, though the pleasure I get from them is somewhat guilty). My brother said, "I think the lesson of Morrissey's solo career was that it wasn't. No, the lesson of Morrissey's solo career is that it really was all about the guitar."
the sudden appearance of Morrissey's testicles.
Please reassure me that "Ringleader of the Tormentors" is an audio CD and not a video of any form.
I have to say, the Smiths were rather ruined for me when, while I was listening to them in my dorm room and feeling funky over a boy who didn't love me, said boy (who was a good friend) stopped by, opened the door, and said "oh, stop sitting here listening to the Smiths and feeling sorry for yourself, and come out to the pub with the rest of us."
9: Matt, the reason The Smiths appeared to be such an amusingly parodic band was in fact because the guitar was mocking the lyrics.
I don't know that I ever sat around listening to the Smiths feeling sorry for myself. In the dorms I think I would sit around listening to Tom Waits and feeling sorry for myself. More recently (though not that recently) Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch. I don't think the "come on out to the pub" move would work with Tom Waits, though properly speaking you shouldn't be sitting around listening to Tom Waits feeling sorry for yourself and not drinking.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!" I suspect that this confirms every stereotype y'all have of me.
13 -- what's Gillian Welch like? I was sitting in with Felt last night and one of the songs we played was her "Pass You By". Sounded kinda country but that could have been the cover rather than the song itself -- many of their covers of songs I knew sounded quite different from the originals.
Did she give you a kitten?
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Morrissey is being serious?
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much. Now I don't know what to think.
I would worry about someone who could write 'And if a double-decker bus/crashes into us/To die by your side/is such a heavenly way to die' in perfect earnestness.
If it makes it any funnier, the guy who dragged me out to the pub and away from mooning over him kinda reminds me of Ogged. Actually, the other way around, but that sentence structure doesn't work as well.
With the exception of Soul Journey and perhaps any albums she may have done since them, she's pretty old-style. Much of her stuff is two acoustic guitars and two voices, and she self-consciously models a lot of her stuff after old folk tunes; f'rinstance, much of "Elvis Presley Blues" is very reminiscent of Mississippi John Hurt's "Spike Driver Blues."
I like her a lot, and believe Ogged (PBUH) was a fan.
19 about Gillian Welch. She also, you may have gathered, tends toward the depressing.
I drink and listen to Tom Waits when I'm happy. I'm too embarrassed to admit what I listen to when I'm throwing a pity party.
I'm going to assume that 22 means "Also Becks Be Ambarrassed," because the alternative makes no sense.
I invite Nina Simone to a lot of my pity parties.
22: In the throes of a major-league pity party, that would be perverse.
Want to know embarrassing? When I broke up with my long-term college boyfriend, I came home, turned on MTV, and Cher's song "Believe" was playing. In my weakened state, it, like, spoke to me so I went out and bought it and played it over and over for about a week. Because I did believe in life after love, dammit!
You may all point and laugh now.
I once only semi-ironically listened to Erasure's Oh L'Amour during a pity party. But it was at least semi-ironically. Sometimes I like to pity myself and laugh at myself at the same time.
We can all agree that what one does when broken-hearted and self-pitying is likely to be embarrassing and not to be held against one. (For instance: the whole TiVo period of this blog.)
Let's just say there's some very whiny emo that has gone through heavy rotation a few times.
Sometimes I like to pity myself and laugh at myself at the same time.
See, and in re 17, that's my reading of Smiths-era Morrissey.
self-pitying is likely to be embarrassing and not to be held against one
If I said you had a pitiful body, would you hold it against me?
I so wanna know which whiny emo. Not that I'd recognize it, since I've lost track of contemporary pop, but I bet I could find some mp3s.
Human Drama. That shit'll make you want to kill yourself.
I so wanna know which whiny emo.
New Amsterdams and Dashboard Confessional, mostly.
Heh. I was thinking of emailing you and offering naked pictures in exchange for embarrassing information. Glad I waited a minute on that thought ;)
That shit'll make you want to kill yourself.
The picture on their front page makes me want to kill myself. No, wait. Him, I mean.
I also have to say I like the idea of "the TiVo period of this blog", like Ogged was an artist who worked with certain themes in various periods throughout his career.
I could produce much, much more embarrassing information than that for naked pictures.
But would it be embarrassing information I actually wanted?
Probably less than I want the naked pictures, alas.
"Produce embarrassing information" is a pretty clunky euphemism.
43: It's no "thick southern drawl," it's true.
I would think that a truly enormous cock would be kinda clunky, yeah.
All these years I thought he was being so ironic magnets stuck to him, which was why I enjoyed his lyrics so much.
Yeah, that's always been my take on Moz, too. You know, among Mexicans, the man's like a God.
One time when I was sitting around in a dorm room listening to a Smiths concert on the radio an extremely cute girl I'd never really talked to before rushed in and said, "You're listening to the Smiths? I love the Smiths!"
That could be a Belle & Sebastian song.
I would think that a truly enormous cock would be kinda clunky, yeah.
Sorry, boys and girls, he said emo.
LOL. So it's all a sham. That explains a lot....
Never underestimate, people. Especially you, B.
Hey, I'm willing to believe whatever I'm told--I'm gullible like that--but I'm, ah, open to whatever comes along unless definitive proof is provided.
I so do not want to write this conference paper. Who wants to do it for me?
Who wants to do it for me?
The "it for" is superfluous.
50 -- Why not go to the experts?
Actually, apo, I've reached the point in my procrastination/anxiety loop where I'm seriously considering taking a masturbation break.
But I really have to write this paper.
I could do a lot of things. Like write this fucking paper, for one, if I'd just stop spazzing about it.
I had too much goddamn coffee this morning.
Hey, what was that site that would tell you songs you'd like based on other songs you said you'd like?
Ah, the pity party. If there's one thing that rock/pop music is good for, it's tracing out all the different directions self-pity can take. Horrible early Tom Waits is one path; I took it myself once upon a time. Toussaint McCall's "Nothing Takes the Place of You" always works as well. Which reminds me: when Sinead's cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U" hit the top, was that the biggest, nationwide pity party ever?
In recent years, as middle age looms, Charlie Rich's "Life Has Its Little Ups and Downs" has taken over. I've stooped so low as to post the .mp3 myself, but enough about that.
Diss Morrissey, get BPhd masturbation talk. Do we need any more proof that the world is patently unfair?
"I've seen this happen in other people's lives/
And now, it's happening in mine."
That lyric, especially as it's sung, vindicates Morrissey. Case dismissed.
"You're the one for me, fatty
You're the one I really, really love
And I will stay
Promise you'll say
If I'm ever in your way
A-hey"
Charges refiled.
"I thought that if you had
An acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were
A protest singer
Oh, I can smile about it now
But at the time it was terrible"
Defense rests.
"Ouija board, ouija board, ouija board
Would you work for me ?
I have got to get through
To a good friend
Well, she has now gone
From this unhappy planet
With all the carnivores
And the destructors of it."
"A heartless hand on my shoulder
A push—and it's over
Alabaster crashes down
(Six months is a long time)
Tried living in the real world
Instead of a shell
But before I began . . .
I was bored before I even began"
Oh, you silly old man
You silly old man
You're making a fool of yourself
So get off the stage
61: ?? I thought the whole point of Morrisey was sublimated masturbation. No?
66: Okay, that's pretty good. But it really doesn't comepnsate for the horror of 65.
68: That's why you shouldn't reward apo for not getting it.
67 to 65.
you shouldn't reward apo
Too late.
Apo got no pictures. And I got my paper written. Which I care about a lot more than withholding fantasy material from men I've never actually met.
It all comes down to who you believe - me or the liberal blogosphere.
Various Unfogged commenters say these pictures are not the authentic face of BitchPhd masturbating. I wish I agreed with that. But, sadly, they are her very image today.
I thought the whole point of Morrisey was sublimated masturbation.
Morrissey also produces a hung jury.
Horrible early Tom Waits
Hey! There's no such thing!
(But in fact the moping in question was done to Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, and Big Time.)
Be it recorded that I am currently listening to the Housemartins. Not moping, though. Procrastinating.
Hey! There's no such thing!
Oy. All that fake Louis Armstrong-style singing, maudlin piano stuff. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
But in fact the moping in question was done to Rain Dogs, Franks Wild Years, and Big Time.
Well, those are better. At least Rain Dogs is, aside from a few songs ("Time" is unlistenable.) A couple of good songs on Swordfishtrombones as well. I was always put off by the way the vocals sound on Frank's Wild Year's, like they were recorded over a telephone.
You want the ultimate pity party, you gotta go country. Morrisey's got nothing on Merle Haggard.
Sorry, apo, that's not masturbating BitchPhD. You been had.
ogmb, I will not be swayed by your leftist moonbat resistance to plain facts. You're the same people who have been saying that Iraq is a quagmire for years now.
80: I'm torn between agreeing enthusiastically with the last paragraph, dissenting from your choice of exemplar (George Jones! Hank Williams!), and quietly tiptoeing away from the dangerous maniac who's only lukewarm about late-80s Tom Waits.
I call upon those who have met me to confirm or refute the validity of apo's pictures.
You're just another person in the world
You're just another fool with radical views
You're just another who has maddening views
You want to turn it on its head
By staying in bed !
When I went pity party over a break up, I started reading blogs. Morrissey would have been better.
83: Jones or Williams would do as well--I chose Merle because he's underrated as a purveyor of sorrowful navel-gazing. Also, I don't care for Jones that much, aside from a half-dozen songs. Though I must of those: they are maudlin and full of self-pity. They are magnificent!
I thought I was disparaging early to mid 1980's Waits, but I see that you are right. After that, I don't think I've cared for more than a song or two by him. If the Ramones covered it, it's ok, otherwise I don't want to hear it.
Also good for those trying to be alone and brave: Billy Bragg's Worker's Playtime.
If George Jones plays a pity party, Tammy Wynette hosts a full-blown condolence conference.
I love Waits, but he doesn't work as pity music for me.
Lambchop (particularly the 'Nixon' album), bits of Bjork (especially Vespertine) and Dusty Springfield (Dusty in Memphis) all = pity music for me.
Damon and Naomi's More Sad Hits is a great mope album.
And there's nothing like being just-friendsed by a girl you're really into, coming home, and putting on the record you bought a couple of days ago and haven't got around to listening yet, which happens to be In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.
If George Jones plays a pity party, Tammy Wynette hosts a full-blown condolence conference.
At which there's a plenary session on Lyle Lovett's rendition of "Stand By Your Man".
'In the Wee Small Hours...' is great.
Bits of Chet Baker Sings are also great for a melancholy 50s moment. Some of Curtis Mayfield's stuff with the Impressions also works.
Growing up I hated the Smiths but only by association -- the people who were huge Smiths fans were often wankers -- it was only later I got into them and while I love Marr's playing, he hasn't done anything really interesting since he stopped working with Morrisey.
currently listening to the Housemartins.
They are, annoyingly and inexplicably, not on iTunes in America. And apparently you cannot download music from other countries' iTunes. And all my Housemartins is on cassette or vinyl. Feh.
This is a CD of London O, Hull 4 (and if anyone can explain that thanks) I bought for $3 while on spring break in a city with better CD stores than Lubbock. Good stuff.
Gratuitously On Topic, though I liked the Housemartins and Fine Young Cannibals, I never heard any Smiths I liked.
Yeah, I know all of London 0 Hull 4 by heart.
Oh, I always thought London 0 Hull 4 represented a dream footie score.
95: So, basically, slol hates gay people.
Do you have any evidence that FYC and the Housemartins are not gay? Okay, what's-his-name did marry the blonde model-looking woman from television, but that doesn't prove anything.
Wait, what sucks? The Housemartins album does not suck!
what's-his-name did marry the blonde model-looking woman from television
What I meant was, Norman “Fatboy Slim” Cook (formerly of The Housemartins) married Zoë Ball.
101: Indeed it doesn't. (Found that before 102 posted, ha!)
99: Wait, I think I get it. In 90 "a couple of days ago" means a couple of days before the just-friendsing, which took place years and years ago. I am largely over it.
Yeah, I'm thinking Weiner is really sucking here. Some friend you are, Weiner.
He's trying to help you maintain some semblance of anonymity through plausible deniability.
It's not nice to put your friends on the spot by asking them to lie for you.
You and I both know that you are so bullshitting this one.
apo: jebus. if we judge lyricists by their worst work instead of their best, who the hell is going to survive?
Great, Yahoo mail has crapped out. John Tingley, if you're around, you can email me instead on my gmail account: firstnamelastname@gmail.com.
Like I said.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Sorry, sorry.
*ahem*
That is definitely not bphd masturbating.
Her o-face has more of a clenched-teeth look.
The lady's honor has been publicly called into question. It's either protesting or challenging you to a duel, and I think the Mineshaft would be irked at me if I shot you.
That's not me on that billboard.
No, it's me. And you'll notice I'm wearing neither bowling shoes nor an ugly rain jacket.
There's only one way to settle this: an old-fashioned bake-off, just like in the Old West.
Okay, but LB is disqualified from judging, b/c she likes puffy American-style cake.
In that case, I highly recommend that no one else taste my enry.
Is that what the kids are calling it today?
Entry. Meaning baked good. Meaning I intend to spit in it. Or worse.
I highly recommend that no one loans B their cheese grater.
I know I should get that joke, but I've forgotten what it alludes to.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
Actually, though, no need. I have a ready supply of mouse poop.
Somehow, it seems that would be less viscerally satisfying.
7: not that it's a great album, but I'm pretty sure it's intentional self-parody, btw....
Yeah, but it wouldn't require me to dry and grate my own crap.
Man, I go away for however long I've been away and everyone's musical goes to hell.
1. I like the Smiths and you should too.
2. The dissonant part of Gillian Welch's "Time (the Revelator)" is great.
3. After hearing Buck Owens make fun of Johnny Cash on the radio driving to the airport yesterday (on a CD I just purchased at, of all places, the Downtown Music Gallery), I'm having trouble taking him very seriously. I know no one mentioned him.
The taste || of love is sweet
When hearts || like ours meet
I stole your wife and that's a fact
But she ain't no good so you can have her back.
4. The vocals on Franks Wild Years are occasionally annoying, but they're different from song to song, and the guitar solos on "Down in the Hole" makes up for everything you might dislike about the rest of the album (which, if you're right-minded, isn't very much). Additionally, his first album is good! I even like "Ol' 55".
Lauding Morrissey, whom I believe wrote most of the Smiths' songs.
Nice effort, but you want "who" here.
I notice, Ben, that you failed to address the most pressing issue in this thread. Hmph.
Man, I go away for however long I've been away and everyone's musical goes to hell.
I know, man, we've been having massive problems with production.
U;n really tied (witnses my typing here) and I didn't read the whole thing.
Also witness the absence of the word "taste" following the word "musical" in my post supra.
Part of the typing thing was that my fingers were misaligned on the keyboard. And it's not so much tiredness as it is EYES HURT and I don't want to look at the glaring whiteness of the screen, but also tired. I hate air travel! I think I'll go lie down now.
It's 9 pm in New York, Ben is on spring break, and he's going to lie down.
Youth is wasted on the young.
(142 was apropos of nothing. I just had to say it after 138.)
133: `morrissey, you are the quarry', best he's done in ages.
I think I know which Pakistani village is my next destination...
(Apropos of nothing.)
Dude! How the hell did that not get sent for moderation! I'm leaving it, though. It's awesome.
And also apropos of nothing, I think my fucking cubemate gave me her cold. Must! Not! Get! Sick!
And from that comment, "Major Qaiser Mustafa Butt" is one seriously great name.
For a second, I thought 148 meant that you approved my cubemate's germ warfare campaign, in which case I would have had to kick your ass. As long as you're just approving worthy comment spam, go ahead.
I don't get that comment spam: no links, no action plan, no request for money. Is he just a particularly aggressive village historian? Misguided minister of tourism?
It's not clear what's going to snap first: the guy next to me, or the roll of microfilm he's struggling to read.
Major Qaiser Mustafa has record of Best Smasher of Asia,Zaman Butt has record of Best Buster of Asia.
They play some mean volleyball down there in Pakistan.
'morrissey, you are the quarry', best he's done in ages.
Really? Other than Irish Blood English Heart it bored me to tears. For me Southpaw Grammar, Maladjusted and Vauxhall and I rank among the best he's recorded, marred or marrless.
152: Microfilm so sucks. And yet I love it. Some kind of weird sublimated masochism, or something.
(apostropher Photoshop homework assignment: pls photoshop microfilm reader into first link of 79)
I have just spent about twenty minutes ineffectually searching for a comment where I responded to a query from Drymala about HBO's "Big Love." Which is better, the MT or the Google site search, and why are neither of them working out for me?
I work in the microforms department of my school library (which is exactly as boring a job as it sounds) and my conclusion is that microfilm was a remarkable medium for the 1950s and it still is a remarkable medium for the 1950s.
LOL, she looks like she's in agony. Which is just about right.
155: B, I know what you mean, but it's hard to explain.
159: As it happens, what I've been doing is introducing the 1950s to the 21st century: I'm scanning the microfilm I want and burning the individual pages onto CDs. It's been tedious and slow (about 2 minutes per image, most of which time I spend sitting there as the scanner runs), but so mindless that I've been able to read blogs articles/books while I work. But I just learned today that the scanner can't handle the small print of newspapers, so it's back to the old school machines for me.
My goal in life is to get all the microfilm I use up on the web.
Luckily other people, with lots of money, are doing most of that for me.
Well, certain time periods seem to be getting a lot of help from the digitizing projects, but as far as I know only some of the Congressional records I use have been put on the web. The main newspapers I need are too local to be a high priority for most people, and the same goes for the handwritten correspondence.
Ugh, what a pain in the ass. I feel for you.
157: The MT search for the keywords "jackmormon" and "polygamy" turned up what you're looking for, but google got me nowhere. It may be too recent for the index.
Thanks, eb! That was really driving me crazy.
Hey, I seem to have turned this thread into a pity party. Maybe I should now check out this "Morrissey" character everyone's been talking about.
(And thanks for the sympathy, B.)
For a truly melancholy pity party you need Satie's Gymnopedies.
" London O, Hull 4 (and if anyone can explain that thanks) "
In London there are no better bands than the Housemartins, but in Hull there are 4.
( This is unlikely to have actually been the case)
Art reviews from the Mineshaft:
"You know that famous Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling whose fingers are nearly touching God's but not quite? Well, I've stroked him. I've run my hand along his naked body, and I've slapped that big, muscled thigh of his. Not a hard slap, mind you. Just a soft slap of affection that ended on a rub. I've even stroked his sweet little willy. I know I shouldn't have done. But I couldn't stop myself. And it was probably the single most exciting moment I have had in art.
"I wear black on the outside
because black is how i feel on the inside"
is the single best Morrissey quote ever for taking the piss out of pretentious gits.
