FRIDAY I'M IN LOVE...WITH MORRISSEY (Part 24)
Released on 11th December 1995. The outtakes single.
After Boxers was put out in January 1995, Morrissey was no longer obliged to stay with EMI under whom his albums and singles had been issued on the Parlophone label. He chose to move to RCA with who he recorded the critically-savaged Southpaw Grammar, from which were taken the disappointingly-selling singles Dagenham Dave and The Boy Racer.
So I've no idea what possessed his old record label to shove out Sunny just 14 days after the release of The Boy Racer other than assuming it was out of spite and possibly to try and cash in on folk buying Xmas presents for Morrissey fans . The three tracks dated back at least 18 months and more and quite frankly, are rubbish and the #42 placing was at least 200 places higher than it deserved.
Actually that's unfair as the single borders on the OK.(and its not as bad as Roy's Keen) But the b-sides really should never have seen the light of day....
mp3 : Morrissey - Sunny
mp3 : Morrissey - Black-Eyed Susan
mp3 : Morrissey - A Swallow On My Neck
Better informed fans have said elsewhere that Sunny was originally intended to be part of the Boxers single, and Black-Eyed Susan was considered but rejected for the flip-side of The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get. No mention is made of the original plan for Swallow.....
Sorry for the dip in quality control. I promise to do better next week.
7 comments:
The more you teach me about Morrissey, the more I realize I know nothing! xx
Seriously? There's not even a shrapnel of love for "A Swallow on My Neck" from you, sir? It's got to rank as one of my absolute all-time favourite songs Morrissey has ever been involved with. It's just...such a perfect little pop song - absolutely no clue as to how that slipped under the label's (and your!) quality control radar.
Sorry, I'm not normally one to complain on blog posts (especially since this is one of my favourites), nor am I one of those slightly obsessive Morrissey fanatic types. Honest! I was just caught off guard - thought there were a lot of Moz fans who adore "A Swallow..." to quite the same degree...
I totally agree with Alex's entry. The way Morrissey sings "I know I know I know" in "Swallow on my neck" is heartbreakingly sweet. Moreover, I love "Sunny" and even have some sympathy for the born again atheist "Black Eyed Susan" (a line he repeated in "Nobody Loves Us")although it contains this weird sound collage right in the middle of the track. This again was something Morrissey repeated in "You Were Good In Your Time" on his latest album.
Love your posts JC! Keep'em coming!
I'd have ignored all of these on your verdict, since Moz when he is rubbish is forsooth most horrible rubbish, but having read Mr Alex and Sven's comments I downloaded anyhoo and must say that I concur: 'Swallow' is cracker! Never heard it before, but sounds just fine to this old Charming Man x
Just shows that one person's Meat is another's Murder......
One of the things I think I've highlighted across this series (and there's still quite a few to go) is that SPM does often hide away his best tracks on b-sides. I'm not surprised 'Swallows..' has fans, but its one that, as you can surmise, I wont put in any Top 100.
Still, that's the beauty of pop muzak.
I don't know, I am happy with all three tracks here. As for Swallow - I feel there are a lot of bedroom diary references in the lyrics and those are the ones I usually enjoy the most from Morrissey. I will say that if all three tracks were ones that Morrissey was not planning on ever releasing or at least not in this form, then I am sorry he didn't have his way.
Southpaw Grammar and the accompanying singles might be the most critically-savaged of Moz's oeurvre, but they ARE the album/singles I go back to the most, especially Nobody Loves Us (born again atheist!), which in my very humble opinion IS the best song Our Steven has ever written.
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