Some of you might think that the inclusion of singles that were released only in the USA is cheating a bit. But I'm looking to feature every actual 45 or CD single that Morrissey has issued since 1988. All 37 UK releases....plus these two efforts that were only ever released on the other side of the pond.The strange this is that both Tomorrow and Now My Heart Is Full are among the best tracks he's recorded in his solo career and way superior to many of the singles that have been inflicted upon us in the UK.
Tomorrow is the closing track on the 1992 LP Your Arsenal, and once you get past the plodding guitars of the opening 20 seconds you will find the great man delivering one of his most pleading lovelorn lyrics over a tune that does give a reminder of by The Smiths. I'm assuming that having already lifted three singles from the ten tracks on the LP it was just a step too far for the record label to bring this out, but I reckon it would have been a single that would have gotten radio play and appealed to non-Morrissey fans.
mp3 : Morrissey - Tomorrow
One of the b-sides was Pashernate Love which had already been released in the UK as one of the b-sides to You're The One For Me Fatty, but Let The Right One Slip In was a new song, a more than decent track that features a really understated vocal delivery and that was probably worthy of a place on Your Arsenal - although with its rather arbupt fade-out it was perhaps thought not to be quite the finished article. And until the re-release of Viva Hate in 1997 as part of the centenary celebrations of EMI Records, it was a track only available on the import single:-
mp3 : Morrissey - Let The Right One Slip In
Now if it was a mistake not to release Tomorrow as a single, it was a despicable crime worthy of hanging for the failure to put Now My Heart Is Full out as a 45.
The opening song on the 1994 LP Vauxhall And I. I've written about it before on this blog, and forgive me for repeating it word for word:-
It's my long held view that this is one of the finest tunes and lyrics that Morrissey has ever produced in his solo career that now stretches back some 20 years...
There's gonna be some trouble
A whole house will need re-building
And everyone I love in the house
Will recline on an analyst's couch quite soon
Your Father cracks a joke
And in the usual way
Empties the room
Tell all of my friends
I don't have too many
Just some rain-coated lovers' puny brothers
Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt
Rush to danger
Wind up nowhere
Patric Doonan - raised to wait
I'm tired again, I've tried again
And now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can't explain
So I won't even try to
Dallow, Spicer, Pinkie, Cubitt
Every jammy Stressford poet
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Loafing oafs in all-night chemists
Underact - express depression
Ah, but Bunnie I loved you
I was tired again I've tried again,
And now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can't explain
So I won't even try to
Could you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Will you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Could you pass by ?
Oh ... Now my heart is full
Now my heart is full
And I just can't explain
So ... slow ...
It's those three lines about friends...and not having that many that bring a lump to my throat just about every time I play this song. I know many people think a lot of Morrissey's lyrics are autobiographical - and that may well be true. But in my mind, this song belongs to the same protagonist who just a decade earlier was crying out that he was human and needed to be loved in How Soon Is Now?
Remember how that protagonist had the club where he liked to go, where he stood on his own, and he left on his own and he went home and he cried and he wanted to die? Well...I reckon one day he just plucked up the courage to go to the club and actually meet the someone who really loves him. The problem is, that 10 years later, that the love is dying......slowly and painfully. And our protagonist is left with just a bunch of memories and reference points.....
Or maybe I'm just talking bollocks???
mp3 : Morrissey - Now My Heart Is Full
The UK record label thought Hold On To Your Friends would be a better single - they were clearly correct given that it reached a magnificent #47 in the charts and remains, even to this day, the lowest place any of his singles have ever reached.
The US label included Moonriver as a b-side (as it was with Hold On To Your Friends) but it also added a great live song taken from a concert in Paris in 1992:-
mp3 : Morrissey - Jack The Ripper (live)
You'll hopefully recall that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the live versions of Jack The Ripper have always been much better than the studio version issued on the Certain People I Know single. Well, now you have the proof.
The photo on Tomorrow was taken at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles by Linder Sterling. The fella next to Morrissey is Gary Day, his bass player at the time.
The photo on Now My Heart Is Full was taken by Jake Walters, one-time PA and bodyguard to the great man....and strongly rumoured to have been his lover in the mid-90s.
Two more weeks to go....
10 comments:
Let The Right One Slip In was also the inspiration for the novel / movie Let The Right One In by Jon Ajvide Lindovist. I guess this excellent b-side might have made its way to Sweden too.
Now My Heart Is Full is one of my favourites too, although I'm not sure it's a great single. Most of the names come from Brighton Rock, the Graham Greene novel that became a famous film noir with Richard Attenborough as Pinkie. I've always seen it as part of Morrissey's love of seedy, down-at-hell (meant to type down-at-heel, but that's even better) British gangsters from the black-and-white days.
Vauxhall and I had a lot of strong songs - I also think Speedway is one of his best, though I realise that it wouldn't have made a good single.
Always loved Tomorrow - as the video was shot in the back streets of Nice old town - a place that has much sentimental value to me!
I didn't realize that there were singles released in the U.S. that were different from those in the U.K. I always thought these were by far two of his best songs, and they are two of my favorite.
Now, I want to know when Vauxhall and Your Arsenal are going to get the remastered/reissued treatment. THAT would be a huge treat...
It should be pointed out that 'Tomorrow' was in fact remixed for US single release so it's worth grabbing even if you already own 'Your Arsenal', and the live version of 'Jack the Ripper' is the same as that on 'Beethoven was Deaf'.
Finally, I don't know if this post is the last in the series or not, but I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate you on the whole endeavour.
*sigh.... you saved some of the best album covers for last too
well yes, his lyrics are what they are and these are brilliant! thanks for pointing them out, and I do share your view, totally xoxo
Loved this series.
Good grief those sleeves are homoerotic. Could almost be a D&G advert.
BRILLIANT STUFF!! as always. It's wonderful how Morrissey toys with his sexuality in the tradition of Bowie, Mercury, Elton and others. Being more knowing in this day and age hasn't spoiled the aura either!
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