In the interest of full disclosure, I suppose I should get it out of the way and tell you now– I’m a big, giant, freakish fan of The Smiths.
I didn’t used to be. I used to consider them overrated and even boring. I believed what people said about Morrissey, that he was the Pope of Mope, a touchstone for depressive teenagers, with flat, one-dimensional lyrics.
Then a couple of things happened. A friend played “Cemetery Gates” for me to cheer me up one night, and after I scoffed (The Smiths? To cheer me up?), I realized that she was right, and it was a beautiful, clever, cheerful song. With references to Keats and Oscar Wilde, no less.
I started giving Mozzer et al more of a chance, and a couple of years later, when I went through a particularly rough spot, I realized what fantastic companions The Smiths can be. They’re occasionally genuinely angsty, enough that you can properly empathize with them, but the lyrics are brilliant and have so many facets that you’ll find yourself laughing, or at least quirking a smile, at the most unexpected moments.
I also need to mention that Morrissey, the singer and lyricist, and Johnny Marr, the guitarist and melody-maker, are perhaps the most perfect songwriting team in all of western (alterna)(pop)(rock) history. To my personal taste I would definitely place them above Lennon/McCartney, and their break-up was certainly no less a tragedy.
Having said all this, and having recently been on the topics of both Morrissey and Elvis, I’d like to examine one of their minor gems, “Rusholme Ruffians.” If you’re unfamiliar, take a moment to listen:
I’m by no means the first person to point this out, but this song is nearly an example of absolutely brilliant plagiarism. It’s not actually plagiarism, of course, but two different sources being folded in together marvelously well, which happens to be one of Morrissey’s specialties. In this case, it’s British comedian, actress, and writer/songwriter, Victoria Wood, for the subject matter (and many of the lyrics), and Elvis Presley, that American rock ‘n’ roll rogue, for the music.
The Victoria Wood song that Mozzer lifted from is called “Fourteen Again,” and it’s from a play she wrote called Talent that was first performed in 1978, a mere seven years before “Rusholme Ruffians” was released. Here’s a comparison of the lyrics, with the similarities color-coded (I’ve taken out where things repeat in “Rusholme Ruffians” for brevity’s sake):
| “Rusholme Ruffians” ©1985 Morrissey/Marr (lyrics from LASID) The last night of the fair She is Famous And though I walk home alone The last night of the fair And though I walk home alone Then someone falls in love And though I walk home alone This is the last night of the fair So … scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen And though I walk home alone |
“Fourteen Again” ©1978 Victoria Wood (from here) I want to be fourteen again, I want to be fourteen again, I want to be fourteen again, French kissing as the kiosks shut I want to be fourteen again, When I was funny, I was famous, I was never ignored, I was a crazy girl, I had to laugh. I had no idea you could wake up feeling bored. |
They aren’t all exactly one-to-one correlations, but a number of striking images appear in both, and both, in their final phrases, underscore a devotion to the romantic potential of adolescence. Wood describes the particular sweetness of being a newly-teenage girl at a fair, and Morrissey adapts himself to the role, a fey young man observing the same, but his difference in sex revealing points of dissonance.
Now as for the melody, it’s a pretty standard Bo Diddley beat (see here for a decent explanation of what that means, if you’re unfamiliar), so one could argue that, like yesterday’s rockabilly songs, it just sounds like a lot of the others. However, it sounds most uncannily like “Marie’s the Name (His Latest Flame),” a song written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman (I’ll talk more about Shuman in a later post) specifically for and first performed by Elvis. Check out this 24 second clip:
It’s so similar that The Smiths actually started covering that song in their live set, presumably as a way to acknowledge the source (note: there’s an uncited Marr quote here where he specifies “Marie’s the Name” as the source).
One might be tempted to think, then, that the genius of The Smiths is pretty simple. Find two great sources, mix them together, and voila! Fantastic song! Not that that’s all that easy, but there’s more to it still.
Wood’s song was probably first heard by Morrissey in Talent‘s 1979 television adaption, and the nigh-saccharine recollection of a summer fair resonated strongly with his Manchurian childhood. Nicking the beat from the Elvis song added a sort of rollicking sensuality to it, and then Morrissey stirred in yet another sexual element, one that becomes increasingly central in his later solo work– working class violence.
The first verse casually mentions a stabbing:
The last night of the fair
By the big wheel generator
A boy is stabbed
And his money is grabbed
And the air hangs heavy like a dulling wine
The stabbing contributes directly to the thick, sensual atmosphere of the fair, as the “air hangs heavy like a dulling wine” afterward. A bit later we have
Then someone falls in love
And someone’s beaten up
Someone’s beaten up
And the senses being dulled are mine
Violence and sex go hand in hand for Morrissey, who as a young man growing up gay in working class Manchester would have as likely had his affection returned with kicks and punches as open-armed romance.
Victoria Wood’s vision of the fair is an arena where innocence and looming sexuality mingle sweetly. Morrissey can observe this sweetness, but he can’t partake; falling in love and getting beaten up are intimately related events for him, whether real or fantasized, and his senses are dulled both by the intoxicatingly romantic atmosphere and the potential for trauma to the head.
Unlike some of his more bittersweet songs about the difficulty of unreciprocated romance (see “Reel Around the Fountain,” for instance), this one ends on a more uplifting note. He’ll walk home alone, but his faith in love is still devout. He may not have found romance, but he was still intoxicated by it, and by the brutish, violent boys and men who hold the key to his complicated desires. Desires which, unable or perhaps unwilling to enact, Morrissey releases, thank goodness, through art:
