20 odd votesand no comments? What is going on.

If allowed, I was thinking "Mother I can feel the soil falling over my head..." :)

Very, bloody very strange poll. I don't get it. Explain to me please someone!

None!!! Why would I?

i would have to write he lived and he died because thats what happened viva mozz

Wasn't there also "so long so bad"? That would be sweet.

But nevertheless:

Would you risk it for a biscuit?

"Yes we may be hidden by rags
But we have something they'll never have" :)

Can someone please explain what the hell this poll is talking about
I have no idea where these phrases coem from
were they written on the records, the middle parts or were they actually said

and who put them there morrissey?

Beware of the wrath to come

So far, so bad

Will nature make a man of me yet

I don't know anyone that's happy, do you?

Guy Fawkes was a genius

The impotence of ernest

This seems to the one Morrissey is most pleased about at the moment as it was on his drum skin for the U.S tv gig.

We hates bad grammar & Beware the wrath to come are pretty cool.

my fav..johnny thought that one up. i also love 'i dreamt about stew last night' ahaha!

... is like something from the comedy gravestones at a theme park haunted house, so of course, it gets my vote.
However, I'm also a fan of Spike Milligan's "I told you I was ill", or perhaps "Resting In Purgatory".
Then again, I might just request to emulate the god that was Graham Chapman and have my ashes shot towards the heavens in a firework.
You know, discussing what we want as our epitaph, as life affirming as it is, will do nothing for the reputation of us Morrissey fans.

I'd go for 'Guy Fawkes was a genius' myself....

Boooooooootiful........

Kiss My Shades has always been my favorite out of any of them. It's almost like a clever "eff you"

DXS

Talent borrows, genius steals

People who collect the vinyl pressing of singles/albums are more familiar and appreciate the humor and charm of these little groove etchings. Below is a URL that contains a list of all the Smiths as well as Morrissey's groove messages. It looks pretty complete to me.

I think this may be helpful for some who want to better understand how endearing these messages were to Smith fans:

http://www.geocities.com/costelt/Lyrics/etching.ht m

"Hand In Glove
7": KISS MY SHADES / KISS MY SHADES TOO

"This Charming Man"
7": none / SLAP ME ON THE PATIO
12": WILL NATURE MAKE A MAN OF ME YET / none

"What Difference Does It Make?"
7" and 12": none / none

"The Smiths (debut album)"
none / none

"Hand In Glove" (featuring Sandie Shaw)
7": "KISS MY SHADES" / "J.M."
12": none / none

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
7": SMITHS INDEED / ILL FOREVER
12": SMITHS PRESUMABLY / FOREVER ILL

"William, It Was Really Nothing"
7" and 12" with green cover: THE IMPOTENCE OF ERNEST / ROMANTIC AND SQUARE IS HIP AND AWARE
7" lilac cover: THE IMPOTENCE OF ERNEST / WE HATES BAD GRAMMER

12" lilac cover: THE IMPOTENCE OF ERNEST / ROMANTIC AND [ ] IS HIP N'AWARE

"Hatful Of Hollow"
THE IMPOTENCE OF ERNEST / none
(only on original Rough Trade release, not on the WEA reissue)

"Barbarism Begins At Home" (DJ 12" promos)
THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES / none

"How Soon Is Now?"
7" and 12": THE TATTY TRUTH / none

"Meat Is Murder"
UK: ILLNESS AS ART / DOING THE WYTHENSHAWE WALTZ
(only on original Rough Trade release, not on the WEA reissue)
Holland: HOLLAND CUTTING / none

"Shakespeare's Sister"
UK: HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS / none
Holland: HOLLAND CUTTING / none

"That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"
7": OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS / OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS
12": OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS, OUR SOULS / none

12" Canada: HELEN WHEELS / none

"The Boy With The Thorn In His Side"
7" and 12": ARTY BLOODY FARTY / "IS THAT CLEVER"...JM

"Bigmouth Strikes Again"
7": none
12": BEWARE THE WRATH TO COME / TALENT BORROWS, GENIUS STEALS

"The Queen Is Dead"
FEAR OF MANCHESTER / THEM WAS ROTTEN DAYS
(only on original Rough Trade release, not on the WEA reissue)

"Panic"
7" and 12": I DREAMT ABOUT STEW LAST NIGHT / none
Germany 12": 'HANG THEM HIGH MONIKA' / HANG THEM HIGH MONIKA

"Ask"
7" and 12": ARE YOU LOATHESOME TONIGHT? / TOMB IT MAY CONCERN
12" Germany: "NATUR FEEDS THE ZENSOR GROUP" / none

"Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" (a German release)
7": Rock and Rolling to the top / A PRECISE DIAMOND CUT
12": ---NOH GIRL LIKE JAGUAR ROSE--- / BUSY TRAIN TO THE LOCOMOTION

"Shoplifters Of The World Unite"
7" and 12": ALF RAMSEY'S REVENGE / none

"The World Won't Listen"
none / none

"Sheila Take A Bow"
7" and 12": COOK BERNARD MATTHEWS / none

"Girlfriend In A Coma"
7": AND NEVER MORE SHALL BE SO / SO FAR, SO BAD
12": EVERYBODY IS A FLASHER AT HEART/AND NEVER MORE SHALL BE SO

"Strangeways Here We Come"
GUY FAWKES WAS A GENIUS / none
(only on original Rough Trade release, not on the WEA reissue)

"I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"
7" and 12": "MURDER AT THE WOOL HALL"(X)STARRING SHERIDAN WHITESIDE
/ YOU ARE BELIEVING, YOU DO NOT WANT TO SLEEP

"Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"
7" and 12": "THE RETURN OF THE SUBMISSIVE SOCIETY" (X) STARRING SHERIDAN WHITESIDE /
"THE BIZARRE ORIENTAL VIBRATING PALM DEATH"(X)STARRING SHERIDAN WHITESIDE

Always loved that one from The Queen Is Dead...
Fear of Manchester - Them was rotten days.
Indeed.

Why did the albums have etchings on them? Were they the only band to do it?

our souls, our souls, our souls

I remember laughing my head off when I first saw this one. Can not recall what it was on but it made me laugh.

Cook Bernard Matthews was also a fave.

I know its not Smiths but I liked the "Escape from Valium" (A-side) and "return to valium" (B-side) on Interesting drug.

What about "Smiths=Peepholism" or "The Impotence of Earnest"?

"There is a Light that Never Goes Out"

Beautiful

It is truly sad that there are people out there that don't understand this poll. Ah, I guess it shows my age. Viva Vinyl

especially for a tombstone, so i think "tomb may it conscern" would be a good one! Of course, my real tombstone will most likely say "morrissey 4eva!"

From I Started Something I Couldnt Finish....YOU ARE BELIEVING, YOU DO NOT WANT TO SLEEP

How I miss the etchings and wish he would bring them back on his new vinyls

Hmmmm.

tomorrow, will it really come? and if it does come, will i still be here?

I Know It's Over

You Have Killed Me!

Without having a 'scooby doo' what it meant, I scribbled this, in reasonably large, bold lettering, on one of my school jotters circa 1984- much to the bemusement/ amusement of classmates. It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, completely lost on everybody else. I of course simply considered them to be utter plebes, inferior beings etc- it gave such comfort to believe that I, and only I, was 'in on it'!

I've already recently, at the age of 39, had the "M" logo from ROTT tattooed on my upper arm. This poll gets me thinking as to what cryptic lyric/ run-off I might try next...."Hand in Glove", "Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me" (too long, maybe), "I know it's over"- the list is endless.....

No gravestone; a Moz-o-leum!

This poll, aside from being really funny, is great because it exposed this huge gap between the generations of fans! You can tell all of the younger fans, who grew up with CD singles and albums, have no idea what this poll even means. At the same time, the older fans have this superiority complex about having been fans so long and this feeling of superiority is finally being fed by something the younger fans will now discover anew and think is cool. Love it.

PS: Someone was saying that morrissey fans are sad... no, I say we're lugubrious, like Moz himself. If you can't find the humor in Moz's songs, then you are dead already.

The etchings are great. Even non-collectors find them very interesting, too... as they're a rare idiosyncratic comic detail. I have all my Smiths 7"s protected in those clear Japanese re-sealable plastic sleeves, but sometimes i take them out just to admire the color and design of the labels, typography, etc. Of course, i always tilt the record to read the etchings as well. One thing i always wondered, and I haven't read a clear answer yet on this thread:

How exactly were these messaged produced? My assumption all these years is that they were done by a machine. I have noticed on some records (most?) that simple things like catalogue numbers are etched in the run-off groove. I just thought that the same technology used to etch catalogue numbers onto standard records was employed by Rough Trade to etch customized messages onto Smiths releases.

I thought, however, that someone above alluded to the fact that a physical person such as Morrissey literally etched the records by hand. Surely this is impossible given the quantity of records, right? It is a nice fantasy, though... made even more interesting by the fact that the lettering used does actually resemble Morrissey's handwriting!

xo

A new poll please!!!! It can't be hard to pick a new one from all that are sent in surely?