Symbolic stuff about oil and The Smiths that nobody gives a crap about

CrystalGeezer

My secret's my enzyme.
I think there's reason Morrissey will not reform The Smiths. As wonderful as the passing thought its that one could go to a concert and hear all the 80's hits that formed our gentle young psyches, (doesn't he play them all now anyway? :squiffy:) I think it's at least a few parts symbolic that he will never reform them as evidenced by a deeper reading of I Know It's Over compared to Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed. :straightface: (I hate writing these things. Nobody reads them or cares and I'm not a writer!!)

Okay, I will make this as quick as possible. First it's important to listen phonetically to the chorus of I Know It's Over. "Oh mother I can feel the soil falling over my head." Listening closely one can hear "Oh mother I can feel this oil falling over my head." The oil is an unguent. It's described in the Penguin Book of Symbols as:

Embodying the notion of a family of cultures in material form, oil became the very sign of divine blessing and a symbol of joy and of brotherhood (Deuteronomy 33:24, Psalm 48: 8; 133: 1-2)

Nevertheless, there was a far deeper symbolism behind ritual anointing. The kings of Israel were anointed and the oil then endowed them with God-given authority, power and glory, the Lord being in any case regarded as the real power behind the anointing. This is why the oil of the anointing was regarded as a symbol of the Spirit of God (1 Samuel 16: 13; Isaiah 11:2: the latter, it should be remembered, in the context of the king who is to come). Because the person anointed has, as it were, been raised to the sphere of the Godhead, no mortal should touch him (1 Samuel 24: 7-11; 26: 9)

At this point it is well to remember that when transcribed, the Hebrew word for "anointed" has given us our word "Messiah" and that it's translation into Greek is "Christos". Jesus was therefore regarded as the king who was to come without a priori setting aside all reference to his priestly and prophetic ministry. However, as he patently was never anointed physically, the path towards spiritualization is clearly marked, the Holy Spirit, which the oil symbolized, being conferred fully upon Jesus like an unction (Luke 4: 18).

So love is natural and real, but not for you and I my love, the you and I referring to Morrissey and his sad veiled bride. Some refer to her as Magdalene. His longing for his bride sets the stage for a lifetime of work that is fueled by his dilemma of bearing an invisible crown symbolized as an anointed feeling over his head. It's the untouched by no mortal part that he finds the most difficult to deal with.

So today, he sings about something squeezing his head and rattles off a list of drugs. That feeling is not perscriptions, per se, but Rx. Rex. King. Crown. He's the anointed one. But he embraces and accepts this state, he doesn't boohoo about it. That is because he is fully realized. Elizabeth Haich writes of the Lightening Struck Tower in her book Wisdom of the Tarot:


Arcane-Arcana-16-maison-dieu-tower.png



From the tower heavy bricks fall down on two figures who have themselves fallen from it. Curiously, however, the bricks hit only the man who is not wearing a crown and he falls to the ground lifeless. The other man has kept his crown on his head even during the fall. He is not hit by bricks. They fall beside him and he escapes uninjured and alive.

The two figures have multi-coloured clothing. The dead man wears a red tunic. He has a blue sleeve on his left arm. THe man with the crown wears a blue tunic but his right arm has a red sleeve and his left leg a yellow stocking. The colours of the costumes show that it is of no intrinsic avail for a man to be spiritual; if he is not aware of it, he must die when the tower collapses. THe other man has endured his destiny with complete faith in God; but becuase he was fully conscious in undergoing all his trials -- the crown denotes consciousness -- he has survived the fall and remained perfectly unharmed.

In short, he was protected by God because of his invisible crown. He is King.

Now the importance of this realization, this consciousness, plays a key roll in the voice singing to his then sad veiled bride who has matured into his Mama. (Think MILF Island.) With his self finally empowered to not be the untouched victim but rather proud groom to his bride, he vows to slit throats if necessary. No longer bullied, he feels safe and sheltered in his grave, his grave being "this oil" that's fallen over his head. It is a new Morrissey that is in command. For this reason I feel for him to reform The Smiths is a symbolic step backwards in his quest to utilize the stage as a medium for delivering the message of his self-awareness. He is of course nostalgic of the days of his trials, but he's not going to croon about loneliness forever.

[/symbollic rant]
 
Last edited:
Oh my God, Crystal Geezer. The sad veiled bride here simply has no words. I like the things you write, but I should read it again, I'm not sure if I'm intelligent enough :confused: Thank you anyway. As for reforming the Smiths I think the same as you, though I'd express it in a less poetic way. Certain miracles of history should remain as they are, sheltered by time and wrapped by memory, and not touched again. Maybe in the next world.
 
Oh my God, Crystal Geezer. The sad veiled bride here simply has no words. I like the things you write, but I should read it again, I'm not sure if I'm intelligent enough :confused: Thank you anyway. As for reforming the Smiths I think the same as you, though I'd express it in a less poetic way. Certain miracles of history should remain as they are, sheltered by time and wrapped by memory, and not touched again. Maybe in the next world.

It's not that you're not intelligent enough - it's that you're not pretentious enough.
 
It's not that you're not intelligent enough - it's that you're not pretentious enough.

Are you calling my interpretation pretentious?
 
I think there's reason Morrissey will not reform The Smiths. As wonderful as the passing thought its that one could go to a concert and hear all the 80's hits that formed our gentle young psyches, (doesn't he play them all now anyway? :squiffy:) I think it's at least a few parts symbolic that he will never reform them as evidenced by a deeper reading of I Know It's Over compared to Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed. :straightface: (I hate writing these things. Nobody reads them or cares and I'm not a writer!!)

Okay, I will make this as quick as possible. First it's important to listen phonetically to the chorus of I Know It's Over. "Oh mother I can feel the soil falling over my head." Listening closely one can hear "Oh mother I can feel this oil falling over my head." The oil is an unguent. It's described in the Penguin Book of Symbols as:



So love is natural and real, but not for you and I my love, the you and I referring to Morrissey and his sad veiled bride. Some refer to her as Magdalene. His longing for his bride sets the stage for a lifetime of work that is fueled by his dilemma of bearing an invisible crown symbolized as an anointed feeling over his head. It's the untouched by no mortal part that he finds the most difficult to deal with.

So today, he sings about something squeezing his head and rattles off a list of drugs. That feeling is not perscriptions, per se, but Rx. Rex. King. Crown. He's the anointed one. But he embraces and accepts this state, he doesn't boohoo about it. That is because he is fully realized. Elizabeth Haich writes of the Lightening Struck Tower in her book Wisdom of the Tarot:




In short, he was protected by God because of his invisible crown. He is King.

Now the importance of this realization, this consciousness, plays a key roll in the voice singing to his then sad veiled bride who has matured into his Mama. (Think MILF Island.) With his self finally empowered to not be the untouched victim but rather proud groom to his bride, he vows to slit throats if necessary. No longer bullied, he feels safe and sheltered in his grave, his grave being "this oil" that's fallen over his head. It is a new Morrissey that is in command. For this reason I feel for him to reform The Smiths is a symbolic step backwards in his quest to utilize the stage as a medium for delivering the message of his self-awareness. He is of course nostalgic of the days of his trials, but he's not going to croon about loneliness forever.

[/symbollic rant]

Most interesting, thank you!
 
Oh my God, Crystal Geezer. The sad veiled bride here simply has no words. I like the things you write, but I should read it again, I'm not sure if I'm intelligent enough :confused: Thank you anyway. As for reforming the Smiths I think the same as you, though I'd express it in a less poetic way. Certain miracles of history should remain as they are, sheltered by time and wrapped by memory, and not touched again. Maybe in the next world.

It's not so much a question of being intelligent. It's a curse. Yesterday I go out to the paper store for an art project and stop and get a breakfast burrito and all the way there and back God's saying PAY ATTENTION TO ME I WANT YOU TO MENTION SOMETHING and it's a tremendous pain in the ass because I'm just trying to go about my day and He's going all sign berzerko trying to get my attention and telling me what to reference and blah. :o :rolleyes: In reality I'm kind of a normal dum dum. :p

Nobody can survive The Fall and remain perfectly unharmed :rolleyes:

True. THose were quoted words, not my words.

Most interesting, thank you!

Thanks Worm.
 
Ssssswoosh

...Hey, was that the sound of a joke about a band completely going over somebody's head? :)

(...I'm fine Kewps, thanx for asking! ;) )

See? Total dumdum. :p Never heard of them. :o
 
Googled. Could take about 2 minutes of it. Weird, so pretty girl is playing the keyboard like she's been taught and old dude walks over and takes over and plays it like she's not doing it right but when he does it totally sounds like shit. Sorry if there's any huge The Fall fans here. Does Morrissey like The Fall?

[youtube]<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/We_mND4HpTg?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/We_mND4HpTg?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/youtube]
 
I don't think he does - he and Mark Smith have exchanged snippy remarks in the press IIRC.
 
I don't think he does - he and Mark Smith have exchanged snippy remarks in the press IIRC.

I just read the wikipedia article on him. He's on his third wife and it said his current wife is in the band, I wonder if that's who the pretty keyboardist is. SHe's probably thinking while he;s taking over her keyboard "Oh that's just like you, prick. Correcting everything I do." :p
 
That's been his modus operandi for many years: marry a lovely young thing, put her in the band. His wife Brix (back in the 80's) was really cool, and a good guitar player.

EDIT: dang, checked out her Wiki bio; she's recorded with some interesting people, including unspecified members of The Smiths - could be just Craig Gannon - and Marty Willson-Piper of The Church.
 
Last edited:
Morrissey and Mark E. Smith love each other with the hatred only true geniuses can have for each other.

I don't think Mark was infringing on the keybs chick. Probably planned. She looked like she was trying to keep a straight face-- that is, continue to act bored and artsy, which isn't easy to do when a goofball like MES is a foot away from you. By the way, is Darth Vader Mark's father, too?

EDIT: dang, checked out her Wiki bio; she's recorded with some interesting people, including unspecified members of The Smiths - could be just Craig Gannon - and Marty Willson-Piper of The Church.

The band was Adult Net, and Craig, Andy and Mike all played with her at various points.
 
Last edited:
I just read the wikipedia article on him. He's on his third wife and it said his current wife is in the band, I wonder if that's who the pretty keyboardist is. SHe's probably thinking while he;s taking over her keyboard "Oh that's just like you, prick. Correcting everything I do." :p

Are you sure that wasn't the article on Fleetwood Mac?
 
It's not so much a question of being intelligent. It's a curse. Yesterday I go out to the paper store for an art project and stop and get a breakfast burrito and all the way there and back God's saying PAY ATTENTION TO ME I WANT YOU TO MENTION SOMETHING and it's a tremendous pain in the ass because I'm just trying to go about my day and He's going all sign berzerko trying to get my attention and telling me what to reference and blah. :o :rolleyes: In reality I'm kind of a normal dum dum. :p

So God talks to you...and about Morrissey. Fantastic, I'm interested, tell me more! Does it happen often?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Does Morrissey like The Fall?

in his letters to robert mackie (bearing in mind they were written in '81 :p) he mentioned that he was 'drooling over' the fall's 'how i wrote elastic man' amongst other songs, if that helps :blushing:
 
A song or two by The Fall has also been known to waft over the airwaves in his pre-show compilations. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom