from an nme journo (84) who tried to imagine what a smiths christmas song/album might sound like..
This satire on Morrissey and The Smiths originally appeared in New Musical Express, most likely in the 1984 Christmas/New Year special issue.
PLEASE KISS ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE.
The snow falls again,
and my quiff is by the door;
But I can't see it anyway,
I left my glasses on the floor.
Heaven knows,
I've not done a great number of bad things,
And I really want a nice present anyway.
Oh, Christmas is coming,
Please kiss me under the mistletoe!
I haven't loved any since Nanny, and that was
years ago.
I don't need surgical stockings,
I don't want to get laid.
The day you get to marry me,
You've really got it made.
And in this life,
Why do I suck up to people I'd rather
wrap in Bacofoil and fry in hot grease?
THE FEAST OF ST. STEPHEN
SMITHS fans everywhere will welcome the release of the Mancunian supergroup's legendary 'Please Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe', originally scheduled as not only their debut but also, with typical perversity, the first ever Christmas album to hit the shops in August!
Since the lost tapes were discovered in Morrissey's old tree-house at his mother's Chorlton-cum-Hardy home, the rock world has held its breath. Now GINGER MEGGS hears the results and raises hosannas to the skies ...
THE SMITHS
Please Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe (Trog Hips)
THE RAIN plummets incessently on four tortured souls ... where would we be if Morrissey didn't give us a peak under his petticoats every now and again? The god-like Smiths have emerged from the bowels of introspection, shed the shackles of commercialism, and now trip the light fantastic, gathering bouquets along the way.
Through the years, The Smiths have suffered from nostalgia and neuralgia, acute bouts of perception, and razor-sharp humour. This has culminated in a spectacularly deep spate of songs, released, like Jesus Christ, onto an ignorant and unworthy world. The profound and terrifying undercurrents which filter through songs like 'Van In Mud', and 'Rancid Weevil', are more than enough to reduce you to a heroin habit, or at least to changing your underwear. O, the Power of language!
And so to the calculated charisma of Morrissey; all his unorthodox imagery, and arcane lingo. Who else would dare to sing about a subject as controversial as a strange man offering a little boy wine gums in a deserted parking lot? "The green wine gum's my favourite/It's the colour of my gran/She kicked it years ago", and "Oh, now that you've done rude things to me/What am I going to do?/My mother wants me home tonight/Bit I'd die if we were through." The stirring emotional lyrics of 'Suffer Grotty Choirmasters' hit home in an uncanny way.
'Mistletoe' is a bevy of scintillating tracks, far from the madding loud. Morrissey's voice is completely inaudible on the sublimely dolorous anthem, 'This Farming Land'; an excruciatingly incisive comment on the secret lives of Manchester City supporters with rural ancestry. Rivetting numbers like 'My Mirror Is My Best Friend' are cradled by Johnny Marr's fluid guitar and a jazzy, toe-tapping bass line.
The sheer vision of this group is astounding. The album is littered with musical jokes - the most amusing being Johnny Marr's third riff in 'Numb With Ennui'. The drummer has also achieved a finely honed irony evident in the second-last drum beat of 'Suffer Grotty Choirmasters'. They are without a doubt, the Alfred Hitchcock's of contemporary pop.
Nietzche, in The Gay Science, openly declared: "What does it matter?" Indeed, what does it matter? Morrissey, with his Warholian perversity, his Wildean nonchalance, his Blanchotsian stylisation, succeeds admirably in dissecting the nature of drudgery. Consumed by the anatomy of boredom, Morrissey can analyse our souls. He hears our hearts, appreciates our angst! He doesn't necessarily give a monkey's, but knows everything anyway. Shun all comparisons to James Dean, Jean Genet, Danny La Rue. This man is an individual; a true genius. One must understand that omniscience is a hefty cross to bear.
The Smiths' Christmas album, is, overall, a stupendous piece of work, and the ideal gift at £12.99 In the words of Johnny Marr: "Dang dang dang/D-dang dang da dang".
