Cheers Dingo for reminding me that í had never actually got around to listening to this cracker, from, í think, two years ago ~
https://www.mixcloud.com/BoogalooRa...re-you-were-raised-the-queen-is-dead-special/
It's fairly slapdash and pretty muso {í kinda wish they had just played the full 2 hour Johnny call instead} but still a must-listen.
It's never failed to amuse and bemuse me how the 'Johnny camp' seek to excise or at least belittle SPM's contribution to any part of The Smiths project.
Obviously now, but even in the old original daze, when you had yer Johnny fans and yer Moz fans. í never got how you could love a band as much as these guys {and they were always guys} and at best
tolerate the singer/lyricist...?
In the case of "
The Queen is Dead" record ~ Morrissey wrote every syllable, sang every note, chose the track listing, titled it, designed every aspect of the visual presentation of the record...howzat?
í understand that Butler will, to coin a phrase, "
never forgive God for not making him Angie", and he's mucho muso, but how can one not see that it's the
interaction of Johnny's golden bedding with Morrissey's sung words that make this record especially unique.
At the point where Johnny recalls that it was Morrissey that rescued "
Cemetry Gates" from the kitchen wastebin, Bernie, instead of the penny dropping, merely asides "
I mean you don't want to say Thank God for Morrissey EVER really, but..." Well who else do you 'thank' for "
The Queen is Dead"? Just Johnny and his magic pedals?
Elsewhere, the other bloke hosting helpfully points out that Moz had
alot of influences on his lyrics {the old implication that he was merely quite a talented filcher}. But he does later accede "You forget what a great lyricist Morrissey
used to be"...
But when they talk about Johnny's admitted influences on this record ~ Stooges, Velvets, Scotty Moore, Etc ~ it's all just breathless genius.
It's quite some feat to analyse this LP in particular, and somehow avoid acknowledging half the genius in front of your ears.
For me, Morrissey's melodic journey on the word "
more" in the line "
Though she needs you / More than she loves you" is worth...more...than the entire album's worth of drumming. But, yeah, talk away Mike. í'd like to know what those drugs that Johnny mentions were...
.