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Weiß
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I was driving back from lunch on Friday when the flashback radio show played This Charming Man. It was the version from The Smiths. I actually got The Smiths years after I was accustomed to Hatful, and between the two I had obtained the NuNoize boot of The Hand That Rocks, so most of the stuff on The Smiths was redundant x 2 and, consequently, I got it last and I rarely listen to it.
Anyway, maybe it was just the accustics of the car, the double soy-capp, or my mood, but I was struck by how very different Morrissey's voice was. Not from every other Morrissey/Smiths song, but from every other singer. The sound itself is unique, as is his barely off-tempo delivery of the lyrics in that version of the song.
I realized that I was straining to hear his voice, make out what it was he was saying and what he would sing next. And just for an instant, a tiny fraction of a second, I had the feeling of enthusiastic discovery that I know I felt the first time I listened to Hatful of Hollow.
I'm either blessed or cursed with the type of mind that remembers very subtle differences between touch, sound, and sight. And I've listened to The Smiths and Morrissey weekly if not daily for nearly 20 years now. That is a hell of a lot of reinforcement and familiarization. So to have that feeling of "newness" and to have it apply to Morrissey's voice was intensely beautiful and emotional. It went so far beyond hearing a boot or a new Moz single for the first time. It was sublime. We're all addicts, burdened with this genetic predisposition to Morrissey's voice, these receptor cells in our brains for The Smiths. I envy those of us who have only recently (or have not yet) discovered The Smiths and Morrissey. You've got something I'll never have again. You get to hear Morrissey sing for the first time.
Anyway, maybe it was just the accustics of the car, the double soy-capp, or my mood, but I was struck by how very different Morrissey's voice was. Not from every other Morrissey/Smiths song, but from every other singer. The sound itself is unique, as is his barely off-tempo delivery of the lyrics in that version of the song.
I realized that I was straining to hear his voice, make out what it was he was saying and what he would sing next. And just for an instant, a tiny fraction of a second, I had the feeling of enthusiastic discovery that I know I felt the first time I listened to Hatful of Hollow.
I'm either blessed or cursed with the type of mind that remembers very subtle differences between touch, sound, and sight. And I've listened to The Smiths and Morrissey weekly if not daily for nearly 20 years now. That is a hell of a lot of reinforcement and familiarization. So to have that feeling of "newness" and to have it apply to Morrissey's voice was intensely beautiful and emotional. It went so far beyond hearing a boot or a new Moz single for the first time. It was sublime. We're all addicts, burdened with this genetic predisposition to Morrissey's voice, these receptor cells in our brains for The Smiths. I envy those of us who have only recently (or have not yet) discovered The Smiths and Morrissey. You've got something I'll never have again. You get to hear Morrissey sing for the first time.