IF IT'S NOT LOVE THEN IT'S THE POLL THAT WILL BRING US TOGETHER - ILM Artist Poll #72 - THE SMITHS - RESULTS THREAD

I would like to hug the person who voted Last Night #1. It was my #2. It really holds up ... the production is beautiful.

All great songs, although I only voted for "Rush". Such a brilliant arrangement, nothing else in their catalog sounds quite like it. In trying to describe it all I can think of is the phrase "mystical time zone" from the opening lines.

"Paint a Vulgar PIcture" is another example of how Strangeways boasts some of Marr's best guitar tones and worst songs. I do like the song, particularly the nylon string solo

i was listening to my tape of strangeways in the car yesterday, and the thing that gets me about most of the songs is how they seem to be a vocal melody (or non-melody) and lyrics just *plopped* on top of a backing track.

that's... most Smiths songs?

OTM

no, not really.

Yeah I mean, the melodies meander on TQID but also follow a strong pattern/template that feels better integrated with the music than most of what you get on Strangeways, which reads at times a little like Morrissey sat down to workshop wandering melodic line creation with Robert Smith but got bored 5 minutes into the conversation and wandered out of the room.

DJP otm

Shortlisted "A Rush..."--it has this cool European folk song influence not found as easily elsewhere in the catalogue.

The meandering Moz melodies are partly what makes the songs so interesting. I mean, the music is generally air-tight, but the vocals go all over the place, not just in terms of pitch/key but also in terms of when/if he repeats lines and where, how the songs are structured, etc.

to my ears the vast majority of Smiths songs, right from the debut onwards, involve Morrissey abandoning any sort of standard lyric/melody-writing structure - he doesn't stick to meters, he regularly crams in too many syllables or stretches out too few, his phrasing and arrangement of melodic lines is really odd, almost untethered to what Marr is doing. Instrumental sections that a more conventional vocalist would treat as an opportunity for a hook he might just let go by entirely; or instead of a repeated refrain he'll abruptly switch to some wordless caterwauling.

and yeah this is not a bad thing, it's really interesting!

I did not het around to vote in the end but "Last Night..." would have been my #1 or #2, fwiw

I'm shocked it is so low.

high five to other PAVP #1 voter

That would be me. I'm an unapologetic Strangeways fan, and this song is the peak imo. Great memories also of hearing it live during Morrissey's '97 concert, along with Shoplifters.

I wouldn't really say that Moz wanders around in different keys, at least not on studio recordings

I'd also say that unless you are talking about the poetic use of meter rather than the musical use, he absolutely 100% sticks to meter on every single song I can think of at the moment (although I invite someone to post something where he is doing, for example, a cross-meter 3 relationship against the foundation that the musical arrangement is giving him)

yeah I'm referring to poetic meter - the way his lines don't conform to standard patterns of syllables-per-line, that kind of thing

I just last night watched a thing on Youtube about his solo career and pretty much every one of those collaborators expressed surprise at how he mapped out his lyrics over the musical structures they submitted too. Bless.

on a lot of the strangeways songs his parts are so meandering and loose, it doesn't go against the musical meter but it doesn't really fit either

In Morrissey's recent (by recent, I mean last 20 years I guess) solo stuff he's really got to grips with regular meter and more conventional melodies, and that's partly why a lot of it sounds so dull. His songs almost always follow a straight verse-chorus-verse-chorus pattern, to their detriment.

I've often though that Morrissey approaches his melodies like someone who doesn't know which part was intended to be the verse, the chorus etc. To this day I'm sure that the Marr didn't actually write the verse part of 'The Headmaster Ritual' as the verse.

*thought

I would like to hug the person who voted Last Night #1. It was my #2. It really holds up ... the production is beautiful.

― sarahell, Friday, March 4, 2016 12:33 PM (56 minutes ago)

C'est moi.

I guess Smiths fans would know, but did Marr ever do scratch vocals for demos of his songs before Morrissey got his hands on them. I'd be fascinated to hear something like that.

I've often though that Morrissey approaches his melodies like someone who doesn't know which part was intended to be the verse, the chorus etc.

i'm sure i read somewhere that this is exactly what sometimes happened. marr would give him song sketches and morrissey would put words in all the "wrong" places.

marr would give him song sketches and morrissey would put words in all the "wrong" places

see also: rem (at least sometimes)

Ha, I hadn't actually listened to "Strangeways" in many years. (It was not my favourite but I love "Paint a Vulgar Picture" and like "Stop Me"). I tried listening to "Death of a Disco Dancer" and "Death at One's Elbow", two that never really stuck with me, and I totally see what you guys are saying about the even more pronounced disconnect between the vocals and instrumental music.

(Ha, "Unhappy Birthday".)

"Unhappy Birthday" may be one of the most embarrassing songs ever recorded by a good band

It's not one of Morrissey's finest lyrics, I'll say that much.

http://i.imgur.com/7vuOgs9.jpg

34. WELL I WONDER (B-side of 'How Soon Is Now?' | Album track from Meat Is Murder)
402 points | 18 votes | 1 first place vote

I mean, you have that meandering quality in "Vulgar Picture" too. I guess that one just works for me.

Gorgeous. My #3

I originally complied a list of my top 25 songs. Then I found out only 20 were needed, so I had to cut. This is one that got cut. I love it, though. Still-awake-at-4am music.

"Well I Wonder" never seems to linger long in my mind. Sounds great right now though. I really like "please keep me in mind". Such a modest request.

"Please keep me in mind" turns into 'i don't mind if you forget me' a few years later.

"well i wonder" is the best and i voted for it, probably a great example of morrissey putting the words in the wrong places

gasping, but somehow still alive

"I Don't Mind If You Forget Me" better imo

Love the sounds of a grey dawn downpour at the end.

All solid gold from here to no. 1

http://i.imgur.com/gBVWiSO.jpg

33. SWEET AND TENDER HOOLIGAN (B-side of 'Sheila Take a Bow' 12")
415 points | 20 votes

TOO LOW

Not solid gold, imo

best line he ever wrote:

ET CETERA ET CETERA

not a favourite of mine, though i do often sing it to my cat

The dancefloor at my local indie disco used to go nuts to this, though iirc. me included.

in the midst of life we are in death etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

"Et-cet-traaaaaa... "

I don't have an awful lot to say about 'Well I Wonder', which has always been a neither-here-nor-there track for me (nice guitar sound, though) but 'Sweet and Tender Hooligan' is fucking awesome.

ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERA ET CETERAAAAAAAAAA ET CETERA ET CETERA