Morrissey is known mostly for his biting sense of humor, general bitchiness and a melodramatic morose streak a mile wide. He wants you to laugh while he’s crying.
But every once in awhile, in both his work with The Smiths and on his solo albums, Morrissey can knock you out with something deeply heartfelt.
One fine example is The Smiths’ ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ (a John Hughes staple), which owes much of its poignancy to Johnny Marr’s delicate guitar work.
Another is today’s Song of the Day, the final track on Morrissey’s 1991 solo album Kill Uncle. ‘There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends’ is a haunting piano ballad about the prejudice faced by homosexuals… the absurd notion that loving somebody of the same gender is a sin.
And when we go, we all will go
So you see I’m never alone
Oh there is a place
With a bit more time and a few more gentler words
And looking back we will forgive
(We had no choice, we always did)
All that we hope is when we go
Our skin and our blood and our bones
Don’t get in your way
Making you ill
The way they did when we lived
Oh, there is a place
A place in hell
Reserved for me and my friends
And if ever I just wanted to cry
Then I will, because I can
Meet Me In Montauk 
Give me a break. The randomness of the music is bad enough. Haunting is right. Why give any merit/authority/credence to the stupid people who do think homosexuality is a sin or that homosexuals are going to hell??!! Thank God it was short.
First, it’s great to have Alex commenting here! She saved me from having to say anything mean about today’s artist.
While I think Morrissey is being ironic when he “hopes” that the skin and bones and blood of his homosexual friends don’t “get in your way” in death as they did in life, I do feel the song works better as a poem.
As I was listening to it, I just wanted to hear Zane Campbell’s “Post Mortem Bar.” While I can’t be sure Campbell was attempting to capture some of the same feeling as Morrissey expresses here, I have always assumed the filmmakers behind Longtime Companion chose it for that reason. Regardless, I find it a far more powerful expression of the sentiment, so here it is for your enjoyment:
And here are the lyrics:
When I cleaned out your room
I painted the walls to cover any memories
But still it seemed like you were hovering over
Still out there keeping an eye on me
Yeah I never really was able to tell you
That’s why I’m telling you now that you can’t hear
It’s not gonna be the same around here without you
And I’m holding back a flood behind one tear
And we’ll go down to the post-mortem bar
And catch up on the years that have passed between us
And we’ll tell our stories
Do you remember when the world was just like a carnival opening up
I never thought that I would ever see the day
And I don’t wanna believe it’s true
You were supposed to always be there
And a part of me has died with you
And we’ll go down to the post-mortem bar
And catch up on the years that have passed between us
And we’ll tell our stories
Do you remember when the world was just like a carnival opening up
If I could have one more day with you the way it used to be
All the things I should’ve said would pour out of me
I took a walk I didn’t know which way I was goin’
But somehow or other I ended up here where
We said we’d meet again and I guess I was hopin’
But the place had been closed down a while
It was all dark in there
And we’ll go down to the post-mortem bar
And catch up on the years that have passed between us
And we’ll tell our stories
Do you remember when the world was just like a carnival opening up
Pipe down, woman. You’re not allowed to comment on artists you don’t like. He’s not giving credence to those people!
By writing the song, he is.
Acknowledging prejudice is not the same as giving credence to it. You can’t expose something if you ignore it.
Amy, the ending of that movie is so corny but it somehow works. I don’t like the song much, though.
Go Alex, go Alex, go Alex!
Hard to find a more pretentious self-absorbed artist than Morrissey and this song is as self indulgent as most of what he does. Only Morrissey can manage to come off as snobby and superior while supposedly bemoaning his lot in life (and the lot of other gay friends). Ugh!
Oh, and biting sense of humor? Really? Please post some of that!
Finally, you find the end of Long Time Companion corny? A gay man dreaming of a time when he can again see his friends who have died of AIDS healthy and happy? That’s corny to you? Wow! And you don’t appreciate the song either? I have nothing else to say to you.
If you do a Google search for “Morrissey” and “biting wit” you’ll find more references than you can count. I feel a little embarrassed, in fact, for embracing the cliche. Good sir, you know nothing of his work if you can’t appreciate the man’s sense of humor!
Actually, I don’t need to count. There are 2600 references to Morrissey and “biting wit” as compared to 240,000 references to Morrissey and pretentious. Indeed, according to one list that comes up on the first page of such a search, Morrissey ranks as the 5th most pretentious musician of all time.
I said good day, sir!
I think this article, also found on the page one search for Morrissey and pretentious, pretty much sums up all that is wrong with this guy:
http://www.spinner.com/2009/11/20/morrissey-ejects-fan-from-german-gig-after-f-word-rant/
I don’t see anything particularly wrong with that article…. so he asked for a fan to be ejected after the guy shouted profanities at him? Big deal? I’m sure we could both find a hundred better examples of Morrissey being pretentious.
Which he is, no doubt. He’s also very smart and very funny (and not your cup of tea, I understand that).
There is exactly one item that shows up if you do a search for “post mortem bar,” “longtime companion” and corny. Just saying! 🙂
The pretentious part was the “joke” he tried to make in the first place. The heckler screaming the epithet was merely calling Morrissey on his pretentiousness, which, of course, Morrissey could not tolerate. I also found the comment of “Well done Morrissey!” from the equally pretentious fan rather amusing.
Anyway, please feel free to post a song demonstrating Morrissey’s exquisite sense of humor.
‘Cemetry Gates‘ is a pretty good example, but it’s a great one in the context of this discussion because this thread from a year and a half ago contains the same “Morrissey is pretentious” debate we’re having today! Even better is that Amy describes the song as “witty” and “clever” and calls you out for using the word pretentious.
I’ve always been partial to the opening lyrics of ‘The Queen is Dead’:
Farewell to this land’s cheerless marshes
Hemmed in like a boar between arches
Her very Lowness with a head in a sling
I’m truly sorry – but it sounds like a wonderful thing
I said Charles, don’t you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother’s bridal veil?
And so, I checked all the registered historical facts
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I’m the 18th pale descendant
Of some old queen or other
Oh, has the world changed, or have I changed?
Some 9-year old tough who peddles drugs
I swear to God
I swear, I never even knew what drugs were
So, I broke into the palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said : “Eh, I know you, and you cannot sing”
I said : “That’s nothing – you should hear me play piano”
I get that Morrissey can show satirical wit, though that is not necessarily the same as having good humor or being funny. Randy Newman manages to do both and does so without coming off as pretentious.
That “Cemetry Gates” post was an amusing one to revisit. It’s particularly funny because, before I read it, I was about to tell Dana that I thought there were many people who could accuse Randy Newman of being pretentious. Seems as though we keep making the same points again and again.
For Dana, “pretentious” is the word he uses to dismiss that which he doesn’t like. If he likes an artist others might consider pretentious, he is quick to simply deny that it is so – as though pretentiousness is a trait that can be objectively identified.
As for the lyrics you share above, I don’t know if I’m completely getting them. Is Charles our Charles? Of Charles and Diana fame? If so, is Morrissey the one addressing him? And thus making the self-deprecating joke about his singing and his piano playing (which makes me laugh, though I still think I’m not getting all there is to get out of these lyrics)
Regardless, I once again place Dana on “pretentious alert” and request that he retire that accusation as his reason for not liking an artist.
To quote the host’s comment from earlier….”Pipe down, woman!” Randy Newman is not pretentious. He is generally very down to earth and self-deprecating. On the other hand, I cannot dispute that artists such as Sting and Joe Jackson are pretentious, and I do like both of them a great deal.
Still, I don’t throw out the pretentiousness criticism for the likes of Morrissey and Bono merely because I don’t like their music. I think my criticisms of many songs and artists on this blog shows that I am more than capable of dissing someone without throwing out the “P” word. Rather, as to both Morrissey and Bono, I find their pretentiousness is all too often infused into their songs…sometimes in the music, but more often in the lyrics or the singing style. With Morrissey, for example, I really knew very little about him personally, but found his singing style and affect pretentious from pretty much the first time I heard him years ago. I felt similarly about Bono from his early songs and videos on MTV, years before knowing anything more about him as a personality.
Anyway, I admit that with artists like Sting, David Byrne and Joe Jackson, their tremendous talent as songwriters has me loving them notwithstanding their pretentiousness. I guess I just don’t find the same level of talent in the likes of Morrissey and Bono or, perhaps more accurately, I find their pretentiousness infects so much of their music, that I just can’t get past it.
For my part, though the word “pretentious” has a negative connotation, I guess I don’t really see it as a bad thing. Because I fully embrace plenty of artists who can legitimately be described as pretentious (Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, David Byrne, Belle & Sebastian, Morrissey, Bono and so on).
I can like or dislike pretentious artists, just as I can like or dislike artists who write cryptic lyrics or artists who sing mostly about themselves. I don’t think any of those things alone are a reason to judge somebody. They’re just talking points to support the judgment you make based on their music.
Just my two cents – but I think it’s a bit presumptive to assert that the song is about “prejudice faced by homosexuals”. I’m not suggesting that it’s wrong, I’m simply saying that the lyrics are intentionally ambiguous. The “me” isn’t necessarily Morrissey himself, and there’s no indication as to who the friends are, or why it is that there’s a place in hell for the lot of them. To narrow the meaning of the lyrics to something very specific is to diminish its’ more broad commentary on regret.
Thanks for the comment. It’s true that he doesn’t spell it out in so many words, but I’m having difficulty thinking of another “condition” to which it could apply.