you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself)

horsemouth (like many an old man) has been waxing enthusiastic (nay sentimental even) over music. don't worry gentle peoples soon he goes to work and labour discipline will be restored.

the thing with morrissey is that he can make horsemouth laugh, he can make him cry and (just as often) he can annoy the fuck out of him all in the same song - morrissey is a knob and a racist (horsemouth cites 'bengali in platforms' from viva hate as evidence - 'life is hard enough when you belong here' fuck you morrissey) and horsemouth was never as keen on johnny marr's guitar playing as others were (but that's when he did his best work) - it's the songwriting that makes him but it's not just the songwriting that makes him - dylan is similarly a knob but his songs don't get horsemouth where morrissey's songs get him...

horsemouth feels that morrissey knows what horsemouth knows (and vice versa) and they're from the same place (even though he doesn't and they're not). horsemouth gets that same sense that he gets from old soul songs that someone has reached inside his chest and said what he wants to say but better than he could ever say it.



but just one other thing - here's jeff buckley singing 'I know it's over' and 'the boy with the thorn in his side' (beautiful young man, tragic death, beautiful voice) but it's not as good - it's the limitations of morrissey's voice (even though he has clearly worked on it) that make these songs so amazing.

one thing horsemouth notes is that morrissey can swap from (genuine) emotion in one line to northern epigramatic 'wit' in the next - it's the catches in language that he gets working for him, stop me if you've heard this one before, in the great tradition of songs (not) saying what they mean - this is why his best work is with johnny marr because the songs have enough musical energy to take you on and deliver their emotional charge when the singing has stopped. but also in the sense of the song texts being fragmentary - not fully through composed - not holding you to one subject position.

there is of course something different about an older morrissey and a crowd full of turkish women and english expats singing along with I know it's over (as on one clip of it on youtube) compared to just a young(ish) morrrissey singing it. as he has thickened out and grown older he has worked on his voice to become the crooner his songs called for.

 -----------------------------------

and so onto the sage of wimborne robert fripp - here what horsemouth likes is the abscence of emotion other than the pleasure of watching clever people do a smart thing very well - the sense of you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). horsemouth grew up in a difficult time for rock music, it was bill glover who introduced horsemouth to king crimson the record that worked best for horsemouth was red - a stripped down power trio engaged in a reformation of rock music away from the baroque, formulaic and lumpen excessess of nwobhm - the new wave of british heavy metal.



this fripp followed up with league of gentlemen and his frippertronics experiments and discipline. discipline is of course the sound of a death by drowning in talking heads envy (just as signals by rush is the sound of a power trio drowning in police envy) -

fripp had hired adrian belew (who'd worked with talking heads) both to produce the screams and glitches of talking heads guitar but also to do david byrne's nervy new yorker (10 parts caffeine to 1 part german expressionism). horsemouth loves the way the two guitars work together and the rest of the band works (god bill bruford - what a drummer!). later this populist impulse fails and we are just left with immaculate shining technique... and the result is very boring.

horsemouth realises this is a harder sell - compared to the smiths and morrissey  it has the disadvantage of making the work and thought that went into it obvious (indeed that's its selling point) you too could be this good (if you were just prepared to apply yourself). it is an idea of music making as work and as craft.

but similarly if you were prepared to apply yourself to the craft of song writing you too could be as good as morrissey.