Happy Morrissey Day!

Happy big 4-9, Moz! If you have missed yesterday's post, I am running a 3 day Morrissey birthday special. I asked my friends what their top five Morrissey songs are, and today's are really fun, the first peep is more analytical, the second peep remembers the good times during the golden age of the Smiths (we were too young when they split up, but sometime in the 80's anyway), and the last one has the same b'day as Moz, whoo hoo!

Hilde Tørdal- Telemark, Norway
1. The Headmaster ritual- Yes, I know it probably a bit obvious choice to pick this one, but when I was 18 and hated school with its inhouse authority, this song pretty much summed up my life.

2. Ask- "Spending warm summer days indoors... If its not love then its the bomb that will bring us together..." An upbeat and positive lovesong.

3. Half A Person- Well, who hasn't been sixteen clumsy and shy once? And what about dreaming to just go off to London and ask for a job, any job, just so long as I can stay? Perfect song for my teenage years.
"And if you have five seconds to spare
Then I'll tell you the story of my life :
Sixteen, clumsy and shy
I went to London and I
I booked myself in at the Y ... W.C.A.
I said : "I like it here - can I stay ? I like it here - can I stay ?
Do you have a vacancy For a Back-scrubber?"

4. Sheila Take A Bow- Another upbeat and optimistic song where Morrissey makes the proposition to lift the head, boot the grime of the world in the crotch, and find someone to love. Is Morrissey a bit out of character on this one?
"Sheila take a, sheila take a bow
Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear
And don´t go home tonight
Come out and find the one that you love and who loves you"

5. Oscillate wildly- Perhaps not a very "Morrissey" song since its an instrumental, but I think the title has enough material to make the mind wander.
Strath of Pacific Standard- Brooklyn
1. What Difference Does It Make? (There was a period of time working at Visionaire when we literally listened to the Smiths all day every day, and by the end this was the only song I still wasn't tired of.)

2. Half a Person (The first time I came to New York, I stayed in the YMCA, so for whatever reason I retroactively feel some kind of connection with this song, even though I certainly never aspired to back-scrubbery).

3. How Soon Is Now (I borrowed this LP from my friend Michelle and never gave it back. Is that stealing? How can you say?)

4. William, It Was Really Nothing (Being from Seattle I feel a weird kind of angsty pride when he sings "the rain falls hard in a hum-drum town/this town has dragged you down.")

5. (3-way tie!) Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, and What She Said (I think I like these songs for the same reason I enjoyed reading Less Than Zero six times in a row in high school. "I've seen this happen in other people's lives, and now it's happening in mine." There's a sort of salty detachment I identify with for whatever reason. I think a lot of my feelings about Smiths songs would best be described using sentences that end with "for whatever reason.")

Mary Helt of Maryink- Nashville, Tennessee
1. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
2. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
3. The Boy with the Thorn in HIs Side
4. Cemetry Gates
5. Ask
BTW, he and I share the same birthday! (Happy birthday, Mary!)
photos: Morrissey Solo, Amazon