(5) Morphine, "I'm Free Now"
Any band named for a Schedule II painkilling narcotic automatically got considered for an at-large bid (Codeine's record was underwhelming so they were on the wrong side of the bubble), but add the fact that Morphine's best and best-known record (though we like their whole remarkably consistent discography) was titled Cure for Pain, and add in the fact that Mark Sandman died of a heart attack onstage in Rome in 1999, and it's obvious that Morphine ain't here for the laurels. They're notable for being maybe the only non-Tori-Amos/Gary Jules band in the bracket that doesn't feature a guitar, and the only one to reliably rock the baritone saxophone. Damn, and what an identifiable sound it is, right? Two or three notes and you know it's Morphine, and you know it's gonna be a downer, but one with a little swing to it that helps to cut the straight sadness, and so it is. We stayed away from the obvious song choice ("Cure for Pain") largely because we view this as the sadder song, about anxiety and desire, the dubious freedom of being cut loose from a relationship. It doesn't matter now who did the cutting; the fact is that you're free, yeah, you could do anything: "direct a movie / Sing a song or write a book about yours truly," but then, what's the point? It just gives way immediately to "How I'm so interesting I'm so great / I'm really just a fuck-up and it's such a waste." Sometimes being tethered is the lesser bother.
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(12) Morrissey, "Suedehead"
At first glance, Morrissey would appear to offer a surfeit of sad songs. But dig a bit, and it gets harder. This one’s a little too sardonic, that one’s enjoying the pain a little too much (the committee had no tolerance for songs that were mostly about wallowing), and all of them seem to have a too-healthy dose of schadenfreude. Eventually, “Suedehead” emerged as the consensus. Like nearly all Morrissey songs, there’s a lot going on, emotionally: “Why do you come here / when you know it makes things hard for me?” coupled with the repeated “I’m so sorry”s offers sadness but also regret and growing frustration with a lover who won’t let go. Perhaps most interesting is the edge of shame throughout the song. Whoever the sender of silly notes is, s/he’s clearly not someone the speaker cares to be seen in public with. The speaker is toppling a bit, up there on his high horse, and it’s this combo of spurned lover and shamefaced rejecter that give “Suedehead” a bleak biting edge.
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Which is sadder? Vote by 9am 3/12
I can't believe Morrissey has to suffer this. The committee should avoid putting a crooner anywhere near Morrissey. Sorry indeed.
ReplyDeleteSmiths/Morrissey is like Kentucky/Louisville: same damn state, so you've got odds either way. I pick him here though.
ReplyDeleteWas a Hooter’s waitress name of Jodee. Her breasts got the job done, but everything wasn’t peaches. She had the usual waitress concerns, kids, credit cards, plantar fasciitis of the left foot, some bum for a man, the type who would steal tips off a table, kick a stranded dolphin (This was in Panama City), all that. Waitressing, waitressing, it wore on you. Sometimes Jodee felt like an amputated arm. And Panama City was about as inviting as a lizard’s belly. But one day Jodee’s manager, Jared, told her about a chance to win a new car, a Toyota, Jared proudly proclaimed! In a beer sales contest! Damn if Jodee didn’t try, didn’t walk and talk and wink and leeeaaaannnn just a tad bit too far forward, to sell-that-beer. She won the contest! Things were looking up. Everyone applauded. She was walked out to the parking lot blindfolded. Suspense! Joy! Finally, joy! Everyone stood around, in a circle (or egg-shaped gathering). Blind fold removed….it was not a Toyota. It was a boxed Star Wars toy, a “Toy Yoda,” get it? Jared laughed. Jodee cried. Imagine Jodee, with her toy Yoda, taking it home to her sun-bleached apartment. Imagine Jodee, how she felt about life, her life.
ReplyDeleteThat’s exactly how sad is Morrissey.
http://geekologie.com/2010/10/hooters-girl-competes-in-conte.php
Morrissey is cool on the mic and all, but it's too much work to separate his art from his ego. Something about his being groped last summer by a TSA agent, who may have just been following standard, post-9/11 procedure? Did anyone give a damn about his public whining on this matter? I've heard sadder stories.
ReplyDeleteWhen Morphine's center dropped dead in the parquet court, this match up was over. Daydreaming about James Dean's eyebrows doesn't even come close.
ReplyDeleteMan, I can't believe I'm voting against Morrissey twice in a sadness contest... This one just doesn't bring me down that much. Neither does the Morphine, particularly--there's a little too much beatnik-cool in their delivery to inspire true sorrow (for the record, they're one of my favorite bands). But they get the point for subject matter and real-life sadness.
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