well, blimey, look you see. in these rather challenging times (or strange days), when for some reason hmv is not considered an essential service (which illustrates how far wrong we have allowed our world to go), there was no expectation from me to own or hear this album until "the fuss had all died down". or whatever level of seriousness you wish to place on the threat to our very lives today.
fate, fortune or sheer co-incidence, whichever you may prefer, intervened. or simply happened, should you be of a mind not to attribute senses of fate to things that just happen. which means that, yes, hence me being able to sit and write (or compose) this, i experienced a sort of day of release (give or take) (by that i mean give) experience with the new album off of Morrissey, the as usual confrontationally titled i am not a dog on a chain.
yes, that Morrissey. the one who (as he is keenly and acutely aware of on this album, but as you may well expect he really does not care) is perhaps the most popular to be vilified and kicked for simply no going with the flow, for saying as he likes and speaking as he pleases without not even the singular of most single calories of concern being lost over how he doesn't get likes or retweets or followers.
a view exists that we should all abscond from listening to Morrissey; that we should use our freedom of choice to do exactly what people who speak their opinion the loudest do and turn our back on him, for he expresses unpopular views. granted, and true, the apparent lurch towards what anyone would reasonably define as more right wing views can be just as uncomfortable as they have been entirely unexpected. but, as i have mentioned before, and shall no doubt mention again, this thing called freedom of speech does (very much) have a price. the cost is all have it, or none do. with interest i can recall how few, if any, were horrified with him when the police paid a visit to his home, concerned about the song Margaret On The Guillotine, believing (rightly) it was "some sort of threat" made against glorious leader Thatcher.
under no circumstances is it that you (or i) have to accept and agree with everything (or anything) someone said just because once they said something that resonated with you. how much you let it bother, or influence, you, is a different matter. to randomly select highlights from a lengthy career, at no point has Morrissey, solo or in his band whose name escapes me for the moment, persuaded or influenced me to be vegetarian, anti-monarchy, anti-war, enthusiastic about the Krays and their way of "killing their own sort", someone wishing to bring actual physical harm to former drummers or overtly right-wing. but he has influenced me to stop, consider and think of subjects which either i may not have done, or do so in a different way. that, surely, is all any artist would wish to accomplish with their art.
perhaps i will get on to the actual album (eventually) at some point, but for now, the provenance. indeed i bought it a mere 48 (give or take) hours after the day of release, when i was permitted entry to a shop to purchase essential items, free briefly from my place of quarantine. i know some say we should speak solely of "isolation", but the Manics did a song called in my place of quarantine, and anyway, quarantine scores at lot more on scrabble than what isolation does.
for some reason Morrissey elected only to sell the album in a vinyl form off of his website, which is lovely but impractical. as i since long ago grew tired of the second class citizen status amazon now affords customers, i had assumed that it would not before the blackout ended that i would be able to get the cd. so it was a lovely surprise to see it on the shelf down at sainsbury's, despite the war effort dictating only essentials were to be made and sold. with no police around, i bought it then.
indeed, as those of you with a keen eye can ascertain in the above, for the same sum paid for the Morrissey recording (£10 but who is counting), i could have bought two (2) copies of the celebrated 3 (three) disc Gold by David Soul out of that tv show and that Dirty Harry film where he played a biker cop who was naughty. but, i did not.
how about, a few hundred words in, i do a bit of a listen to the record, and give some speculative comments on what i think of it? that is generally how a (for the wish and the want of a really better word) "review" of an album should go, i suppose. but such is never so simple with Morrissey. i would not wish it to be so.
to be honest, the very first time (as in initial) i played the recording that is i am not a dog on a chain it happened in a "background" way, with me (moi) being distracted by other things. it played on, and sounded quite like a conventional (if there is such) Morrissey album. at one or two points, sure, my attention was drawn to it. further plays were then made. but, for some of you, that it mostly sounds like a standard Morrissey album is enough to know whether you do or do not have an interest in it. except to say, like some reviews have gone into overdrive on, there feels like a lot more synthesizers and keyboards and electrical noise generators on it than i would have come to expect.
a general point about the latter would be that (quite) often the actual music would, as good (great) as it usually is, be very much a secondary to a Morrissey album, with his vocals and his words being very much front and centre, in your face via your ears. for some reason here i got the sense that such was being deliberately "mixed back" a little. maybe this is just me, but if it is so, then it was a subversion of expectation to the extreme.
if there is an over-reaching, consistent theme here, then it is time. this is to be understood in the broadest possible sense, though. at points we get treaties on his lower than usual level of patience, whereas at other junctures there are implications of time being up for others (or their secrets), and the notion that Morrissey himself is quite aware of his time, if either as alive or simply as a recording artist, is more discernibly finite than ever before.
but know that this is not a Blackstar orchestrated farewell. nor is it thematic pondering or exploration of loss as you would know it from Automatic For The People. it is, if anything, one of the final scenes of Blade Runner. Deckard is held from a tall building. the one who holds him, Batty, controls if he lives or dies. on the off chance that it is his final act, Deckard unleashes a weak, aimless attempt at a spit in the face of he who would see him end, not caring at all if it hits or not, the importance being that it landed.
of course the album is at times resplendent with the style of poetic sixth former wankery he is so associated as being an accidental inspirer and deliberate curator of. for this, darling i hug a pillow i look at you and nod. but for the rest, considering my statement above, the majority all feels that little bit more sharper, perhaps even more brutal than usual. i cannot say more direct, for the only time he has not (so far as we are aware) been direct is when he's discussing himself in song.
well, or but, even then, no. the most striking point of conversation from the album appears to be the opening track, jim jim falls, which would seem to reference an Australian (g'day) waterfall. the one line in it, if you're going to kill yourself, get on with it, kind of illustrates the patience and time part from above. it also masks a later line in the song, if you're going to sing, sing, don't talk. a reference to himself, a nod to those who are critical of what he has to say, or an attack on those who by profession are singers yet by trade seem to be speakers.
not sure if this has all added any value or information on the record (in the slightest), at all. for "my" generation, well, either you have stuck with Morrissey, or fallen out with him, or never took a shine in the first instance. many still view him as "that twat that waves flowers around", with the fact that he only did that once giving every sign of how iconic a gesture it came to be. is there such a thing as a new audience for him? i would hope so, although with being "right" in terms of what is trending on whatever social media, he very much falls to the left.
should for some reason you be a Morrissey fan (acolyte, admirer or what have you) and were unaware of him having a new record out prior to this post, then yes he does and yes it is worth getting. for those entirely unaware of what a Morrissey is yet have for some reason read all of this, every aspect of his artistic output is worth exploring, except for that fiction novel he did.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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