In 1994, Morrissey released 'Vauxhall and I', an excellent and consistent record that mixed Morrissey's perspective on his various troubles at the time with some lighter, character-based songs such as career-highlight 'Now My Heart Is Full' with its "loafing oafs in all night chemists". As I was a bit too young to fully appreciate The Smiths back in the 80s, this was the album that made me grow to love Morrissey's songs and I look back on 'Vauxhall and I' with nostalgia now. Its hard to believe it was 15 years ago.
Just a year later, when Steven Patrick came to record the follow up album, Britpop was in full swing. He could have attempted a bandwagon-jump and made an album full of cheeky ditties about loveable cockney rogues....but it was never likely that he would want to do that and so came 'Southpaw Grammar', a difficult album then and a record that was all but written off by the music press at the time. For me, it was a seriously under-rated collection of songs. If my memory serves me correctly it was released on a bank holiday and I remember playing it and thinking "thank goodness, he hasn't done what the NME would have wanted him to do".
'Southpaw Grammar' contained some of the most powerful songs of Morrissey's career. Just eight songs long and bookended by two ten-minute epics, it was as far from 'Parklife' as could be. It is also one of the most musically-minded Morrissey albums. Recorded with simply two guitars, a bass and drums, it is murky and claustrophobic but on the long songs in particular, the drums and guitars are given free reign to such an extent that the swirling coda to the 11-minute 'The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils' is thrilling even without any input from SPM himself.
On the original release, the middle section of the album contained the shorter, more comercial sounding songs and here on this 're-presentation', Morrissey front-loads the album with these songs...possibly the only thing that could have saved it commercially at the time. It starts, then, with a spring in the step, 'The Boy Racer' is typical Morrissey knock-about.."he thinks he's got the whole world in his hands/ standing at the urinal", while 'Dagenham Dave' ("I love Karen/ I love Sharon/ on the windowscreen") could have been on any 90s Mozzer album, but is fun nonetheless. Elsewhere, 'Just Do Your Best and Don't Worry' offers re-assurance to a friend and 'Reader Meet Author' may just contain yet another attack on the NME.
This time around then, the darker, longer and more majestic songs ('The Operation', 'Southpaw' and the magnificent 'The Teachers...') come later, only for a couple of songs that didn't make the original cut to close the album. 'You Should Have Been Nice to Me' is the best, light and wistful, its a mystery why it was left off back in '95.
The other new additions don't really add to the record that much but what make this re-release even more essential is the new artwork, with some nice photos of Mozz and more importantly, the simply enthralling sleeve notes written by the man himself which reveal much about Morrissey at the time and also show that if he ever penned a memoir, it would be likely to rival 'Chronicles'.
I hadn't played 'Southpaw Grammar' much in the last few years and now I wonder why that is. It is a great record, powerful and triumphant, one of his best. It serves as evidence that sometimes an album is judged on how it fits in with the times, rather than on its quality. Morrissey went on to make 'Maladjusted' two years later before taking a seven year sabbatical. I'll take a look at the re-issued 'Maladjusted' next week.
9.0
['Southpaw Grammar' has been re-presented by Morrissey and is out now on beautifully packaged cd]
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