THE SMITHS – BIGMOUTH
STRIKES AGAIN (ROUGH TRADE)
What kind of person
compares themselves to Joan Of Arc? A
very naughty boy. And he’s not coming
out.
Johnny Marr was once
quoted as saying that he was going for his equivalent of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
with this track and you can definitely hear and feel that in its structure with
the pace it drives at (seldom was the band so galloping) and the huge pay off
that comes with the chorus. The closer
you listen to the composition, the grander/larger it gets.
The tenth single
released by the band “Big Mouth Strikes” came as part of a three song package
with “The
Boy With The Thorn In His Side” and “Rubber Ring” addressing the
relationship of their art with the industry that was packaging and distributing
it.
Of course the bigmouth
is Morrissey
himself. Feeling somewhat slated and
harshly judged he just went for it with full sarcasm holding the belief that
with many he was damned whatever he said or did. So on that note, why bother, just strike
again. Bitchy.
Perhaps more popular
with the band than the public, Marr was quoted as saying at the completion his
thoughts were “this is why I’m in a band”.
On the other side is
“Money Changes Everything” which feels an appropriate statement considering the
context and relationship with Rough Trade at the time.
Originally Kirsty
MacColl recorded backing vocals for the song but they scrapped when deemed “too
weird”. Instead they used “Ann Coates”
which was Morrissey putting his own vocal through a harmoniser to sound like a
chipmunk. No, that wasn’t weird at all.
That classic moment
when a dark piece of humour is taken the wrong way by a partner.
James Dean is on the
cover.
Thesaurus moment:
gate.
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