"The Queen Is Dead", But Is The Album?

I don't know if anyone wrote such a headline, but forty years ago The Smiths were indeed "the great white mope". Johnny Marr might have been playing jangling guitar chords, but Morrissey was the bummer of all bums. He was the embodiment of Kerouac's "Dharma Bums", he was the guy confusing others whether he was asking to bum one or if he was a bum one. Morrissey was the voice of a generation who saw the ego and greed of the 80s as a moral failing that poetry and music could make a difference with. Of course, we didn't know at the time what Morrissey would become, which reframes his anti-monarchical bent as more of a statement about his own lack of status.

Everything about The Smiths needs to be reassessed in light of how the world has changed. Morrissey is no longer the voice of the voiceless now that he tries to hold down those who are currently struggling. Morrissey is no longer the outsider skewering the elites now that he is an elite closing the door on anyone trying to follow in his wake. Morrissey is no longer speaking truth to power now that he doesn't have leaders of a particular sort to beat up on. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

With strongmen and wannabe royalty trying to take up power around the world, there is irony in the realization that we cannot fathom Morrissey being outspoken about current politics in a way that would not reek of elite male privilege. A man who in some ways led a counter-culture of outcasts trying desperately to fit in is more likely to opine about the wisdom of cutting off one culture from another, rather than note the danger the world finds itself in.

That is to say that by naming the album "The Queen Is Dead", Morrissey was conning people into thinking he gave a damn about anyone but himself. At the time, the subversion was similar to when The Sex Pistols made their famous statement against the monarchy, but reading it back the entirety of the critique is in the title. Morrissey's lyric offers little insight into anything beyond his own self-absorption. He quips a joke that would have been trite even in the days of The Marx Brothers, then brings up castration. While it may indeed be true that "life is very long when you're lonely", when Morrissey is saying that the rain flattening his hair is what kills him, he's making it rather clear he is not the deep thinker people mistook him for.

And therein is what makes Morrissey so infuriating. He is a lazy writer, a shallow thinker, and yet he mastered the art of making people believe there was depth to his illusion. As "I Know It's Over" plays, and he croons about feeling the earth burying him in his grave, it sounds like a profound musing on the lessons we learn when reflecting upon death. That is not at all the case, as Morrissey mostly rambles on about love without having any insight into the subject, or his relationship with it. Marr's acoustic guitars are a somber backdrop, and Morrissey's voice has the flat affect of ennui, which paints the impression of feelings more interesting than Morrissey's words.

At other times, Morrissey' clings to a single note as if relaying to us the entire act of strangling himself needed to be put to vinyl. For as much as The Smiths are remembered for their jangling pop, they were as likely to drag their albums into the mire with dirges Morrissey's charisma made even more depressing. The dichotomy of Morrissey's gloom with Marr's optimism is what made the band their best, like the bouncing lilt of "Cemetery Gates", but it becomes intolerable on "Never Had No One Ever" when both are fighting to see who can bring the mood down the most. Let's not ignore that the story in "Cemetery Gates" finds Morrissey lecturing someone for quoting rather than writing words of their own, when he himself often name-drops and borrows phrases when even he is sick of repeating himself to death.

That leaves "The Queen Is Dead" as an apt metaphor for the band's entire career; they were a band that had one remarkable skill, but they could not focus on it. "Cemetery Gates", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", and "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" are classics for a reason. They embody the ugly undercurrent of the 80s for the younger generations who saw the foundations of the future eroding. Even Morrissey could not have seen how quickly or how thoroughly that would happen, but that thread of The Smiths still connects with us. What doesn't is the band's abject misery, because they felt that way in a time that looks glorious compared to what we deal with today. Morrissey was angry about rain and people reading the wrong books, and now we're dealing with our very humanity being stripped away from us, both politically and technologically.

"The Queen Is Dead" was a statement, but it was quaint. The monarchy then was a figurehead, a powerless bit of costuming that distracted us from the harsh light of reality. Now that it is gone, and we see how deep the moral rot runs, I think a lot of us would like to return to that kind of innocence.

Forty years is a long time, so it's no surprise The Smiths sound a bit like a relic of the past. There are things we can take from them still, but we need to keep in mind the context. "The Queen Is Dead" is an album with great songs on it, but I'm hard-pressed to say it's a great album. The Smiths were, at their essence, a singles band. Listening to any of their albums, even this their best, makes that case fairly well.