Public Servant Lifestyle

Step into the ring with the nations favourite ex-pat. troubadour as Morrissey unleashes a UK tour and another collection of erudite gems.

Ringleader of the Tormentors by Morrissey

Throw your homework onto the fire and get out and find the one you love. It’s that time of the year again: Spring is in the air and the ex-pat. artist formerly known as the Bard of Whalley Range unleashes another collection of erudite gems.

"...whereas You Are The Quarry squirmed with disdain and defensive bravado, Ringleader of the Tormentors brims with genuine confidence, even warmth." - Nadine McBay (Metro).

When we first met Morrissey in 1983 he asked the question, "Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body?" (Still Ill, on the epoch-defining album by his former band The Smiths - called simply: The Smiths), accompanied by the deadpan rejoinder, "I dunno". Even then, however, it was clear which had the upper hand in the singer's case. Morrissey was, and has subsequently proved to be, a strictly cerebral soul.

It is surprising, therefore, to hear him declaim, a short way into this his 8th solo record, "There are explosive kegs between my legs". Actually, it isn't just surprising; it is positively shocking. All that time with so little to report on the old S.E.X. front, and now this!? Of course, with Morrissey, he sings this bawdy refrain with all the tenderness he once brought to the lines "Some girls are bigger than others", which, almost 20 years ago, managed to be heartbreakingly profound at the same time as being killingly funny. So it is here.

How refreshing it is to have Morrissey singing about you-know-what at last! Here we are in an industry named for a sexual metaphor (rock 'n' roll), and yet we have to wait for Morrissey to get down to the real nitty-gritty (to use another one). Awash, as we are, with songs about doing it, it is hard to recall another song or singer who has dared to talk so baldly about sexual longing.

And there's more. Later in the same song (Dear God Please Help Me), we hear, "Now I'm spreading your legs, with mine in between". Again, this is what happens between consenting adults all the time – or so they assure me - but have you ever heard anyone else sing about it so, um, graphically? Me either. And, once heard, it is so thrillingly frank and open that you wonder why others ever bother beating about the bush.

Elsewhere, on first single, You Have Killed Me - which despite the spin of the title is one of the most positive and uplifting things Morrissey has done - we learn, "I entered nothing, and nothing entered me, 'til you came, with the key". Gadzooks! It surely trumps the usual mechanical lyrical demurring about buttons being pushed, or fires being lit.

Ringleader of the Tormentors – which those who have heard it are identifying as one of his greatest recording achievements - is a record of a different complexion than all previous Morrissey records. It seems somehow suffused with a new confidence and, dare one venture, happiness? Time was when we scanned the obits for Morrissey's imminent demise – he probably did too. Indeed, going back to Still Ill and all the way through to 2004's You Are the Quarry, Morrissey resolutely hung around the cemetery gates, it being only a matter of time, and a blissful release when it comes.

Tony Visconti

Now, at the end of On the Streets I Ran, recalling a past of "turning sickness into popular song", we find Morrissey saying hang on a minute, I might not be done yet, surely it must be someone else's turn first?: 'The infirm, the newborn, the stillborn, take people from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, take anyone, just spare me!' Could it be Morrissey finally found a reason?

Ringleader of the Tormentors is a savagely alive record. Recorded at Forum Music Village in Rome with long-term hero Tony Visconti - who produced favourite records for T-Rex and David Bowie, during their most creative periods of the 60's and 70s - the album positively crackles with fire. It is, for instance, a far more direct and rocking record than …Quarry, which aside from Irish Blood, English Heart, was a self-consciously beautiful, and largely symphonic, record.

Here, the music punches its full weight, beginning with the loud and glammy I Will See You In Far Off Places. Slightly Bedouin in its complex and heavy musical undertow, the song teeters on the verge of being sonically terrifying, and is the first indication that Ringleader of the Tormentors is the most musically disturbing record Morrissey has made since The Smiths second album, Meat is Murder.

This feeling of unease and of Morrissey returning to the bleak environs of his greatest early work occurs again and again throughout the album, whether on the scene of domestic hell played out in The Father Who Must Be Killed (clue: he is), or in the queasy children's choir intoning "There is no such thing in life as normal" on sure-fire future single The Youngest Was the Most Loved, which details the early years of a psychopath.

And then, right in the middle, to put the tin-lid on the darkness that lies at the centre of this ‘happy’ Morrissey record, Life is a Pigsty; seven minutes in four blighted movements building towards a final, epic and unforeseen conclusion of 11th hour redemption. OK, it's not that happy, but it sure is both powerful and moving.

Throughout the album the lyrics have swapped some of the vitriol that characterised his last studio album (that is: lock-jawed dull-brained pop stars/uniformed goons, etc...), for a real emotional generosity. I Just Want to See the Boy Happy does what it says on the tin over a delicious horn-led glam rock racket. To Me You Are a Work of Art may contain the classic Morrissey couplet, "I see the world, it makes me puke", but is essentially a paean to a rare diamond in the soggy mire.

Duane Eddy

Right at the close we get At Last I Am Born, a self-evident proclamation of the changes that have been wrought throughout this extraordinary album and, presumably, Morrissey's life, set to a melodramatic marching rhythm and Duane Eddy guitar. "I once thought that I, had numerous reasons to cry, and I did, but I don't anymore, because I am born" and "I once was a mess of guilt because of the flesh". It's a personal and professional triumph, which brings us back to...

Orchestrated by movie score legend Ennio Morricone - who has over the years made much of his significant work at Forum Music Village - the beautiful Dear God Please Help Me, which for the most part simply describes walking through Rome with an unfettered heart, is almost sanctified in its atmosphere. Yes, the lyrical content is frank-bordering-on-prurient, and yet over its six rousing minutes the song swells to almost hymnal proportions, until you feel that, for all his supposed remove from the human race, few people can deliver a universal emotional message with more power than Morrissey.

The full track listing pans out like this (and take note, these titles will soon pass into the culture like so many other Morrissey titles before them, so take a moment to remember where you were when you read them first):

1. I Will See You In Far Off Places
2. Dear God, Please Help Me
3. You Have Killed Me
4. The Youngest Was the Most Loved
5. In the Future When All's Well
6. The Father Who Must Be Killed
7. Life is a Pigsty
8. I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now
9. On The Streets I Ran
10. To Me You Are a Work of Art
11. I Just Want to See the Boy Happy
12. At Last I Am Born

These tracks have each been penned by Stephen Patrick Morrissey with the assistance of Jesse Tobias, Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer.

Aside form the new album and single (you want more?) the man Morrissey will be strutting these shores in a long-since sold out 30 date tour in April and May. This extensive date tour takes in 3 nights in hometown Manchester and 3 nights at the London Palladium. Those lucky enough to have tickets will already know where and when. For everyone else - don't feel too bad - we’ll be at home listening to old Smiths albums and sobbing into our spotted hankies too...

If you’re new to the man himself and are keen to check out some recent releases a good starting point would be the most recent studio album: 2004’s You Are The Quarry (Deluxe Edition), the excellent live album of the man’s Winter tour of the same year, committed to posterity as a CD: Morrissey - Live At Earls Court and a DVD: Who Put The ‘M’ In Manchester?. Aside from those, if you really are new to all this, try taking a trip down to your local Music Zone or Fopp – or anywhere where cheap CDs are stacked high – and grab a handful of anything from the man’s back-catalogue. There’s not a bad one in there.

A Morrissey Discography

The Smiths – original Rough Trade albums and compilations:

The Smiths (‘84)
Hatful Of Hollow (‘84)
Meat Is Murder (‘85)
The Queen Is Dead (‘86)
The World Won't Listen (‘87)
Louder Than Bombs (‘87)
Strangeways Here We Come (‘87)
Rank (Live) (‘88)
Best...I (‘92)
Best...II (‘92)
Singles (‘95)
The Very Best Of The Smiths (‘01)

Morrissey – solo recordings and compilations:

Viva Hate (‘88)
Bona Drag (‘90)
Kill Uncle (‘91)
Your Arsenal (‘92)
Beethoven Was Deaf (‘93)
Vauxhall & I (‘94)
World Of Morrissey (‘95)
Southpaw Grammar (‘95)
Maladjusted (‘97)
Suedehead - The Best Of Morrissey (‘97)
You Are The Quarry (‘04)
You Are The Quarry - deluxe edition (’05)
Live At Earls Court (‘05)
Ringleader of the Tormentors (‘06)

Videos & DVDs

Live In Dallas (’91)
Hulmerist
The Malady Lingers On (’04)
Who Put The ‘M’ In Manchester? (’05)

If you’re a fan you could do a lot worse than spend a few minutes checking out True To You - a website and magazine dedicated to all things Morrissey-related. The site and magazine features news, a discography, pictures from concerts and other events; tribute and other poll results; as well as articles, poems, photographs and drawings. All are Mozzer related and all are worth taking a look on those long afternoons spent indoors (when not busy writing to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg, naturally).

The album has already been preceded by another first-class bit of Mozzer: the single You Have Killed Me/Good Looking Man About Town. If you’ve not picked it up yet, you can collect a copy as you pop into Woolworths to pick up the long-player (go for the ‘maxi single’ version if you can – it comes with extra tracks: You Have Killed Me, Human Being and I Knew I Was Next, plus the promo clip for You Have Killed Me into the bargain). Your ears will thank you.

Ringleader of the Tormentors is out now on the Attack/Sanctuary Records label.

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