The Smiths/Morrissey - song-by-song discussion thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Turk Thrust, Mar 8, 2019.

  1. Pavol Stromcek

    Pavol Stromcek Senior Member

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    "Get Off the Stage" - This is a bad song. The musical backing sounds like a bland Clash song filtered through a cajun zydeco band playing at the local farmer's market, with Morrissey's vocals piped in from the stereo of a car idling nearby.

    Or, it sounds like if you took Robyn Hitchcock's "Strawberry Mind" and played it on an ailing cassette player that slowed it down and had Morrissey sing his own lyrics and melody over it at a drunken karaoke party.

    "Striptease" definitely would have been a better choice for this slot on the "Piccadilly Palare" single, but I wonder if it was felt the two songs were too stylistically similar to have on the same release? Either way, it's mystifying that Morrissey doesn't like "Striptease," yet somehow, at the time at least, this was deemed good enough for public consumption.

    1/5
     
  2. pwhytey

    pwhytey Forum Resident

    Yes, absolutely everything about 'Get Off The Stage' is dreadful. Deservedly disowned. 1/5
     
  3. pwhytey

    pwhytey Forum Resident

    This is hilarious! Loving your work @Pavol Stromcek!
     
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  4. Luisboa

    Luisboa Forum Resident

    Location:
    Coimbra, Portugal
    Get off the stage.

    Here it is. This song makes "oh, phoney" looks good. Just horrible.

    1/5. The only one i will give to any Morrissey/Smiths song.
     
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  5. Dalav

    Dalav Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I’ve always liked to think Morrissey might have had a slightly deeper message in mind with this song, with the twist of his echoing last words, “for whom the bell tolls”, possibly foreshadowing himself on the stage in the far future, in the literary sense that “the bell tolls for us all” at some point.

    But after digging up and reading his contemporaneous comments about the track, I think probably not....it’s just Stones bashing. :)

    But it was fun to have the rarity in ‘90, and I think I like it more than others here. So, mark it down as a 2.5/5.
     
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  6. mooseman

    mooseman Forum Resident

    This was a bad one, horrid tune. As someone else mentioned, Striptease would have been a better b side. This tune is tied with worst b sides, I Keep Mine Hidden. 1/5
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2019
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  7. TexasBuck

    TexasBuck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    Get Off the Stage - Never heard it before and I have to admit: I didn't even make it through the first listen. Truly awful. A generous 1 ranking out of 5.
     
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  8. Pavol Stromcek

    Pavol Stromcek Senior Member

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Hey, thanks! I guess this song was good for something.
     
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  9. guidedbyvoices

    guidedbyvoices Old Dan's Records

    Location:
    Alpine, TX
    Get off the stage is brutal. 1 out of 5
     
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  10. Sandorelli

    Sandorelli Forum Resident

    Location:
    Us
    Hardly that bad. Some nice touches of melody that make it a Morrissey song and at least one zinger “ive given you enough of my time and money that wasn’t even mine...” some songs are b-sides for a reason. Why hold everything to the strictest of standards? 3/5.
     
  11. jalexander

    jalexander Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I’m surprised I’m ranking many of these songs higher than others here. I enjoy Morrissey’s solo career, in some places even more as than the Smiths. However, I’m far from a diehard and am part of the camp that feels he lost his muse a long time ago. (And if he thinks he’s found it in Morning Starship... yikes). I passed up the opportunity to see him on Broadway recently despite being in NYC at the time... maybe that’s why I kind of like this song.

    Anyway, Get Off the Stage is a fun throwaway b-side and far more memorable than many of the shelved tracks that have surfaced on reissues. If it were an album track I might be harsher, but as it’s not, I give it a 3/5.
     
  12. rararabbits

    rararabbits Forum Resident

    Location:
    LA, CA, USA
    Morrissey goes Cajun! Sort of. I like this one a lot. I like the rollicking spite, the way Morrissey pronounces “mascara”, the mass singalong, the yodeled “for whom the” and the closing words from Suggs. A frivolous song done right, leagues above the likes of Roy’s Keen. A worthy takedown of classic rock revenants tragically trading on the vestiges of their glory days; you wouldn’t catch Morrissey putting decades old photos on record covers or promotional materials, hem hem.
     
  13. rararabbits

    rararabbits Forum Resident

    Location:
    LA, CA, USA
    I think Suggs looks quite decent as a dapper (if slightly corpulent) older gent; the suited, bowler-hatted image lends itself to that anyway. And you couldn’t say Madness didn’t try anything new in their dotage (a prog-esque ten minute+ title track). I think this song is aimed more at ageing androgynes who can no longer carry it off, EG: Keith Richards looking like a PG Tips chimp in drag.
     
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  14. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    I kinda like the music for Get Off the Stage (again not paying much attention to the lyrics), and it's worth at least a 3/5.
     
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  15. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus

    Get Off the Stage is good fun and I give it a 3. The music is catchy, I like it's experimentalism (Clash filtered through a cajun zydeco -- haha!! More of that, please!) and the fact that it definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. I bet MOrrissey giggled when he was writing it.
     
  16. Gavaxeman

    Gavaxeman Take me back to dear old Blighty...

    Location:
    West Midlands U.K.
    Get off the stage..

    Never one of my favourites, and at this point in his career , the first really bad b side . Sorry 2/5

    “You silly old man....”
     
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  17. inglorious

    inglorious Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Get Off the Stage
    Bit too throwaway, this one. Not awful, by any means but doesn't really go anywhere and the accordion riff jars ever so slightly. Vaguely humorous lyrics, horrible yodelling at the end.
    When I saw Morrissey in 1991 at Wembley before he came on stage there was a bit of a delay and a chorus of ‘Get on the stage Stephen’ rang out for a good ten minutes...
    2/5
     
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  18. Blame The Machines

    Blame The Machines Forum Resident

    Location:
    Swindon
    Get Off the Stage

    I could try and be constructive about this track, but it has very little positive going for it. The musical equivalent of spending 10 minutes before a lesson on Monday morning, after having had all weekend to do an assignment that should take an hour. Awful, throwaway nonsense. I think it is worse than I Keep Mine Hidden. Next please.....

    1.0/5
     
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  19. Turk Thrust

    Turk Thrust Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    U.K.
    The ratings for Get Off the Stage:

    1-8
    2-6
    3-5
    4-0
    5-0
     
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  20. Turk Thrust

    Turk Thrust Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    U.K.
    Today we will discuss the Bona Drag compilation album.

    The thing that strikes me most about this album now is, considering that it features 7 singles and 7 b-sides, just how consistent it is (as the ratings given in this thread back up). There are no really bad songs and many of them range from the good to the truly great. While I Know Very Well How I Got My Name and Sister, I'm a Poet would certainly have been good enough to make the album (and if they'd decided to go another way could have taken the place of the two Viva Hate singles), I think they made a sensible choice to exclude all of the other b-sides up to this point.

    In some ways the quality of this release kind of disguises the state of Morrissey's career at this point though. There seems to be a tendency among some fans to romanticize this period, but the reality is that he was without a band, lacking in confidence and working with the wrong producers. It was this rudderless situation that led to the cancellation of the Bona Drag studio album and then the deeply flawed Kill Uncle that we will start to discuss tomorrow.

    4.5/5.
     
  21. Orson Swells

    Orson Swells Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester
    Yes, I remember Bona Drag being met with something of a shrug at the time - and the inclusion of the Viva Hate singles was strongly criticised. It was considered a lesser Hatful of Hollow or World Won't Listen. In truth, it's fantastically eclectic and entertaining, and actually feels like a cohesive album, partly due to having a great opener and a great closer. And it seems to have grown in critical stature over the years. Personally, I feel Suedehead and Sunday should really have been left off in favour of I Know Very Well and Sister, I'm A Poet. So for that lapse in reason I'll dock it a half a point. 4/5
     
  22. Luisboa

    Luisboa Forum Resident

    Location:
    Coimbra, Portugal
    Is a real strong compilation. 4/5
    But the compilation HMV/Parlophone singles made it obsolete.
     
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  23. ARL

    ARL Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    Bona Drag was basically the equivalent of The World Won't Listen, and even had a similar format with the first half being mostly A-sides and the second half mostly B-sides, and the inclusion of two previous album tracks that most buyers would already have. However, it's a very strong collection, and certainly beats at least four of the subsequent studio albums (bearing in mind I don't have the last three). As with all these albums, I'm only talking about the original issue, as I don't have any of the reissues. Given the turmoil behind these tracks, it's remarkable that it's so consistently good, but things would start to get a little strange after this. 4/5.
     
  24. guidedbyvoices

    guidedbyvoices Old Dan's Records

    Location:
    Alpine, TX
    Bona Drag - sum is greater than the parts. 5/5 for me
    It flows brilliantly, great songs, some of which are my favorite in his whole career. Never did like the cover art, original or reissue. If only it had the ‘sunday’ single art it’d be perfect. Why he chose essentially a screenshot from the November video is beyond me.
     
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  25. George P

    George P Notable Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Off the rails he was and off the rails, he was happy to stay, well, for a while anyway. :)

    For me, Bona Drag is chock-full of gems. While not perfect, it's close enough to be worthy of a 5/5.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2019

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