Will It Take Strength To Be Gentle & Kind? – The Smiths Project – Day XXV
Day XXV
Mired in such a strong, enveloping cloak of darkness for the better part of this week has distracted me from the ever approaching light that although seemingly dim, thankfully never goes out. This week I have succumbed to the tunnel, losing sight of my end goal. I knew that with a drastic shift in my work environment that requires a gargantuan increase in listening time, this week would be a challenging one. Having dreamed the dream of this project with full knowledge of this inevitable period of the month occurring at the precise point of my patience and perseverance perchance pitifully puttering out (and my use of unnecessary alliterative clauses increasing) I braced myself. It could have been worse.
Is there anything you’d like to begin with to help isolate your particular mindset today?:
The past days have taken my full-on saturation of The Smiths to new levels. It may seem like a curious experiment to see if a cup of coffee can actually take on thirty packages of Sweet & Low but the results will never be as full of sweetness as one would expect. To quantify my week, I’ve kept a relatively official tally of my Smiths intake:
At this point of the project, have you noticed anything strange about your daily life:
Although a sense of optimism should be setting in, I feel only a slight tingle. The end of the project is certainly within my sights but in many ways I feel like I have failed and accomplished little of whatever it is I envisioned myself completing.
Not being Freud or OT level VIII, a full understanding of my subconscious still evades me. I can however, write with solid certainty that The Smiths have played both the soundtrack to my conscious days this month as well as my dreams. Each morning when I rise in my pre-dawn fog, the very first brain wave that crashes to my cognitive beach is a random Smiths song. Before my feet hit the floor and despite my fogginess, each morning for the past two weeks I could easily write down which particular song has launched a preemptive strike on my day. By the time I am roused by my shower, I have usually silently replayed a verse, guitar hook or an entire song. The songs vary completely, but the most frequent assailants has been William, It was Really Nothing and Ask.
The reasoning behind this seems obvious. As I surround myself with The Smiths so entirely and unhealthily much during the day it makes complete sense that my subconscious is affected. What intrigues me is why certain (and very specific) songs great me each particular morning. I can’t draw a conclusion based on listening to these good morning tracks with higher frequency during the preceding day as I listen to SO MUCH Smiths that it’s impossible to find weight in a few more play counts for particular songs. Yes, these songs are catchier by nature but that can’t be all. I fear that my brain is rotting and as death escapes it, Morrissey is singing its funeral march.
Have you settled on a hatred of any particular elements of The Smiths’ catalog?
I have. The list of ire is comprised not of albums or songs but particular sounds, lyrics and moments. Being so thoroughly involved has allowed me to isolate why I cringe with specificity. While I don’t feel that this is quite complete yet, I can provide a list of 5 of these ‘elements’ which I absolutely despise.
1. The lead guitar sound on Rank‘s version of The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
I love the album version(s) to the point of overkill and particularly the strummy, almost jangle guitar mix. On this live version, Marr’s guitar sounds like it’s played through a 15 watt amp from Sears with the overdrive footpedal switch stuck on and recorded by a mic stuck in a bloody tin can. It also sounds like Johnny is holding each note a fraction too long, looking for emphasis but only destroying the melody.
2. Every part of Paint a Vulgar Picture other than the first 25 seconds
Yes, some songs have such excellent melodies that there isn’t much need to change tempo or really have any structure at all. The Smiths are usually particularly apt at understanding this. Not this time.
3. The bassline of What She Said, especially the melody around the :50 and 1:46 mark
I hate the Red Hot Chili Peppers mostly due to Anthony Kiedis’ inane, nonsensical jibber jabber but through relation to him, I’ve grown to despise the band’s entire sound. If isolated, these two particular moments sound much too similar to the annoying mix of Flea’s hyperfunk slapping and whatever painfully simple pulled and strained electric guitar notes from whatever heroin / tattoo addict guitar player that was in the band at the time.
4. The double hit of Golden Lights and Oscillate Wildly from Louder than Bombs
Whoever decided that including these gems on the compilation designed to help break The Smiths into the American market clearly underestimated the ease of lifting a needle a moving it forward a few grooves or even more so, hitting the skip button. Yes, we understand that you have ‘different’ sounds and yes, you told us in The Queen is Dead that you can play piano. No need to make us listen to it.
5. The introduction all of Meat is Murder
Surefire reciepe for success: Mooing and toddleresque piano noodling leading to a repetitive lead riff over a walking bassline and eventually to the witty, intelligent line ‘this beautiful creature must die.’
On a scale of 1 to 10 Morrissey in Peaceful Ecstasy faces, with 1 being catatonically bed ridden and 10 being elated, how did your Smiths listening experience make you feel today?
Using what we have been blessed with, use Google Images to find a seemingly unrelated random picture to describe your over all mood after listening to the Smiths all day:
The Smiths Project – The Explanation
