Emily's Albums A to Z

Listened: Thursday December 1

Vauxhall and I is the first Morrissey album I can recall being released, back when I was in high school. The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get was in heavy rotation on Live 105 at the time. However, until a friend and I went to his shows back in 2002 (just before his modern comeback), I hadn’t bought any of his solo stuff and was reasonably unfamiliar with it. Those 2002 shows changed all that. This album was my first Morrissey.

Vauxhall highlights Morrissey’s talent for telling tales that could be told by gay or straight people alike. However, when I hear “I am hated for loving” or “Now my heart is full, and I just can’t explain so I won’t even try to” or “Used to be a sweet boy… Something went wrong and I know I can’t be to blame” or Spring-Heeled Jim or Billy Budd I can’t help but hear the gay voice more than the straight one, even though there’s nothing overt about it. I don’t think anyone makes this happen better than Morrissey does.

I also get the idea on this album that Morrissey was getting quite sick of the music industry and journalists (but not his fans). “Some men here have a special interest in your career, they wanna help you to grow and then siphon all your dough” and “All of the rumors keeping me grounded, I never said that they were completely unfounded and all those lies, written lies, twisted lies” sort of give me that idea. But he still loves us: “I’ve always been true to you, in my own strange way, I’ve always been true to you, in my own sick way, I’ll always stay true to you.” Aw, thanks Moz.