Paint a Vulgar Picture

January 11, 2007 11:45 PM

Morrissey is "in negotiations" to write or perform the UK's next entry in The Eurovision Song Contest (won forty years ago by Morrissey's childhood hero - and later singing partner - Sandie Shaw). The ever-helpful BBC offers tips on how Britain's second greatest living cultural icon can pen a winning song. The "won forty years ago" link is to Google Video, by the way
posted by bunglin jones (39 comments total)

Perhaps Morrissey could just recycle the title track off his 2004 album You Are The Quarry. It seems to perfectly capture the "eurovision" of America.

"In America,
It brought you the hamburger
Well America you know where
You can shove your hamburger
And don't you wonder
Why in Estonia they say
Hey you, Big fat pig
You fat pig, You fat pig"

- from "America Is Not The World"
posted by ageispolis at 11:56 PM on January 11, 2007

Can't he just perform a cover of Yesterday's Men by Madness?
posted by i_cola at 12:03 AM on January 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

HANG THE DJ.
posted by loquacious at 12:20 AM on January 12, 2007

Gee, it's gonna be awfully hard to compete with last year's winner. Can Morrissey dress up like a decomposing mummy?
posted by miss lynnster at 12:41 AM on January 12, 2007

This is a brilliant move on Morrissey's part. He's gonna get a whole new level of publicity out of this, and may actually (at the same time) lend some credibility to the absurdly kitsch-y Eurovision contest. Smart guy. I bet he'll play it for all it's worth.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:01 AM on January 12, 2007

if he doesnt do it topless hes not worth crap
posted by tsarfan at 1:25 AM on January 12, 2007

Eurovision is like Olympic Figure Skating except without Figure Skating or the Olympics.
posted by srboisvert at 1:54 AM on January 12, 2007

Dad, you're embarrassing me!
posted by popcassady at 2:01 AM on January 12, 2007

Fame fame fatal fame
It can play hideous tricks on the brain
But still i'd rather be famous
Than righteous or holy,
Any day, any day, any day
posted by algreer at 2:29 AM on January 12, 2007

And I can't resist this ever-relevant gem:

It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind
posted by algreer at 2:36 AM on January 12, 2007

and may actually (at the same time) lend some credibility to the absurdly kitsch-y Eurovision contest.

Or lend some credibility as a songwriter to a washed-up has-been.
posted by cillit bang at 3:53 AM on January 12, 2007

here's a guess at the sort of happy, upbeat song Morrissey is likely to write
posted by cubby at 4:46 AM on January 12, 2007

He's getting a little carried away with the coming out, eh?

tsarfan: that's not so unlikely
posted by pleeker at 5:54 AM on January 12, 2007

I thought he lived in Rome, not LA (in cubby's link)

I wonder whether he'll submit himself to the now-inevitable public phone vote, or whether he'll insist on a bye to the contest itself.

I heard "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" four times on Radio 4 the night they were talking about this (twice on PM, once on the World Tonight, and once on Front Row).
posted by athenian at 5:57 AM on January 12, 2007

Morrissey is ranked above Bowie? WTF?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:09 AM on January 12, 2007

Morrissey is ranked above Bowie? WTF?
posted by papakwanz at 6:20 AM on January 12, 2007

Don't know about a winning song, but certainly a *whining* song.
posted by reality at 6:29 AM on January 12, 2007

*explodes*
posted by jonmc at 6:34 AM on January 12, 2007

Bigmouth strikes again.
posted by contessa at 6:38 AM on January 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Or lend some credibility as a songwriter to a washed-up has-been.

You may or may not have heard it, but "You Are The Quarry" is actually quite good. You may not like his music (I'm certainly not his biggest fan myself), but he's decidedly not a washed-up has-been.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:44 AM on January 12, 2007

If he writes some anti-american palbum like "America is not the world" he'll have a good chance of winning, I imagine.
posted by delmoi at 6:45 AM on January 12, 2007

Morrissey is ranked above Bowie? WTF?

I know! I saw this the other day, and it got me so mad that I blocked it out.
posted by ob at 7:00 AM on January 12, 2007

Delmoi:If he writes some anti-american palbum like "America is not the world" he'll have a good chance of winning, I imagine.

To be fair, the Mozz lays into his homeland in the very next track on 'You are the Quarry'... so he's an equal oppurtinities griper!

Irish blood, English heart, this I'm made of
There is no-one on earth I'm afraid of
And no regime can buy or sell me

I've been dreaming of a time when
To be English is not to be baneful
To be standing by the flag not feeling
Shameful, racist or partial

Irish blood, English heart, this I'm made of
There is no-one on earth I'm afraid of
And I will die with both my hands untied

I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour
And Tories, and spit upon the name of Oliver Cromwell
And denounce this royal line that still salute him
And will salute him forever
posted by stumcg at 7:07 AM on January 12, 2007

re: the living icon page, whatever it's other faults at least David Attenborough is at the top. the fact that a pop star or movie actor is not in the number 1 position minutely redeems it.
posted by edgeways at 7:20 AM on January 12, 2007

stumcg: "To be fair, the Mozz lays into his homeland in the very next track on 'You are the Quarry'... so he's an equal oppurtinities griper!"

Certainly. He did this, I'm certain, to clear up any doubts as to whether he was just writing pablum in the last song, or whether he actually had something to say.

The irony about Morrissey is that he actually made some worthwhile music, while it's not something I love listening to, back when he thought he was a lonely loser. Now that he's fully convinced that he's a great man, he turns out pretentious pap like You Are The Quarry, whereon he seems to believe that he's being deep and significant by saying silly self-righteous things that he's fairly sure no one he knows will disagree with.
posted by koeselitz at 7:51 AM on January 12, 2007

If he writes some anti-american palbum like "America is not the world" he'll have a good chance of winning, I imagine.

No recent Eurovision winner has been a political song. Seriously, wtf? I have a hard time imagining the viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest as hardcore anti-American bigots.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 8:04 AM on January 12, 2007

No recent Eurovision winner has been a political song. Seriously, wtf? I have a hard time imagining the viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest as hardcore anti-American bigots.

Agreed. I think delmoi probably doesn't actually know much about the Eurovision thing. (Get it, the Eurovision thing?)

And yeah, that cultural icons list is kind of mystifying. Ahead of Bowie and Paul McCartney? That doesn't make since. But, hey, maybe he's that huge in the UK?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:10 AM on January 12, 2007

Like I said, that doesn't make since. Sense either.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:13 AM on January 12, 2007

No recent Eurovision winner has been a political song.

That just means they're ripe for it!

Seriously wtf? I have a hard time imagining the viewers of the Eurovision Song Contest as hardcore anti-American bigots

I just heard about this thing last year.
posted by delmoi at 8:19 AM on January 12, 2007

I must say i found Mr Morris to be a very poor applicant, a kind of Tommy Steele in-the-glums sort of fellow.
posted by sgt.serenity at 8:19 AM on January 12, 2007

flapjax, well of course he is a music legend in the UK but more likely it's just that, since the icon thing was all voted by the public, he's got a lot of obsessed fans. Exhibit A: There's not a more talented, lovely (or loved) person in the music scene. David Bowie's fans have proved this by not supporting him enough to get him into the top 3.
posted by pleeker at 8:41 AM on January 12, 2007

I'll take Morrissey over Bowie any day of the week. Morrisey at his best moves my heart, Bowie could only ever move my feet.

But what really made me happy was seeing dear Stephen Fry at #6. There's someone I'd like to see more of. If his old partner Hugh Laurie can get an American TV series what about one for Stephen?
posted by django_z at 8:47 AM on January 12, 2007

heh, some of those messages from Morrissey's fans are pretty funny. They truly are obsessed with the man.

I say, and I'm damn well serious, RINGO STARR should've been at least somewhere in that top 10 list. GIVE THE DRUMMER SOME!!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:47 AM on January 12, 2007

he's got a lot of obsessed fans.
This is true. More than twenty years ago, I was one of them. If time travel allowed the fourteen-year-old bunglin jones (you know - the vegetarian schoolboy with flowers in his back pocket and the quiff that made him a full seven inches taller) to somehow vote on this greatest living icons poll, he would somehow ENSURE that Morrissey secured first place and Johnny Marr second. But the reality is that the fourteen-year-old bunglin jones is gone and, as Morrissey said:
I'm so glad to get older, to move away from those awful times
posted by bunglin jones at 8:59 AM on January 12, 2007

Obsessed fans, huh? Really? You think? What POSSIBLY gives you that idea?
posted by miss lynnster at 9:51 AM on January 12, 2007

Slate did a great series of "Dispatches" from last year's Eurovision, for any other Americans like me who needed a primer on what this is all about.
posted by sbrollins at 10:16 AM on January 12, 2007

I was on a ship traveling from Greece to Venice when the 2006 Eurovision finals were airing. The finale was filmed in Athens, & it was a REALLY big deal... people in the ship's lounge were CRAZY yelling at the tv like it was the World Cup or something. Some of the acts were pretty good... but WOW some of them stank. Like for example? This. Or this. (I mean, I'm sorry but... Johnny doesn't know how to TWIST? When was the last time this was a serious social problem? 1966?)
posted by miss lynnster at 11:01 AM on January 12, 2007

I'd love it if he really did it. 30 odd years ago my family used to watch eurovision and laugh about the idea of Bowie or Jagger entering and blowing everyone else away, it's well past time to reclaim it from bubblegum.
As for Morrissey, I remember vaguely meeting him around 84 or 85, just after the Smiths first album. He was lovely, a genuinely charming man. I lost interest in his music soon after that (blame e and acid house) so I have no informed comment on his later dubious opinions. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and hope he'll write a scorcher, and sing it too.
posted by aisforal at 3:07 PM on January 12, 2007

Without Marr, I think Morrisey has been rather bland. This is the guy who rightly refused to participate in the Feed the World song because it would be horribly inappropriate to inflict such a horrible song on the world. I've always wondered how Paul Weller got himself mixed up in that nonsense.

It can't get worse than that I imagine but still.

And of course musical taste is relative, etc. and so forth.
posted by juiceCake at 3:16 PM on January 12, 2007