Young And Alive
Senior Member
Has Morrissey always written all of the lyrics himself, or have Boz, Alain, Jesse, Johnny etc. contributed? Surely all those great words couldn't come from one man alone?
Lyrics Question
- Thread starter Young And Alive
- Start date
The Youngest
doesn't eat his friends
I have always wondered that. The songs are written by 2 or 3 people (e.g. Morrissey / Day) but I don't know if Morrissey writes the lyrics and the other person(s) write the music.
I would be interested to know aswell.
I would be interested to know aswell.
mspendl828
Banned
Morrissey has complete and utter control over everything to do with the lyric and vocal melody. When a song is credited as being "Morrissey/Whyte", for example, the basic music was written by Alain and arranged with the band and Moz has then written lyrics for the track.
However, Moz does have a big say on the arrangment, for example Boz has said that there were some piano parts on Crashing Bores than Moz decided didn't need to be there so off they went, and if he decides what was written to be the verse should be the middle eight then it gets changed. So you could probably fairly say that in a song written by Moz and an other, it's probably about a 65/35 in Morrissey's favour in terms of amount contributed to the song.
However, Moz does have a big say on the arrangment, for example Boz has said that there were some piano parts on Crashing Bores than Moz decided didn't need to be there so off they went, and if he decides what was written to be the verse should be the middle eight then it gets changed. So you could probably fairly say that in a song written by Moz and an other, it's probably about a 65/35 in Morrissey's favour in terms of amount contributed to the song.
nightandday
New Member
The Smiths wrote songs the same way: Johnny, Andy and Mike would record their part, and then Morrissey would record his vocals over it. The other members would have no idea what his lyrics were about until they heard the tape. That's how they recorded the album "The Queen Is Dead". I think it was Andy (?) who said that they would either burst laughing or crying when they finally heard Morrissey's lyrics.
It was a bit different in the early days, when Johnny and Moz hang out and write songs together, but Morrissey was always the only one in charge of the lyrics.
The only lyrics to Smiths songs that Morrissey wrote before he met Johnny were "Suffer Little Chidren" and "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle".
There was a demo with pre-Smiths Morrissey singing the lyrics to "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" to a different melody (I think it was mentioned in "The Rise and Fall Of The Smiths"?) It would be interesting to hear what it sounded like, but they probably didn't save it.
According to an interview I read with Marr, the only lyrical suggestion he ever made to Moz was for 'Headmaster' when he proposed 'bruises as big as dinner plates' instead of 'bigger than'. I think Marr's version scans a bit better and, rather touchingly, Morrissey used Marr's alternative on the live version he was doing a couple of years...
