Sponge?

Exit Smiling

New Member
Why did Morrissey break into the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner?

I've never understood how a sponge would be an essential tool for breaking and entering?

Is it a reference to something?

Or did he use the spanner to gain entry, and took the sponge in with him for some other purpose?


Please explain.
 
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The song is based loosely on the escapades of Michael fagin who broke into Buckingham palace and supposedly sat chatting to the Queen on her bed while police arrived. Sponge and rusty spanner Moz fancyfying.,
 
Yeah, I remember that incident at the time... it's just the specific use of 'sponge' that's baffling.

It would've made more sense, for example, to say 'rope and rusty spanner'.


Sponge is bizarre. What point is he making?
 
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Pointless trying to work him out. He's an odd lot you know?
 
I always just took it as he's a kook and an odd ball. Maybe he wants to do the windows once he's in...

My ? is when the queen says he 'cannot sing' is she being a harsh critic (as he presumes) or just barring him from singing in the palace.
 
She's being critical. (Otherwise the next line wouldn't make sense.)


I do like the idea of the sponge being a cake, I'd not thought of that at all.
But I don't think that's what he meant, it makes even less sense.

God, I really wish I hadn't woken up this morning. :straightface:
 
Yes, a sponge for cleaning up her blood after he killed her. After all, she is dead in the song. And the title comes from Last Exit to Brooklyn, doesn't it? Catholics can't marry into the royal family. Another reason why Moz, as a rampant socialist who would want to abolish the monarchy anyway, wouldn't like her. He liked killing female matriarchs in the 80s; did it to Margaret Thatcher (Margaret on the Guillotine) deservedly too. Which has oddly Freudian overtones... :lbf:
 
You guys aren't far off from reality. The spanner was actually shaped like a large penis. The sponge was for the Queen to use for birth control.
 
Sometimes "the palace" can be a state of mind, like dipping into a Godhead or something. Given that, you can break a code (God communicates in a natural, flowing code) using anagrams. There's a whole lotta LOL if you anagram SPONGE RUSTY and SPANNER. It doesn't maybe answer any question regarding the song, it might just be a lovely combination of vowels and consonants, like a a sequence within an equation.

Or maybe it's Nature's nod to sponges who utilize a current of water to obtain their food. I dunno. :D I gave the birth control thing a thought too. You can break into the palace of someone's home by putting a Trojan Horse on their computer and spy on them. Trojans are condoms. I digress...
 
Right, I think I'm ready to draw my conclusions.

Given the ease in which Michael Fagan got in, I think it's just a quick nod to/stab at lack of security. The fact that the spanner was rusty, combined with the sponge makes it sound like you can get in there with any old piece of junk.

Still not the the best word to have used, imho, but I'll forgive Him.
 
Exit Smiling - a good conclusion I think. Morrissey may have just been up for a challenge though - whether he challenged himself or someone else challenged him to use the word sponge. It is quite a comical word and I can't think of another song using the word sponge.

What do we do when we want to raise a bit of money for charity? - we stick our head through a hole in some hardboard and people throw wet sponges.

A friend of mine (who has worked with Alison Moyet) was once challenged to work 'breaded cod fillets' into a lyric. He did it and recorded it. Wasn't a hit mind.
 
Right, I think I'm ready to draw my conclusions.

Given the ease in which Michael Fagan got in, I think it's just a quick nod to/stab at lack of security. The fact that the spanner was rusty, combined with the sponge makes it sound like you can get in there with any old piece of junk.

Still not the the best word to have used, imho, but I'll forgive Him.

I still think it's a cake. Didn't Fagan sit on the queens bed and have a cup of tea with her. So Mozz took a cake along for the tea. Also there's that old thing about hiding an inmates wife smuggling a file inside a cake when she goes to visit her husband. Victoria sponge.
 
She's being critical. (Otherwise the next line wouldn't make sense.)


I do like the idea of the sponge being a cake, I'd not thought of that at all.
But I don't think that's what he meant, it makes even less sense.

God, I really wish I hadn't woken up this morning. :straightface:

Oh fcuk, why isn't morrissey on twitter so we can just get answers to these painful mysteries in an instant.

I think you need to stop sweating the small stuff.
 
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