Viva Hate - it's got to be
Maudlin Street. Classic Morrissey technique of relating a non-story through a mixture of meaningful glimpses, half-anecdotes and emotion.
Bona Drag -
Picadilly Palare. I love these lyrics because of their musicality - a prime example of one of Morrissey's strongest traits as a lyric writer, namely his ability to find words that just
sound good in the context of the tune and his own voice. "Your lovely eek and your lovely riah".
Kill Uncle -
There is a place in Hell for me and my friends. Always irresistible when he's in self-mocking mode. "There is a place with a bit more time..." indeed!
Your Arsenal -
Seasick, yet still docked. Which is quite beautiful, but not one of his best. I find in general the lyrics are not YA's biggest forte.
Vauxhall and I - Always had a soft spot for
Used to be a sweet boy , perhaps because it manages, much like
How Soon is Now?, to bluntly state the obvious and still be interesting. I suppose it resides in plainly saying something that nearly everyone feel and think, but which everybody else would consider embarrassing to actually state. In this case, "Something went wrong/and I know I'm not to blame".
Southpaw Grammar -
Southpaw. Another Morrissey specialty, the ambiguous morality tale.
Maladjusted - The title track, for the same reasons as Maudlin Street. On a lot of other albums, the winner would have been
Satan Rejected My Soul, which is just so funny and full of spirit.
You are the Quarry -
The world is full of crashing bores. You have to love that kind of generalised "f*** you!" addressed to the world at large. Pulled off with enough grace to let him successfully give the world the bird for being too vulgar.
Ringleader - "Life is a pigsty". If mainly for the strangely compelling line "And if you don't know this, then what do you know?"
My early burglary years - Here I just can't choose between
I've changed my plea to guilty and
I'd Love to. The former, perhaps the most effective expression of self-conscious alienation in his whole lyrical career. The other, a seemingly utterly conventional lyric of love and longing that hooks powerfully into the Morrissey persona. There's something about the lines "I'd Love to/but only with you" that is just very moving, coming from a writer who spent years and years embracing celibacy.
Years of Refusal -
You were good in your time. Also not one of his strongest lyrical efforts, here too there is a nice musicality in the lyrics.
Swords - An embarrassment of riches. I'll go with
Munich Air Disaster 1958, for being a football anthem musically conventional enough to be played at Trafford, but with alarmingly disturbing lyrics for the genre.
cheers