(Track from album, “Maladjusted”)
Here it is...review #50...annnnnnnddddddddddd...
Morrissey? Ugh...look - he's done it again...
Well...not quite...and all that hype? The difficulty in choosing a song which would edge this writer out of a stereotype regarding music preference; well, it was very hard. Funnily enough, it was a toss up between this shocking Morrissey song and "Death At One's Elbow" a really, really bad Smiths track. This one, with that tasteful album sleeve was, however, the clincher.
The fact is that I passionately hate this song; I hate, pretty much, everything about it. It is an appalling, awful, tremendously bad, shockingly terrible Morrissey song. It should be condemned to the fiery pits of hell forever, banished from worldly existence, every copy of it destroyed. Except for mine, so I can listen to it and remember that even the best artists can't exclusively write good songs...so here we go...
Instrumentally it's ok, underwhelmingly so, but still average. The acoustic guitar plods through a fairly standard chord sequence with a rip-off Johnny Marr wah-wah electric guitar hovering over, which, as you may have guessed from the description, is less than effective. For the chorus, the drums and bass come in, but even then, with a slightly bigger sound, it finishes too quickly, and you're back at the boring verse structure, with another 2+ minutes left on the clock.
Then there's the lyrics. Oh god, where to begin... 'Papa jack wants to turn back the clock and reach out' - what the hell is this? Its like literature's most tragically untalented lament ever. Where are those classic Moz lines like 'sweetness I was only joking when I said you should be bludgeoned in your bed', 'make no mistake my friend, your pointless life will end' and, of course, 'there is something I wanted to tell you, its so funny you'll kill yourself laughing'...any number of Morrissey's other songs have better words set to the (usually) epic music. Nothing witty gets said when there's no end of deathbed quips the singer could have made.
Its the thing which makes this song suck so badly. When the music is below-par, and the lyrics aren't even worthy of a listen, because there's so little of interest being discussed, that is what reaches out to listener so that he stops and thinks; no. Screw this. Nothing has to be this lacking...and lacking, is just what "Papa Jack" is - have a listen...I'm sure, you'll agree...
This said, "Papa Jack" comes from an infamous low-point in Morrissey's career. 1997 saw the release of "Maladjusted", which, after the brit-pop, rock heavy sound of 1995's "Southpaw Grammar" is, perhaps, the most disappointing album ever. No decent singles, and virtually devoid of that famous Moz gleam; wit, humour and/or memorable riffs. It's not bad on it's own merits, but it is very average indeed.
"Ambitious Outsiders" a comical 4 minutes describing the 'tactics' and behaviours surrounding child molestation, spoken in the first-person, strangely, just about saves the album. The track retains something very intelligent in its wit, despite, of course, describing unforgivable acts of horrifying evil, its brilliance lying in the speaker's blaming of parents; 'well, its your own fault for reproducing'...very quirky; so where, pray tell is the rest of the genius?
Absent, it would seem.
"Alma Matters" glows, but amongst just forgettable lyrics, drowns in a sea of mediocrity with other sonically displeasing, background, lift muzak 'favourites' such as "The Edges Are No Longer Parallel", "Wide To Receive" and "Maladjusted" itself. Everything else tries to be edgy and flops over. They aren't bad songs but, like the rest, are shallow in comparison with this artist's earlier work.
The only other good song, "Sorrow Will Come In The End", isn't even a song - a threatening spoken-word message to Mike Joyce, former drummer in The Smiths, and written during the '96 royalties court case, the track was removed from the UK pressing of the LP and so only other countries were lucky enough to receive a copy of the album with the dazzling 2 or 3 decent tracks...
Fortunately, "Papa Jack" is absent from most current copies of the album. In 2009, a redux edition of "Maladjusted" was issued, with new artwork, a new track listing, and some of those tracks new ones to replace the old; b-sides like "This Is Not Your Country", far superior to some of the original album tracks, replace said musical horrors, with "Papa Jack" completely disappearing from the CD. Special liner notes by Morrissey find themselves filled with comments from the singer, who, in flurries of confused explanation, profusely apologises for the existence of songs like "Papa Jack" and "Roy's Keen", Morrissey's worst ever single, a song, which, would have made #50 on this blog, if the riff wasn't so damned catchy...
So, it looks like Morrissey is finally making up for "Maladjusted" and the tremors caused by its amateur finish, with no song as bad as (or worse than) "Papa Jack" having wormed its way onto a single one of his releases in the 15 years its been since one of music's best forgotten moments...
So with that, and my admittance of a Morrissey track that, frankly, sits below "Chaccaron (Macarron)" on a list of acceptable songs, here's to the next 50 reviews...
#100 will be a legendary song...
I promise...
★
Versions of "Papa Jack"
Album Version (1997 Release) – 4:33