It Took Seconds

Four minutes and fourteen seconds: I have probably written more about Morrissey than about anyone else in my intermittent career as a paid music writer. This despite the man’s inconsistency and (frankly) his irrelevance to most other things I like these days. The first time I heard The Smiths was, for better or worse, a genuinely life-changing moment so I doubt I’ll ever be wholly Morrissey-free. As a younger man I would often dismiss his solo records as embarassing: I would hope that by the time I reached my late 30s or 40s I wouldn’t be still scratching at the same psychological wounds and scars. Very obviously, as I actually reach my late 30s or 40s it’s his honesty in doing this which strikes me.

But this is from when he was still relatively young and when I was still relatively excited by what he did: “Piccadilly Palare”, from 1990. The subject matter I thought quite daring at the time - it’s sung half-by half-about a rent boy, though fairly oblique about this: “palare” is the slanguage of 50s gay London, half Romany half backwards-masking, more famous now than when Morrissey celebrated it here. What attracted me wasn’t any subcultural thrill though, it was the bounce and vim of the Langer/Winstanley production and the fact that Morrissey had bothered to write a chorus for the first time in a couple of years. (This was in the bleak days just after “Ouija Board, Ouija Board” which now seems rather charming in its whimsy and purposeful slightness, but back then was met with horror by an audience of fanboys keen for every new single to be an event.)

The version here actually isn’t the single, though, it’s a much-bootlegged longer edit with a different verse and a different ending: instead of the stagey “in which case I’m dooomed” you get “I’m not coming home Dad”. The extra verse doesn’t add anything much to the song, and I picked this for It Took Seconds because its existence is a nice demonstration of how cutting bits out of a song makes it stronger - the intro in particular isn’t nearly as taut. But the virtues of the track remain, even in less tightened-up form.

What would your 4’14” track be? (Can’t ask this as a question because there’s a 2-question a day Tumblr limit! Who knew??)