[William A. Baurle]

Mark,

Morrissey is famous for his privacy with respect to how he gets his jollies, and for his lyrics that perfectly describe a certain kind of person's difficulty with courtship and romance. I loved him the first time I heard him, because everything he sang, I felt, at one time or another. And his expression was poetic without being artsy-fartsy, eloquent and plain-speaking, without being over the top. To watch the old videos and see the Smiths perform, it's quite obvious how many individuals he reached.

One of my favorites is How Soon is Now, with these two verses opening up the song, which has one of the most haunting guitar bits ever put on record (by the genius, Johnny Marr):


I am the son and the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How dare you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does...