For those of you just joining us, I'm counting down my 20 favorite Morrissey Non-Singles each and every weekday until the Mozfather's show at The Orpheum on the 29th. Here's what the list looks like so far:
20. One Day Goodbye Will Be Farewell
19. Driving Your Girlfriend Home
18. Munich Air Disaster 1958
17. Seasick, Yet Still Docked
16. I Don't Mind If You Forget Me
15. Sister I'm A Poet
14. On The Streets I Ran
13. There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends
12. Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself?
11. Come Back To Camden
10. Disappointed
Take a second to scroll down and see my thoughts on those tracks.
So, now here we are at #9.
#9. I've Changed My Plea To Guilty (Morrissey/Nevin)
B-Side from the My Love Life single.
Key Line: "Something I have learned... If there's one thing in life I've observed... It's that everybody's got somebody..."
Returning to the same sparse structure that brought them so much success with "There's A Place In Hell For My And My Friends," Morrissey and Mark Nevin use only a piano and few found sounds to craft a b-side that is far superior to its accompanying a-side.
"I've Changed My Plea To Guilty" can easily be read as one of Morrissey's more clear statements regarding the constant homeseuxal/heterosexual/"fourth sex" rumours that followed the man from day one. I don't mean to jump to conclusions, but it's nearly impossible to read lines like, "Freedom is wasted on me, see how your rules spoil the game..." without hearing a commentary on his own sexuality. That's to say nothing of Mozzer's famous fandom regarding Oscar Wilde, himself "convicted" of homosexuality and sentenced to banishment in Gaol.
It's important to note, of course, that Morrissey never admits guilt. In fact, the song opens with the line, "I'm standing in the dock with my innocent hand on my heart..." As he has since day one, Morrissey's playing coy. He's not guilty, he's merely tired of fighting, and taking a plea deal.
Regardless of the sexual overtones, "I've Changed My Plea To Guilty" stands as one of the great lost Morrissey tracks simply for it's vocal performance. Rarely has Morrissey managed to sound both so self-assured and so vulnerable. I can't think of another singer who could swing the pendulum back and forth within just one song quite so well. Truly, no other singer in pop history could pull off a line like, "Outside there is pain, emotional air raids exhausted my heart, and it's safer to be inside..."
Two quick sidenotes about this track before I go:
Sidnote 1: On the version of the song that appears on the My Love Life single, Nevin opens the song with the piano and some muffled sounds. According to Simon Goddard, one of those sounds is the voice of Nevin's friend, a waitress named Suzy Solan speaking into a dictaphone. Why do I bring this up? Because Ms. Solan was from Minneapolis! As far as I can tell, this is the only Minnesota connection I've found anywhere in The Smiths/Morrissey catalog. How you go so hard, MPLS?
Sidenote 2: I'd always kind of liked this song, but I'd never had it ranked very highly on my list of "Great Mozzer Tracks." This oversight became blindingly obvious after seeing Morrissey perform the song on the Ringleader Of The Tormentors tour. Remember earlier when I mentioned that "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" lost something in the "full-band" treatment? The opposite is true for "I've Changed My Plea To Guilty." Have a look at the video above and you'll know just what I mean.
