Nobody Loves Us #9: I've Changed My Plea To Guilty

Hello again, Mozzer fans.  I told you I'd be back today.  As you can see from the post below, it's been a busy day.

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.

Nobody Loves Us #13: There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends

Well hello again my 25-50 year old, kinda sad, white friends. The Nobody Loves Us countdown continues today.

If you don't know what you're looking at right now, I've decided to countdown my 20 favorite Morrissey Non-Singles each weekday until the Mozfather's concert October 29^th at The Orpheum.

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

Which brings us to #13 on the list:

#13: There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends (Morrissey/Nevin)

From the album Kill Uncle

Key Line: “When we go, we all will go, so, you see, I'm never alone...”

Calling Kill Uncle an “up-and-down” album is a little bit like describing coffee as “caffeinated” or my blogging style as “tedious.” It seems obvious. Still, the spotty album ends on a high with “There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends.”

After trying on many different hats over the course of the album, Morrissey finds himself back in the same place that gave us songs like “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” and “I Won't Share You.” While “There Is A Place” is not on par with those classics, it does share the same structure (just some sparse instrumentation and Mozzer's pleas) and the same bizarrely backward optimism. It even punches in under 2:00.

Over what sounds vaguely like a church hymn, Morrissey seems prepared to lament the fate awaiting him & his company. However, he quickly makes it clear that the “place reserved for me and my friends” is more badge than a banishment. “When we go, we all will go...” is a line used to justify the way of living he's undertaken. You see, he's not alone. Something akin to the old, “50,000 Elvis fans” cliché.

This being Morrissey, of course, his biting English sense of self-deprecation delivers the most memorable line of the song. “All that we hope is when we go our skin, blood, and our bones don't get in your way, making you ill, the way they did when we lived...” There is no way Morrissey was taking his place in the underworld without taking one last shot at those who took him for granted.

While the song is a perfect closer for Kill Uncle, a slight, understated moment on an album sorely lacking both. When the track re-emerged a few years later in rockabilly form it seemed, on it's surface, to be a bit of an injustice. Try to imagine a rockabilly version of “Please, Please, Please...” or “I Won't Share You.” Seems blasephemous, no?

(Quick live sidenote: When I saw Mozzer in Chicago on the Ringleader tour the show closed with an expanded, full band version of “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Now, that song is so good that even a dubstep version of it would kill, but I was still left with a bad taste in my mouth that such a perfectly fragile song could be pounded into submission like that.)

And yet, I'm actually a big fan of the rockabilly version that appeared as a b-side to the My Love Life single. As I mentioned in the “Driving Your Girlfriend Home” post, my love of Mozzer stems from his ability to wrap that voice around a hook more than the actual lyrics in the hook. I feel like the braggadocio aspect of the song really shines through on this version. Listen to the way he elongates “bonneesss...” The seething is palpable. Anyway, I'm firmly in the “Rockabilly Version” camp. But that's just me.