The Words You Use Should Be Your Own: The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead as a Study in Existentialism
The popular music of the 1980’s is characterized by a significant pivot in both musical style and lyrical values. The punk movement, and the subsequent post-punk era, that emerged in the second half of the 1970s and into the early 1980s, resulted in music that was intellectually stimulating, uniquely crafted, and increasingly nihilistic. The duality of electric guitar and synthesized sound, as exemplified by bands such as Devo and the Cars, increasingly became unbalanced as the synthesizer came to dominate the construction of pop songs. Bands like New Order, the Cure, and Talking Heads understood the value in danceable and commercially viable music while still retaining the artistic merit of the post-punk movement, while others, perhaps best personified by Duran Duran, tended toward a less edgy sound with greater mass appeal. The advent of MTV and the significance of the music video further shifted popular culture in this direction, especially with the dominance of such acts as Michael Jackson’s Thriller era, Prince’s Purple Rain era, and Madonna’s Material Girl era which perfected the art of crafting albums, singles, and videos with unprecedented results. The production of the perfect pop song, underscored by a foundation of synth-driven repetitive bass/drum ostinatos, innovate dance beats, and catchy melodies and hooks, became the standard of the era, and foreshadowed the decline of underground guitar-driven “rock” music until the release of Nevermind by Nirvana in 1991 and the subsequent “grunge” era.
Thankfully, out of the ashes of the post-punk movement, the underground current of independent music throughout Regan’s America and Thatcher’s UK began to rekindle. In DC, Dischord Records documented the local hardcore punk scene with absolutely no aspirations for creating commercially viable music, resulting in the groundbreaking music of Minor Threat, Rites of Spring, and later Fugazi, among many others. Black Flag, the Minutemen, and the Dead Kennedys had similar motivations for recording their music on their own labels, resulting in the birth of SST Records and Alternative Tentacles on the West Coast, to name a few. Blondie and Talking Heads, arguably the most successful bands to survive the New York underground scene that incubated within CBGBs could be seen in larger venues or music videos with higher production value than they had ever imagined - Stop Making Sense is arguably the greatest visual artifact to emerge from this cohort. Even the Ramones, the leaders of New York’s first wave of punk artists to gain national notoriety, made an album with Phil Spector, the prolific (and dangerous) producer who helped shape the sound of pop music in the 1960’s and spent the 1970’s creating records with former Beatles.
Meanwhile, in the UK, similar developments were taking place. Elvis Costello rose to fame while exploring themes of imperialism and racial disharmony against backdrops of “Dancing Queen” style piano riffs (see “Oliver’s Army”). Bauhaus, the Clash and the Damned expanded their musical repertoire with influences ranging from reggae, hip hop, and minimalism while Johnny Rotten himself, after the dissolution of the Sex Pistols, went on to rebrand as art-punk poet extraordinaire by forming Public Image, Ltd. In 1982, as artists made music that depended less on distorted guitar riffs and shouting angst-ridden lyrics, Manchester produced the most significant artistic collective since Joy Division/New Order and Factory Records emerged in the late 1970s.
The music of the Smiths is somewhat easy to describe on the surface. Lead singer and lyricist Morrissey sang melodies in a smooth, deep voice that was ornamented by unusual moments of scat singing or expanding a single syllable across an array of notes in a single breath. His lyrics were often cynical and ironic, and seemed to reflect an almost Dickensian obsession with the downtrodden working-class characters he was surrounded by growing up in Manchester. Underneath his clever and poetic puns and personal, dreary narratives, the accompaniment was deceptively upbeat and catchy. The driving force behind the arrangements was Johnny Marr, a brilliant and versatile guitarist and songwriter. Marr avoided the use of distortion, commonplace after the 1960s, and crafted complex and intricate guitar parts using compositional devices such as alternate tunings, countermelodies and passing tones between chord changes rather than straightforward strumming, and shimmering tones that seemed to radiate light from the speakers. The rhythm section, composed of bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce, provided a steady but subtle foundation with hints of funk and soul to spice up the arrangements.
The band’s output was unique in several ways. The songs often lacked choruses, and instead tended to be structured around verses in the style of narrative-driven ballads reminiscent of a folk-originated style Bob Dylan popularized two decades prior. Morrissey often repeated words or phrases not only for contextual emphasis, but for melodic structure and balance in a manner that enhanced the song’s narrative. He was a master of wordplay and had the uncanny ability to modify or invert words or phrases highlighting the bitter sarcasm and irony that was projected throughout his lyrics. His use of meter, symbolism, and alliteration suggest he had the talent of a poet, the mind of a scholar, and the heart of a struggling artist.
The band was also unusual in that they focused on the release of singles almost as much as they did on albums. A large number of the band’s most popular songs were non-album singles, a practice which had grown increasingly obsolete after the dominance of album-oriented rock in the post-Sgt. Pepper era. The visual imagery used by the band, especially on these singles, was striking. Cover images composed of portraits of various pop culture icons dominated the band’s work rather than pictures of the band or original artwork, as was a more common practice of the time. By depending so heavily on cultural references, the band prompted the audience to wonder what association to draw between the figure on the cover with the music contained within. This ambiguity is yet another layer that adds to the complexity of the band’s mystique.
Ambiguity is key to the artistic language of the Smiths. Although irony and bitterness may be evident to even the casual listener, the lyrics would often challenge the listener to reflect upon themes deeper than falling into and out of love which is so common to pop music, or even the political dissonance expressed in punk. Morrissey adopts the persona of the tortured artist, but one who is aware of, and actively mythologizes, this persona as part of his public image. Always the outsider, he examined his own awkwardness and lack of interest in sexual relationships. He casts himself in the role of the student who is constantly bullied at school, the runaway child, or the chronically underemployed. He is the exile without a place to call home, the buffoon who cannot control the words that come out of his mouth, or, in perhaps his most pathetic projection of himself, a lover who is simply “unloveable.” He not only seems to inherently identify with, but actually aspire to emulate, classic “loner” characters from various fictional sources. He is a British baby boomer version Holden Caulfield, the central character of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye; or, perhaps a better analogy is Meursault, the eponymous protagonist from Camus’ The Stranger.
One is left to wonder, however, the extent to which Morrissey is, in fact, a tortured genius with a talent for lyrical self-expression, or if it is simply a persona he has constructed. Referred to only by his last name, he seems to equate himself with the enduring legacies of other great wordsmiths, merely through association. Who else, for instance, can casually name drop Keats, Yeats, and Wilde in a pop song that clocks in at under three minutes?
This leads us to a question of this discussion: what was Morrissey writing about? Obviously, he wrote about himself to an extent, whether or not he cast himself as a character in the first person or the third person. He wrote about the underclasses, those who were intelligent but underprivileged and underserved, and sought to capture and glorify the mundane. In my mind, however, these are facets of a larger theme. I propose that Morrissey’s work, especially his output as a member of the Smiths, tells the story of an ongoing existential crisis. Nowhere is this demonstrated as beautifully and cohesively as with the Smith’s third album, The Queen is Dead.
Allow me to pause for a moment to make two disclaimers. Firstly, the scope of this discussion includes Morrissey as an artistic figure up through the dissolution of the Smiths in 1987, but focuses primarily on this 1985 album. That said, the output of his solo career, especially his political views of the 21st century, are not considered in scope. Granted, he has never strayed away from controversy, even during his tenure with the Smiths, and indeed, he has always seemed to embrace it as part of his artistic persona. Say what you will about his views with regard to 21st century politics, but it is not relevant to, or considered within this book.
Second, I want to establish that I am in no way speaking as a representative of Morrissey or his intention in writing any of the songs discussed below. My concern is not what he meant, or intended to mean - in fact, I believe that this point of view should be disregarded altogether as irrelevant. I am concerned only with how we, as an audience, can interpret his work. Via the lens of intentional fallacy, the discussion contained within reflects my own interpretation of the work of Morrissey and the Smiths, and how it relates to certain schools of thought. The validity of this interpretation is open to debate, of course, and subject to the view of the reader.
With this formality out of the way, let us return to the matter at hand. In the pages that follow, I intend to demonstrate that when approached as a singular work of art, The Queen is Dead is a cyclical narrative that tells the story of a person’s journey into, through, and out of an existential crisis that envelops his being. The album, although not formally considered a “concept album” per se, can be understood as a metaphor for this journey from beginning to end. When listening to the album in its intended sequence, the listener is invited to join in this journey, experience it in tandem with the singer, and emerge at the end with a heightened state of self-awareness. I argue that considering this album alone, not to mention the entirety of his output with the Smiths (and arguably beyond), Steven Patrick Morrissey is one of the most significant and vocal existential thinkers of the 20th century and should be held in the same regard as figures such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Samuel Beckett.
Yikes! That is a large statement, especially for an artist who never explicitly identified as an existentialist. Besides, existentialism is a school of thought that was relevant around the end of the second world war and largely grew out of fashion in the second half of the 20th century. It yields two important questions. First, even if Morrissey does identify as an existentialist (which, as you will recall, is irrelevant to our discussion), why would interpreting his lyrics specifically through this lens and drawing connections to the existential school of thought matter - especially over a quarter century after they were written? Second, how did I draw that conclusion?
To answer the first question, I will give a brief background of myself (a subject I promise I will not return to until the conclusion). The answer to the second question is contained throughout the content of this book. Although I will provide some background about the Smiths, the events leading up to the creation of the album, and its aftermath, a deep biographical discussion or musical analysis is not the intention here, and has been documented comprehensively elsewhere.
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My mother is Jewish, and my father is Catholic, but I was never raised to follow either tradition. I was never Bar Mitzvahed, baptized, or confirmed, and we did not attend temple or church. Aside from nominal acknowledgement of religious beliefs and getting presents on Christmas, I had no meaningful introduction to religious doctrine. As a teenager, I did play cello at a local Catholic Church on occasion, but it was only to impress my girlfriend at the time who played there as well. I always found myself somewhat baffled by the ceremonies the congregation participated in, and felt that, as an outsider observing this community, much of what they appeared to believe neither made sense nor reflected any particularly identifiable results in the way people behaved.
As I started college, I became fascinated by writers like Dostoevsky, Kafka, Sartre, and Camus. The perspective of the world they described made a lot more sense to me because it seemed to reflect actual patterns of people’s behavior, not an unattainable doctrine of how people should behave. I studied abroad for one semester and visited a number of incredible cathedrals throughout Europe; as impressive as these structures are, I always found it ironic that such grandeur was obviously at odds with the teachings of humility from Jesus himself, a point that has been conveniently ignored throughout centuries.
Over the next couple of decades, my interest in existentialism and nihilism grew. The more I read and learned, the more it made sense to me. Whereas religious doctrine uses stories and traditions to influence human behavior without supplying any meaningful evidence, existentialism appeared to just explain the phenomenon of existence in a way that was perfectly logical to me - we just exist. There is no before-existence or after-existence. There is no predetermined meaning of life, other than what we choose to define for ourselves. There is no God who judges whether we get into heaven or not depending upon what we do on Earth, especially when the rules assigned to us by religious doctrine are often illogical, unnatural, self-contradictory, or even blatantly at odds with the values and teachings of Jesus.
It seems to me that ever since humans developed the ability to organize, communicate, and record their thoughts, they have attempted to understand and explain the world around them. To reconcile things in the world that they could not explain or understand, they generated the best explanation they could muster - higher beings that they could not see and who have powers they do not have. This is what has evolved over millennia to the phenomenon we know today as “faith.”
I love the idea of faith. It is comforting in many ways. If I do not have the capacity to truly understand what happens to myself as a conscious being after death, it is reassuring to imagine that there will be another place waiting for me, especially if I meet certain criteria. It seems to matter more about arbitrarily meeting these criteria than asking why they are what they are, who actually created them, and why there are any criteria in the first place. The idea that after I die, I cease to exist and become part of a cosmic nothingness is much less comforting. I think this became especially clear to me because I never grew up in any tradition that taught me from an early age the framework to understand these issues. Essentially, that is what faith is - a framework for understanding things that we do not understand. As I grew up outside of any framework, I began to view religious institutions with a slightly more critical lens than I might have otherwise.
Lots of people in communities across the American and European continents happen to grow up being taught the Christian framework, whereas most people in India are taught the Hindu framework and many in Arabic countries are taught the Islamic framework. To decide that one framework is exclusively true and more valuable than another is not only arbitrary and arrogant, it leads to conflict and disharmony as any history class or news article can easily demonstrate. Ironically, this is supposedly the very opposite of what religion’s supposed goal. Yet, when you remove the notion of God or religious doctrine from the essence of our existence, what is there to really fight about?
It is this very freedom from the constraints of faith that appealed to me about existentialism. Within its framework, there is no particular need to explain away things that were paradoxical or illogical aspects of religious doctrine, and there is no all-powerful being that causes these issues in the first place. Existence is absurd, and events happen as the result of factors within and without our control - environment, circumstance, genetics, cause and effect, free will, etc. Every attempt to understand the world is essentially just a human construction. Math is a human construction, for instance, that attempts to explain and define the properties that govern the physical world in as logical a manner as possible. Time is a human construction that attempts to help us measure, define, and describe our interaction with physical, emotional, and mental events in a linear and standardized way. God, therefore, is a human construction that attempts to help us understand where we came from, why we exist, and what happens after we cease to exist. We are born, and then we live, and then we die.
The more I considered institutionalized religion, especially with using “faith” as a wild card I can pull when confronted with something illogical, the less it made sense to me. If I pray to God for a certain outcome of a given situation, maybe He will answer my prayers by changing the course of events to direct the outcome in my favor. But what if another person, whose life and moral convictions are similar to mine, prays to the same God for the opposite outcome for reasons that are equally valid and ethical in nature. That puts God in a bit of a pickle - whose prayer will He answer? Multiply that by 8 billion people in the world, it feels less likely that God will be able to solve that paradox simultaneously. Yet, I pray to God because I have “faith” that He will hear and answer my prayers. Pretty convenient, especially if you do not want to consider that sometimes you have no control over how events will play out.
It was this mindset that I had developed when I first heard music by the Smiths. I was in my mid-20s at the time and had barely even heard of them when, on the recommendation of a friend, I bought a 7” single of “The Boy with the Thorn in his Side” from a local record store. I was blown away because it was nothing at all like I expected from them based upon what people had told me - but I loved it, nevertheless. I quickly got my hands on all of their music and listened to it religiously (for lack of a better word). In addition to the astounding quality of the music itself, I thought the lyrics were the most intelligent I had heard since hearing Dylan for the first time. And certain phrases from songs began to punch me in the gut in a way I could not ignore.
It occurred to me that several of the themes explored by Morrissey were almost identical to the ones that I described above, if not implied, then directly stated, and tha the music belonged on the same family tree that included such works as The Stranger and Nausea. “They were born and then they lived and then they died / Seems so unfair, I want to cry” is not such a stretch from “Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.” For Morrissey, the essence of existence is depressing; for Sartre, it is monotonous. Either way, each is faced with an existential crisis.
So back to the two questions posed above. First, why is this important? Because all of us are bound by one simple fact that we are unable to deny: we are going to die. Some people don’t think about it too much because they have uttered enough “Hail Mary”s to make it into Heaven. For others, like the two guys I mentioned above, that isn’t enough because it simply doesn’t make sense. So the existential crisis is a phenomenon in which we face the realization that we are going to die at some point and until we do, we need to better understand why we are here - otherwise, what’s the point? The music of the Smiths can help the listener understand this question and search for an answer. The answer for each person will be different, of course, but ultimately, it is the journey that matters. The very act of asking the question sets in motion the need to answer it, which causes us to examine our lives, our values, and how we can - and will - make the most of our very finite existence.
This leads me to the second question: what exactly does this have to do with The Queen is Dead. The answer, as I said, is contained throughout the pages of this book. Every song is interconnected and sequentially significant. I will structure the book by focusing on one song per chapter in the sequence of the album, to draw parallels with various ideas found throughout the existential school of thought. The album tells the story, from beginning to end, of a man’s existential crisis in such a profound way that it can parallel the listener’s own story in limitless ways, even if that story has yet to be told. In doing so, it encourages the listener to create a unique framework of his own to find meaning in his own life. It demands of the listener to write her own story, not to let that story be dictated by others, whether that voice comes from political authority (“the Queen”) or religious doctrine (“the Church"). Instead, Morrissey warns the listener that “the words you use should be your own.”