Monday, January 14, 2008

They Talk About The Smiths, So I Don't Have To #2

'This Charming Man': The greatest pop song of all time?

Quite possibly. It depends what day you catch me when asking that particular question.

Professional irritant Paul Morley tests my patience to the limit with his trendy sixth form English teacher deconstruction of the lyrics of 'This Charming Man' on his BBC4 programme, Pop! What is it good for? Simon Armitage is excused from my bile, as I love his prose - though I do wish he wouldn't go to the same barber as Stuart Maconie - and Mike Joyce? . . . well Mike Joyce has the best line of all in the clip.

Hat tip to Urban 75 for bringing the programme to my attention.

3 comments:

Martin Wisse said...

Anything other than sixth form deconstruction is wasted on The Smiths anyway.

Got a soft spot for Morley, who is at least self aware enough to know he's spoutin bollocks half the time, unlike yer average Pitchfork reviewer.

Karl-Marx-Straße said...

You can watch the series online via the 'entirely legal for UK residents with a TV licence, honest' website, tvcatchup.com. (Proxy server with UK IP address required for registration, apparently, not that I'd know anything about that kind of thing)...

Unknown said...

The thing that most amazes me is that anyone involved in the programme would want Mike Joyce to comment on Morrissey's lyrics given the very bad blood there is between the two nowadays.

And his contribution, while very astute and indeed funny, shows that he was really no more than a very good jobbing drummer...