Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 82
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Popular Culture Review
"some bad people on the rise/some bad p>eople on the right," in
mourning the future of a young debt-ridden married couple, he returns
to the question "ever felt had?" Offering no solutions, Morrissey
fades into the favored punk mode of nihilism, titling his first solo
album Vim Hate.^ In this album, the tendency towards nihilism is
especially evident in "Everyday is Like Sunday" depicting a bleak,
dreary British coastal town for which the singer pleads "Come!
come! come-nuclear bomb!"
The vast majority of The Smiths’ songs avoid outright political
statements, focusing instead on an elaborate form of p>op culture
referencing. This system of referencing relies heavily on icons from
Britain in the early to mid-1960s. These icons appear on the covers
from the groups' 45s and albums, through references within the lyrics
and intages in music videos, and through quotation in interviews and
publicity releases. Most significantly. The Smiths draw upon the
movement of British social realism which documented the quotidien
lives of the working class in films such as Billy Liar, Look Back in
Anger and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning." The movement is
appropriated through the image of playwright Shelagh Delaney,
author of A Taste of Honey, one of the foremost 'kitchen sink’ films,
dealing with the problents of female sexuality and homosexuality in
the context of the family.^® Delaney appears as the 'cover star’ on
the sleeve for the 45 "Girlfriend in a Conta" and on the album cover
for Louder Than Bombs. Sinularly, British performers from these
films, such as Terence Stamp and Billie Whitelaw, also appear on
The Smiths’ album covers, along with iconoclastic playwright Joe
Orton.^^ The emphasis on the working class. Northern lives of the
social realist films is replicated in the classic British soap opera
Coronation Street; The Smiths appropriated Coronation Street star
Pat Phoenix for a singles cover, with Morrissey also interviewing
Phoenix for New Musical Express.^^
While the adherence to icons of the '60s social realism can be
attributed to a political motive, Morrissey’s allegiance to other icons
from the same period is, at first, more perplexing. In music videos,
Morrissey pays tribute to the Carry On series of films: low-brow
farces which were particularly popular in Britain during the 1960s.
In "Everyday is Like Sunday," the teenage heroine is faced by a
massive block of television sets all playing "Carry on Holiday,"
while in "Ouija Board, Ouija Board," Carry On star Joan Sims