GlasgowChivas
Doing the Terrace Stomp
I don't know what's caused it but I've been listening to this on repeat a lot recently and I want to talk about it.
When Ringleader came out I remember liking the song but ultimately dismissing it as "a good opener" and moving on to songs like 'Dear God Please Help Me' and 'Life Is A Pigsty'. This was the album, so the critics claimed, where Morrissey was baring all, he was confessing, he was revealing. And maybe he was. It's hard to listen to 'At Last I Am Born' and not find yourself agreeing with those sentiments. (That is another Ringleader song that I've been playing a lot but I'll save that chat for another day.)
So maybe I didn't give 'Far Off Places' a fair trial first time around. Now? Woaft! What a song. I've been alternating between the album cut, the Live At The Hollywood Bowl version and the live version from the Carling Academy, Glasgow, Scotland gig from 27/04/2006. (I was there that night; first ever Morrissey gig!)
The pure, raw, rawk sound of the live versions could be mistaken for Iron Maiden or Metallica as it crashes into life and the etheral voices singing over the opening lend it an otherwordly epicness that I'm ashamed to have ignored for so long. The baseline in the live versions is incredible too. The runs up and down the scale give me goosebumps. Add to it the middle-eastern feel to the song (highlighted even further in the live tracks which have a sitar,I think, included,) and this is getting quite special.
Morrissey's delivery of the lyrics (which I'll come back to later) is incredible. He doesn't do anything fancy for the most part, it's a mid-tempo song with obvious climbs and drops in range but it never really test his voice. BUT, he still manages to produce something incredible here. The 'Why, Why, Why, Why,Wh-yyyyyy' gets me everytime. The live tracks are even better. He drops some lyrics here and there but attacks the song much more fiercely, growling at times. It doesn't always work when he does that but it does for this song.
The lyrics. Okay, so it's a middle eastern sounding song making reference to the USA, bombs, saving lives, ending lives so it's easy enough to entertain that this was Morrissey's Iraq song. But is it? Is it that simple? I dunno. I seem to remember that there was some scuttlebutt at the time claiming that the song was about Osama Bin Laden. Do people still think that is the case? I don't see it myself but would like to hear others thoughts.
Finally, as the song builds to a climax it throws in a one-two punch to cement it's status as something vital and real. Now I don't know the correct term for the noise that comes in at the end of the last verse. I don't know if it's a sample or if it's made by an instrument but it sounds to me like a sample of the Call to Prayer. It couldn't have been better chosen no matter what it was and I'd love to know who's input that was. Whether it was Visconti or Boz or Moz himself it's genius. The second part of course is Morrissey's scat singing over the outro. Simple 'la-la-la's' become something ominous, dangerous and threatening. And that's before he complicates them into long chants of something that resembles 'hoo-dur-ura, hoo-dur-ura, hoo-dur-a-ra-am!"
I'm not really getting across all I want to say, there's too much. But I like this song. A lot. And I want to know if you do too.
When Ringleader came out I remember liking the song but ultimately dismissing it as "a good opener" and moving on to songs like 'Dear God Please Help Me' and 'Life Is A Pigsty'. This was the album, so the critics claimed, where Morrissey was baring all, he was confessing, he was revealing. And maybe he was. It's hard to listen to 'At Last I Am Born' and not find yourself agreeing with those sentiments. (That is another Ringleader song that I've been playing a lot but I'll save that chat for another day.)
So maybe I didn't give 'Far Off Places' a fair trial first time around. Now? Woaft! What a song. I've been alternating between the album cut, the Live At The Hollywood Bowl version and the live version from the Carling Academy, Glasgow, Scotland gig from 27/04/2006. (I was there that night; first ever Morrissey gig!)
The pure, raw, rawk sound of the live versions could be mistaken for Iron Maiden or Metallica as it crashes into life and the etheral voices singing over the opening lend it an otherwordly epicness that I'm ashamed to have ignored for so long. The baseline in the live versions is incredible too. The runs up and down the scale give me goosebumps. Add to it the middle-eastern feel to the song (highlighted even further in the live tracks which have a sitar,I think, included,) and this is getting quite special.
Morrissey's delivery of the lyrics (which I'll come back to later) is incredible. He doesn't do anything fancy for the most part, it's a mid-tempo song with obvious climbs and drops in range but it never really test his voice. BUT, he still manages to produce something incredible here. The 'Why, Why, Why, Why,Wh-yyyyyy' gets me everytime. The live tracks are even better. He drops some lyrics here and there but attacks the song much more fiercely, growling at times. It doesn't always work when he does that but it does for this song.
The lyrics. Okay, so it's a middle eastern sounding song making reference to the USA, bombs, saving lives, ending lives so it's easy enough to entertain that this was Morrissey's Iraq song. But is it? Is it that simple? I dunno. I seem to remember that there was some scuttlebutt at the time claiming that the song was about Osama Bin Laden. Do people still think that is the case? I don't see it myself but would like to hear others thoughts.
Finally, as the song builds to a climax it throws in a one-two punch to cement it's status as something vital and real. Now I don't know the correct term for the noise that comes in at the end of the last verse. I don't know if it's a sample or if it's made by an instrument but it sounds to me like a sample of the Call to Prayer. It couldn't have been better chosen no matter what it was and I'd love to know who's input that was. Whether it was Visconti or Boz or Moz himself it's genius. The second part of course is Morrissey's scat singing over the outro. Simple 'la-la-la's' become something ominous, dangerous and threatening. And that's before he complicates them into long chants of something that resembles 'hoo-dur-ura, hoo-dur-ura, hoo-dur-a-ra-am!"
I'm not really getting across all I want to say, there's too much. But I like this song. A lot. And I want to know if you do too.