Southpaw Grammar
Morrissey's Break From His Past
Southpaw Grammar is Morrissey's fifth studio album, released on August 28, 1995. The album contained a total of eight tracks and ran just under fifty minutes in length. The album charted at number 4 in the UK and number 66 in the US and produced two singles: “Dagenham Dave”, which reached number 26 in the UK Singles Chart, and “The Boy Racer”, which reached number 36.
The album’s cover art features Kenny Lane1, a left-handed (‘southpaw’) American boxer. The photograph is from the April 1963 edition of The Ring magazine.
The style and sound of the album differs from Morrissey's prior work, so much so that Southpaw Grammar can be viewed as a break from the past. Morrissey's solo musical output up to the point of Southpaw Grammar, while bereft of the musical input of Johnny Marr (and aside from a few early tracks, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce as well), still retained a flavor - lyrically and musically - of the Smiths. This is not to imply that Morrissey's post-Smiths work up to this point either cannibalized or rode the coattails of the Smiths wholly unique sound and vision. Far from it.
As the Smiths' lyricist and vocalist, Morrissey's artistic métier was, and will always be, something integral to the musical output of the Smiths. That the dissolution of the Smiths would act to extinguish this is, on its face, an impossibility. In short, the sound of the Smiths, while almost wholly driven by the fulsome musical talents of Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce, did not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it was a vehicle by which Morrissey's unique vision - the beauty, horror, and tortured anguish - could be brought to the fore. Consequently, it should be of no surprise that Viva Hate through Vauxhall and I shared some aspects of the sound and style of his work while with the Smiths.
The album's significance is that Morrissey chose to fully break from his past and chart a new direction. Other than David Bowie (and perhaps a handful of others), one would be hard pressed to find an artist consciously seeking to walk away from a tried and true style and method that had proven so successful only to take a different road.
Morrissey’s decision to do this is amply evidenced by the inclusion of two tracks which surpass the ten-minute mark, the near two-and-a-half-minute drum solo (courtesy of Spencer Cobrin) on “The Operation” and the sampling of a Shostakovich symphony on “The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils”. Several of the songs, most especially “Southpaw”, have a musical complexity and production that is astonishing with their rich and lush sound. At the risk of hyperbole, Morrissey and producer Steve Lillywhite (and of course Alain Whyte, Boz Boorer on guitars, Jonny Bridgwood on bass and the aforementioned Spencer Cobrin on drums) wove a shimmering and beautiful musical tapestry on several of the tracks.
Morrissey sheds some light on the recording of Southpaw Grammar, as well as a considerable loss of revenue vis-à-vis record company chicanery:
“We had started the Southpaw Grammar album in the south of France, but the deserted farmhouse atmosphere seemed all wrong, and we returned to England where everything clicked with a killing. The band is now in impressive strike: Spencer’s drumming winning out magnificently and Alain delivering a show stopping slam of inventive guitar and crowning backing vocals. Box remained the star in the firmament, orchestrating and pointing the way, although I heavily felt the strain of the emotional clash between Boz and Alain. My deal with EMI had run its course, and it felt like the right time to move on-or sideways, or away. EMI would send a new offer, but it had neither heart nor promise, and you can usually tell a record label’s intent by their financial investment. […] Disheartened also by Reprise, I reject their contractual extension, but alas they already had Southpaw Grammar. Knowing I have already left the label, Reprise kick Southpaw Grammar down the slipway of obscurity, and it enters the chart at a very unlikely number 66. On a flight to Chicago I bump into a Reprise executive who doesn’t surprise me in the least by revealing: “You know the label deliberately crippled Southpaw Grammar, don’t you? Because you wouldn’t re-sign?’ […] In Europe, I hastily sign a one-album deal with BMG/RCA, bemusing the label at the conference table by overseeing the deal with no legal intervention. My smartness backfires on me, though, because I would never earn any royalties from Southpaw Grammar, which enters the UK chart at number 4, and the £200,000 placed upfront by the label disappears into recording and producer fees.”2
A remastered version of Southpaw Grammar was released in April 2009 in the UK. This version includes an altered running order, three previously unreleased tracks (“Honey, You Know Where to Find Me”, “You Should Have Been Nice to Me” and “Fantastic Bird”, the last of which dates from the Your Arsenal sessions) as well as “Nobody Loves Us”, which was the B-side to 1995's “Dagenham Dave” single. The digital version from iTunes Store adds live versions of “London” and “Billy Budd”.
The critical reception to Southpaw Grammar in 1995 was mixed, with many (though not all) music critics generally positive. For example, The Los Angeles Times3 described it as "the most musically dynamic album from the Messiah of Moans since he revitalized British rock with The Smiths in the mid-'80s" while Q magazine4 presciently said that the album "shapes up as the kind of severe work that accrues more honour than love, more favourable comments than sales to record-buyers."
Others were not so kind. According to Uncut magazine5: "On its release, Southpaw Grammar seemed to be the point where the Great British Public officially fell out of love with Morrissey. The casual Smiths fan had all but lost interest while even the scary Moz obsessives were a little puzzled." while Blender6 described Southpaw Grammar as "ugly, noisy, grumpy album, recorded while Britpop stole Moz's thunder…."
Many fans were not sure what to make of Southpaw Grammar, with more than a few left confused by, and dismayed at, what they heard.
The author's initial experience with Southpaw Grammar led to his walking away from Morrissey's music for a quarter of a century. Having acquired Southpaw Grammar the moment it was released in 1995, I was consumed with excited anticipation, expecting music that would at least echo Vauxhall and I (an album that many consider to be one of Morrisey's best). After listening to the album perhaps no more than once or twice, I unceremoniously disposed of it into the nearest trash can.
I concluded that Morrissey had lost his touch, being unable to comprehend what I was listening to after having been bowled over by his previous solo albums. For the next 25 years I did not listen to a single Morrissey song -not a one - ever. Upon hearing of the release of yet another Morrissey studio album every few years I would scoff and immediately move on, not giving the matter another thought. Indeed, even the release of You Are The Quarry failed to kindle even a hint of interest (rather, my reaction was limited only to the album’s cover art featuring a tommy-gun toting Morrissey, dismissing the image at the time as looking rather silly).
Then one mild winter day in late January 2020 I stumbled upon the semi-titular song “Southpaw” on Youtube. Being somewhat of a sentimentalist (and perhaps wanting to justify my decision to break altogether from Morrissey's music all those years earlier), I listened to it and it shook me to my core. Rarely has there been such a profound volte-face. A few short years later (in which a considerable amount of 'catch-up' has been performed) and I find myself curating a growing Facebook group and writing detailed posts on a Substack, each dedicated to Morrissey.
I suppose I was too young, too unrefined in my tastes (a cryptic and polite way of saying "unsophisticated") all those years ago to appreciate the subtle complexity of the tracks on Southpaw Grammar. And certainly I found it unthinkable that Morrissey would seek to go in a new direction - it was more convenient to believe that his artistic output had instead plateaued with Vauxhall, and that he was instead in decline.
How wrong I was. But what is truly unfortunate is that I closed the door to Morrissey for such a very long time. Perhaps my Substack and Facebook group is as much an act of contrition as it is labors of love.
Kenny Lane (1932 – 2008) fought for lightweight and light welterweight titles of the world, once against Joe Brown, and twice against Carlos Ortiz. Lane was raised on a farm in Big Rapids, Michigan with his four brothers and sister. According to his family, he regularly fought with his brothers and it is assumed that his southpaw stance was adopted to defend himself against his older brother, who later became an Olympic boxer. Lane was admitted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 2004.
Morrissey. Autobiography. Penguin Classics, 2013, pp. 288–290.
Cromelin, Richard. “Morrissey Essence Remains the Same.” Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1995.
Sutcliffe, Phil. “Morrissey: Southpaw Grammar.” Q Magazine, September 1995.
“Morrissey – Southpaw Grammar / Maladjusted,” Uncut Magazine, April 2009.
Power, Tony. “Morrissey: Southpaw Grammar.” Blender Magazine, 15 September 2004.
He almost lost me with "Kill Uncle" -- fortunately, he bounced back quickly after that stinker.