Unloveable
Morrissey Comes Clean
Originally intended as a track on The Queen Is Dead, ‘Unloveable’ (along with ‘Money Changes Everything’) was released on May 22, 1986 as the B-side to the 12-inch version of the ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ single. The single reached number 26 in the UK Singles Chart. TALENT BORROWS, GENIUS STEALS was etched on the Runout on the single’s B-side.
The song also appears on The World Won’t Listen (released February 1987) and Louder Than Bombs (released March 1987) compilation albums.
‘Unloveable’ was also on The Smiths Singles Box album, albeit on the CD edition of this compilation album which was released June 2009.
The song is included on the Deluxe edition of The Queen Is Dead reissue (released 2017).
Johnny Marr composed the music for the song in the summer of 1985 at the same time as the music for ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’. Morrissey had given the song lyrics by the time they entered RAK Studios in London in September 1985 to start recording the tracks that would later become The Queen Is Dead.
A demo of the song was recorded at RAK, but it wasn’t properly recorded until the subsequent sessions for The Queen Is Dead tracks in October-November 1985 at Jacobs Studios in Farnham (Surrey). Produced by Morrissey and Johnny, Stephen Street acted as recording engineer on the song, which was meant to be on the forthcoming album. At some point afterward Morrissey and Marr pulled the song from The Queen Is Dead, and instead relegated the song to being a single B-side.
Neither the Smiths nor Morrissey have ever performed ‘Unloveable’, although it was sound checked on the September 1985 Scottish leg of the Meat Is Murder tour, presumably for performing. Listen to the sound check for ‘Unloveable’:
It has been said that to truly understand the man, one must look deeply into Morrissey’s lyrics. In the case of ‘Unloveable’, Morrissey reveals himself very plainly to a degree that borders on disconcerting, especially given that he grasps who and what he is without excuses, complaint, or blame. This is an honesty that is both raw and courageous, as most people spend their entire lives trying to escape who they truly are.
Rather than taking the path of flight, Morrissey tells the listener that he knows that he is unloveable, explaining that “…if I seem a little strange well, that's because I am” as well as that “I wear black on the outside 'cause black is how I feel on the inside”. This startling confession is not mitigated by self-sympathy nor obscured by even a trace of
