Make Me An Island I'm Yours
I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to actually hear Morrissey choosing his Desert Island Discs this morning but I was glad I did.
At least he resisted the temptation to impress us with very esoteric or ironic choices. I suppose Morrissey long ago stopped worrying about impressing people although it was good to hear him say he would be 'beaming' if Radio 2 played his new record. He sounded as uncomfortable in the presence of Kirsty Young as you would imagine, expect and hope him to be and his answers were sometimes very short, although I suspect there's some industrial strength editing going on every week on that show to make the answers sound 'snappy'.
He chose the New York Dolls 'Showdown' and the Velvet Underground's 'The Black Angels Death Song' and said he loves his bed.
That's possibly not the greatest summary of the programme, so you'd better listen to it yourself. I never met Morrissey but I do think he's a top man. I remember about fifteen years ago his name was mentioned in the same paragraph as The Undertones in the NME. Normally that would be something I would be proud of but not on that occasion. It was about ten years after we had split up, and suddenly we were offered what to us was a very large and tempting sum of money to reform for a few shows.
Our singer Feargal said 'no' much to the relief of our guitar player and songwriter John who had said 'yes' but kind of regretted it because even though he would have liked the money he didn't like the idea of performing with the singer. (We did reform a few years later without Feargal which made everyone happier all round).Ìý Anyway. The rest of the band thought that was the end of the idea of doing those shows. All except our drummer Billy. He had the idea that, if Feargal wasn't going to do it, he'd ask someone else. He'd ask Morrissey. Not that he knew him or anything like that. He simply rang his record company at the time, EMI, and asked if Morrissey would be interested in singing with The Undertones for some live shows. I only knew about it when I read it in the NME. I thought it was so mad it was brilliant. Obviously Morrissey , or his manager, or the receptionist , or a passing builder,Ìý said 'No'.Ìý And that was the end of it.
I told Billy afterwards that he should have asked EMI if Cliff Richard was busy.
At least he resisted the temptation to impress us with very esoteric or ironic choices. I suppose Morrissey long ago stopped worrying about impressing people although it was good to hear him say he would be 'beaming' if Radio 2 played his new record. He sounded as uncomfortable in the presence of Kirsty Young as you would imagine, expect and hope him to be and his answers were sometimes very short, although I suspect there's some industrial strength editing going on every week on that show to make the answers sound 'snappy'.
He chose the New York Dolls 'Showdown' and the Velvet Underground's 'The Black Angels Death Song' and said he loves his bed.
That's possibly not the greatest summary of the programme, so you'd better listen to it yourself. I never met Morrissey but I do think he's a top man. I remember about fifteen years ago his name was mentioned in the same paragraph as The Undertones in the NME. Normally that would be something I would be proud of but not on that occasion. It was about ten years after we had split up, and suddenly we were offered what to us was a very large and tempting sum of money to reform for a few shows.
Our singer Feargal said 'no' much to the relief of our guitar player and songwriter John who had said 'yes' but kind of regretted it because even though he would have liked the money he didn't like the idea of performing with the singer. (We did reform a few years later without Feargal which made everyone happier all round).Ìý Anyway. The rest of the band thought that was the end of the idea of doing those shows. All except our drummer Billy. He had the idea that, if Feargal wasn't going to do it, he'd ask someone else. He'd ask Morrissey. Not that he knew him or anything like that. He simply rang his record company at the time, EMI, and asked if Morrissey would be interested in singing with The Undertones for some live shows. I only knew about it when I read it in the NME. I thought it was so mad it was brilliant. Obviously Morrissey , or his manager, or the receptionist , or a passing builder,Ìý said 'No'.Ìý And that was the end of it.
I told Billy afterwards that he should have asked EMI if Cliff Richard was busy.
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