Producer Steve Lillywhite shares career nuggets at Canadian Music Wk (Moz mention)

Producer Steve Lillywhite Shares Career Nuggets on The Rolling Stones, U2, David Byrne & More at Canadian Music Week - Billboard.com
By Karen Bliss.

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"On Morrissey:
Still don't really know him. He's the only artist I know that wears a Morrissey T-shirt, He literally comes down for breakfast with a Morrissey T-shirt. He's a very gentle vegetarian and that's probably the most untidy hair I've ever seen him have [shows photo]. I mean he would always be perfectly quiffed and just a lovely man who was very shy... I always remember the story, I was in the studio, he would just let me and the band do all the music, he wouldn't come in. I would work on the song with the band and then Morrissey would come in and listen. Anyway he would say, "Steve, The Who, Sheppard's Bush, 1965," and then just walk out. Okay. I sort of got the idea of what he meant. He was a man of very few words and actually most of the words he uses he steals. There's no question he's a poet who loves his Oscar Wilde and he takes vast swathes of lyrics from other people."

Just a brief mention.
Regards,
FWD.
 
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Just have a little film fest. I did that with Vincent Price the other day. He's such a complete bastard in Witchfinder General, despite the often corny tone of the film, and the very rubber axe.

Private Vincent Price film fest?:sleeping:
'very rubber axe'
 
Interesting. You've got me curious now, so I will. It was the sort of film that was on endless repeats late at night, or on rainy Sundays, throughout my childhood when we only had 3 TV channels, so although I was aware of it I never paid it much attention. Saturday Night, Sunday Morning and Billy Liar being of a similar ilk (which I suspect Morrissey has also plundered). I really ought to have a 'retro season' and catch up.

I don't think he lifted anything lyrically from Billy Liar but I'd be surprised if London wasn't written after watching it.
 
More Drame J Cribs
title of drama/cd Call the Comet:drama:

from Comet Call, cribbed from the Univ of Texas student group:popcorn:

Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet (Video Game 1993)

the Comet Call-Center

Call for Comet Tail Images - UCL Mullard Space Ctr Labdoh:

Contact Comet Car Rental

'I call myself the comet... at least nobody has forgotten me,' Nasifa Ali Sodhi
you can take this one with to the bank, Drama Johnny was all over this one.

A Comet's Close Call from the Smithsonian!doh:

waiting now on the next Call the Comet single.:thumb:




 
"Paint a vulgar picture" has always been attributed to Oscar Wilde, but I've never been able to find the textual source. Does anyone know it?
 
This was one person's view, work and sources - to treat these as firm explanations would be silly.

Paint a Vulgar Picture appears to be nod to Dorian Gray - there is no direct quote, but Wilde uses 'vulgar' or 'vulgarity' 20+ times in the book.

Eg:

"The puzzle is that a young man of decent parts, who enjoyed (when he was at Oxford) the opportunity of associating with gentlemen, should put his name (such as it is) to so stupid and vulgar a piece of work."

Regards,
FWD.
 
This was one person's view, work and sources - to treat these as firm explanations would be silly.

Paint a Vulgar Picture appears to be nod to Dorian Gray - there is no direct quote, but Wilde uses 'vulgar' or 'vulgarity' 20+ times in the book.

Eg:

"The puzzle is that a young man of decent parts, who enjoyed (when he was at Oxford) the opportunity of associating with gentlemen, should put his name (such as it is) to so stupid and vulgar a piece of work."

Regards,
FWD.


We know thatdoh: Hater propaganda, a second of reading and you know.

However, my Drama J kleptocribbing is science, backed by empirical research.:clap:


Please, people, put up your favorite Drama J sucky song or album and I will do
crib research.. You cant stand European Me, nominate it to be crib researched.:clap:
 
The following is asserted information about sources/inspiration for The Smiths/Morrissey songs. The site is now long gone so I don't know who to thank for their work - I will just have to live with the guilt :)
I made a copy of the information years ago as it was very thorough and now the site has gone - I'm glad I did.
I'm not sure Morrissey taking bits of the following and crafting them in to songs is some terrible act of plagarism - decide for yourselves. One of the things that first drew me to him were all the references to film/literature et al, so I can't view it as negatively as Mr. Lillywhite.
Anyway, please feel free to add to any song with decent references.

This, obviously, shouldn't be taken as definitive or exhaustive.

The Smiths.

Accept Yourself

"I am angry, I am ill, and I'm ugly as sin"
Magazine (included because of Howard Devoto link)

A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours

"A Rush, a charge from North, South, East and West [and] the land is ours"
Speranza, in an Irish nationalist magazine around the turn of the century
"A rush and a charge and the land is ours"
Traditional Irish battle cry
"...the ghost of Troubled Joe"
Probably a reference to the film Carry On Jack

Asleep

"Sing me to sleep."
"A Taste Of Honey", by Shelagh Delaney. This could be dismissed as a common phrase, but considering the wholesale plundering of both this book and the film version, it's fairly reasonable.

Bigmouth Strikes Again

There is a Kenny Everett (late British 80s comedian) sketch where he is burned at the stake whilst wearing a Walkman.

Cemetry Gates

"All those people, all those lives, where are they now ? Here was a woman who once lived and loved, full of the same passions, fears, jealousies, hates. And what remains of it now ... I want to cry."
"The Man Who Came To Dinner", film
"The early village-cock hath twice done salutation to the morn"
Richard III, Shakespeare

Death At One's Elbow

Phrase from the Joe Orton Diaries

Death Of A Disco Dancer

"I'd rather not talk to my neighbour, I'd rather not get involved"
"Poor Cow", by Nell Dun

Frankly Mr. Shankly

Name possibly from onetime Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly

Half A Person

"I hitchiked all the way down to Memphis, got a room at the YMCA..."
"Guitar Man", by Elvis Presley
"Caliban is only half a person at the best of times."
From "The Collector", by John Fowles

Hand In Glove

"...and everything depends on how near you sleep to me."
Take This Longing, by Leonard Cohen
"I'll probably never see you again. I know it."
"A Taste Of Honey", by Shelagh Delaney

Handsome Devil

A Boy In The Bush is a novel by D. H. Lawrence
"There's more to life than what you read in books."
"Slaughterhouse Five", by Kurt Vonnegut

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

"The Hand that Rocks The Cradle", title of "Crib"-detective series,1981
"Climb upon my knee, sonny boy..."
"Sonny Boy", Al Jolson
"Over the stones, rattle his bones, he's only a beggar who nobody owns."
Gray's Elegy (original source)
"So rattle her bones all over the stones, she's only a beggar-man whom nobody owns."
The Lion In Love, by Shelagh Delaney (this is the most likely direct source)

The Headmaster Ritual

"...who grabs and devours ..."
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

"Heaven Knows I'm Missing Him Now", song by Sandie Shaw

How Soon Is Now ?

"To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular,.."
"Middlemarch", by George Eliot

I Don't Owe You Anything

"I don't owe you a thing."
"A Taste Of Honey", by Shelagh Delaney

I Want The One I Can't Have

"Health, Health, the blessing of the Rich, the Riches of the Poor"
From Edith Sitwell's "The English Eccentrics"
"A tough kid who sometimes sleeps on nails."
Director Howard Sachler's description of James Dean.
"We all want the things we can't have."
Samantha Eggar in The Collector.

Is It Really So Strange ?

"I could never never go back home again."
24 Hours From Tulsa by Gene Pitney

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

"Last Night Was Meant For Love" is a single by Billy Fury (who features on the single sleeve)

London

"..because you notice the jealousy of those that stay at home..."
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

Louder Than Bombs

"...louder than bombs or screams or the inside ticking of remorse..."
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

Miserable Lie

"...by his sweetness and goodness to her through the brief years of his flower-like life."
Oscar Wilde's De Profundis

Paint A Vulgar Picture (and You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby)

"You just haven't earned it yet, baby"
Geoff Travis
"Paint a vulgar picture"
Oscar Wilde

Pretty Girls Make Graves

"Nature played this trick on me"
The barber in the film "Victim"
"Pretty girls make graves"
Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac

The Queen Is Dead

"The Queen Is Dead"
Last Exit To Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jnr
"Shall we go for a walk where it's quiet..?"
From the film of Billy Liar
"Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty..." is from the film The L Shaped Room.

Reel Around The Fountain

"Take and mount me like a butterfly"
Exit Smiling - Morrissey (after From Reverence To Rape by M.Haskell)
"...like butterflies on pins."
"...reel around the cafe."
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart
"You're the bee's knees, but so am I"
"I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice."
both from the film adaptation of A Taste Of Honey by Shelagh Delaney

Rubber Ring

"Everybody's Clever Nowadays"
The Importance Of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

Rusholme Ruffians

"Fourteen Again"
The whole song is loosely based around this song by Victoria Wood

Shakespeare's Sister

"Shakespeare's Sister"
An essay by Virginia Woolf, also a character in Tennessee William's "Glass Menagerie"
"...our bones groaned like old trees..."
"rocks below could promise certain death."
From Elizabeth Smart's "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept".

Sheila Take A Bow

"If the homework brings you down, then we'll throw it on the fire."
Kooks, David Bowie

Shoplifters Of The World Unite

"My only weakness is ... well, never mind, never mind"
James Dean in "Kraft Mystery Hour : Danger !"
"It's a long time, six months."
"A Taste Of Honey", by Shelagh Delaney

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

"Send me the pillow, the one that you dream on"
"Send me the pillow you dream on" - Johnny Tillotson
The lines about Anthony and Cleopatra are about the film "Carry On Cleo"

Still Ill

"Society owes me a living"
Myra Hindley, 1977
"We walked for miles, round the backs, right over the iron bridge and down underneath it on the towpath. We were kissing away and touching and getting really sore lips"
From Viv Nicholson's book, "Spend Spend Spend".

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

"Stop Me If You've Heard It"
Short story by Noel Coward.

Strangeways, Here We Come

"Borstal, here we come"
Billy Liar

Stretch Out And Wait

"Jim, do you think that the end of the world will come at night time ?"
Rebel Without A Cause
"We are here and it is now."
Men's Liberation by Jack Nichols

Suffer Little Children

"Whatever Ian has done, I have done"
Myra Hindley
"Suffer the little children to come unto me"
Whispered when Myra walked past by inmates of Hindley's jail (from the bible; "suffer" is equivalent to "allow")
There is a play by Stanley Houghton called "Hindle Wakes".

Sweet And Tender Hooligan

"In the midst of life we are in debt"
Peter Cook & Dudley Moore
"In the midst of life we are in death"
Coleridge (adapted by Cook and Moore for their sketch)
Also from The Burial Service in the Book of Common Prayer

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

"I've watched this happen in other people's lives and now it's happened in ours"
"Alice Adams"

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

In the 1968 film "The Killing Of Sister George", one of the murder methods discussed is that of a ten-ton truck."I suppose I should keep on hoping he gets knocked down by a double-decker bus"
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe

These Things Take Time

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord..."
Battle Hymn of the American Republic, Julia Howe "Our eyes have seen the glory ..." Eamon de Valera, Irish Prime Minister
The line "the hills are alive with celibate cries" could refer to the beginning of the film "The Sound of Music", where there are nuns singing on a hilltop.

This Charming Man

"A jumped-up pantry boy who doesn't know his place"
From the film Sleuth starring Michael Caine

This Night Has Opened My Eyes

"You can't just wrap it up in a bundle of newspaper."
"...and dump it on a doorstep."
"That river, it's the colour of lead."
"I'm not sorry and I'm not glad."
"Oh well, the dream's gone, but the baby's real enough.
"A Taste Of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney

Unloveable

"I wear black on the outside, because black is how I feel on the inside."
This line is NOT from the Johnny Cash song "The man in black". Does anyone know where it is from, if anywhere ?

Vicar In A Tutu

"...combatting ignorance and disease."
From the film version of Billy Liar
"...sent to Borstal when a kid for breaking open gas meters and ripping lead from church roofs..."
Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe

Well I Wonder

"... do you hear me where you sleep ?"
"... for it is the fierce last stand of all I have."
"...and cries out hoarsely my name in the night."
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

What Difference Does It Make ?

"...the devil will make work for idle hands to do."
Beyond Belief, Emlyn Williams (after the bible)
"What difference does it make ?"
Terence Stamp, in the film The Collector which features on the sleeve.

What She Said

"I have learned to smoke because I need something to hold on to."
"...I wonder why no one has noticed that I am dead and taken the trouble to bury me"
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart

William, It Was Really Nothing

"The rain is pouring on the foreign town, the bullets cannots cut you down."
"This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us", by Sparks
The theme of this song is borrowed from "Billy Liar" by Keith Waterhouse.

You've Got Everything Now

"...as merry as the day is long."
A Taste Of Honey, by Shelagh Delaney Originally from Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing".

Regards,
FWD.
What a great resource! Thanks for sharing all these. Personally, I have no problem with the use of phrases. I think every artist takes inspiration and bits from others. It happens all the time. It’s how art continues to evolve.
 
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On the borrowing lyrics topic, that's what creative people do. The best artists are collage artists, and in the realm of pop lyric writing, it's a worthy tactic. It's the tune that ultimately matters. It's not Byron.

Although, am I the only one who thinks Morrissey's lyric writing became patchier, and patchier the less he appeared to have borrowed wholesale from texts, and film?

Yeah, I agree with what you are referring to, it(borrowing) seemed to fade off from Vauxhall forward. Graham Greene's novel was borrowed from in a pretty indulgent way on Vaux, but its seems like he started to doing that less after that album, and the writing as it becomes more and more political and myopic to Morrissey's world (The one that lives in his head) is what I think you're calling "patchier". I could be wrong, please correct me if that isn't what you were saying. But I do think, I possibly make a valid point about his writing in general. Still dig him though, and having followed his career for so long now(since 87 when I was 15) I still get a kick out of watching where it all goes...
 
It is NOT borrowing but stealing.
Remember Oscar Wilde?
Talent borrows, genius steals.

When you borrow you have to pay back with interest and if it is immediate recognisable as borrowed people lose interest as they think hey, I’ve heard that before.

But in this timeframe with the
internet and all that it has become very difficult to create a form of art that has not been done before.
And most modern art nowadays is conceptual and asks for an intellectual view. But artworks that need that much talk will fall without it.

I think from a very early moment on Moz was inspired and used that inspiration for his own art.

I think he studied hard on his inspirations and made them his own.
He once said nobody realised how many documentation he possessed.
When you steal you don’t have have to pay back and it becomes your own.

This is just my theory and I think it is a good theory and it is the way this artist works and I can only say, I love many of the results. Maybe not all but that can hardly been seen as a valuable criticism as there are no artists creating only perfect art.
 
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Yeah, I agree with what you are referring to, it(borrowing) seemed to fade off from Vauxhall forward. Graham Greene's novel was borrowed from in a pretty indulgent way on Vaux, but its seems like he started to doing that less after that album, and the writing as it becomes more and more political and myopic to Morrissey's world (The one that lives in his head) is what I think you're calling "patchier". I could be wrong, please correct me if that isn't what you were saying. But I do think, I possibly make a valid point about his writing in general. Still dig him though, and having followed his career for so long now(since 87 when I was 15) I still get a kick out of watching where it all goes...

Isn’t America is not the world a reference to a Wilde quote
 

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