CrystalGeezer
My secret's my enzyme.
Uncanny resemblance. I am two, where are you Isis? He left his flail and his crook home the day of this photo. Actually, the 2 could be the crook and maybe in the video he flails around a bit.
The Osiris theory doesn't work for me either. I am open to cryptic interpretations, but I would think there should be some specifics that make it clear once you have the key, and unfortunately that does not make the pieces fall into place for me. What do I know?
It's about Osiris.
When he ran in the sun with his pals, it's alluding to Ra the sun God. Osiris undergoes a certain transformation throughout the course of his tale, his attributes take on certain feminine connotations, he become more affiliated with the female. The girl of his dreams is Isis who pieces together his body, or his tales so that he can fully realize who he is. It's titled Southpaw because of the fertile south nile region of Egypt, as symbolized by the flail Osiris holds. Southern egypt is where the PAW or papyrus plants grow, where the paper is made, where essentially the birth of the written word occurs. It's very important. Think about THAT the next time some Barnes & Noble employee tries to sell you a Kindle.
Anyway, it's about Osiris. At least in spirit it is. It could just be about a boy looking for a girl.
I always hear it say "You ran back to Marr" and that would be a good headline when Morrissey's 80's group reunites and people want to be snide about it. Also, it's about being gay like all the rest of his songs. Sorry, ladies.
"Southpaw" is open to interpretation, as are nearly all of Morrissey's songs. It may or may not be about a gay man. Very few of his songs can be explained beyond debate (in fact only "Meat Is Murder" comes to mind). But it's disingenuous to continually invoke the Ambiguity Escape Clause, whereby the fact that a song can mean anything is cited to prove it doesn't mean what it most likely does. This is the equivalent of the scene in "Dumb and Dumber" when Mary tells Lloyd his chances with her are one in a million and his face frowns, then lights up: "So you're saying there's a chance!"
There is nothing to fear from interpreting "Southpaw" or any other Morrissey song as having gay subject matter. The majority of his songs depict the outpouring of real emotions prompted by events that never occurred. Nobody has to think "Southpaw" is a "gay" song, but at the same time, even if it is about "gay" subject matter, at the heart of the song are emotions to which anyone can relate, straight or gay. This isn't to say it doesn't matter, in the end, if the song is "gay" or "straight", but rather to put things in their proper place: "what the song is about" means both the 'story' the song tells as well as the deeper emotional meaning. The story is important, but it's just another way of reaching the basic emotional experiences common to all people, "gay" and "straight".
The 'story' in "Southpaw" is likely a "gay" one, but what the song is really about is not having the one you love.
It does matter if the songs have "gay" subject matter, though. At the same time, the songs explore and depict emotions that anyone might feel, but there are A NUMBER of songs which make much more sense when interpreted as if Morrissey were singing from the perspective of a gay man.
I always hear it say "You ran back to Marr" and that would be a good headline when Morrissey's 80's group reunites and people want to be snide about it. Also, it's about being gay like all the rest of his songs. Sorry, ladies.
I agree with this entire statement, particularly the bolded part. And I just want to take this opportunity to say when I interprete things as being Osirian or symbolic, I'm not saying he knew he was writing that stuff, rather it's a line of thought expressed from a pure source...ie, it's a "cosmic" interpretation of an interesting combination of ideas that only Morrissey seems to string together so easily for some reason. He didn't sit down and say "Ima gonna write a song 'bout Osiris." rofl Rather he turned to an emotional idea that he felt, a dream or a wish, and when expressing that dream or wish, most likely dipped in a deep sort of unexplainable love or desire, all this weird Egyptian stuff comes pouring out. Because he's weird that way.
I think a lot of his songs are gay really. Yay for gay. Doesn't mean he's gay necessarily, if that makes any sense.
(Oh by the way, what is the name of that very very homosexual Irish singer who has an album called Southpaw in his discography?
Sorry to piss on your chopsticks, but doesn't the papyrus grow in northern Egypt, i.e. the Nile Delta?Southern egypt is where the PAW or papyrus plants grow.
Sorry to piss on your chopsticks, but doesn't the papyrus grow in northern Egypt, i.e. the Nile Delta?
T Alone Again, Naturally
Actually, could Southpaw be about Gilbert O'Sullivan? That bit, "you turned around/you were alone, again..." could be the clue.
Sorry to piss on your chopsticks, but doesn't the papyrus grow in northern Egypt, i.e. the Nile Delta?