‘NUL POINTS!’ Nobody Loves Us! Is that what this is? Oh, please yourself.
Goddard recognises the brilliance of the song yet tosses it off in a paragraph (whilst droning on for ages about ‘Golden Lights’) so you can tell exactly where his archy pointy head is at.
This is THE definitive Morrissey song. It soars majestically over everything else and if it all ended tits-up on Tibb Street tomorrow – this is the song we would remember him by.
As an anthem for the bike pedalling, doomed quiff and national-health specs brigade, the connection is too easy to go with. Our preferred reading of this song places it firmly and defiantly on the draining board of the northern kitchen sink. The ‘us’ is the north and the shat upon, put upon legions of the back streets of Salford, Manchester, Oldham and, er, Rochdale if you must.
The music is essentially ‘Alma Matters’ with a few timing/chord shifts: a memory of how great Alain was and why, sadly, it will never again be as good.
Like all great pieces of art, there’s a flaw that makes you perhaps love the whole thing more tenderly. How DID that line ‘make us our favourite jam’ ever get passed by quality control? JAM? Mams making JAM in 1960s Manchester? Do us a bleedin’ favour – the BETTER line should have been: ‘make us our favourite TEA’, ‘TEA’ – that food you had when you finally got in from school (spread cheese on toast, fish fingers with frozen peas or cheese dip) and watched ‘Magpie’ wondering if Tony Bastable would ever, one day, invite you to sit on his lap in the control room of Thames TV. ‘Jam’? My arse.
There are some astonishing versions out there, if you look. You Tube has the acoustic version which is stunning and Mr Shandy and myself have a number of live bootlegs.
Oh, the perversity of track listing. Ignored, rarely played and stuck on a shagging ‘B’ side, it deserves SO MUCH MORE.
Yes, perversity. For like all great artists the tendency to cling the very best to the bosom and push the trash. ‘Nobody Loves Us’? No, of course they don’t, which is why you’re not worthy of THIS. It’s mine.