Question November Spawned A Monster: Has it aged well?

[matt]

This came on in my car the other day, and I realised just how offensive it could seem when picked apart, especially nowadays. It's got a great beat and is one of Morrissey's more 'danceable/poppy/accessible' songs if that's what you're looking for. But as is often the case the music belies the darkness of the lyrics. Let's have a look:

Lines describing someone who's disabled as "twisted", a "monster" who nobody would dream of kissing even in a darkened room. Someone who's a "hostage" to the wheels of their chair, who could never be thought of in a sexual way, they're the point where horny people must "pause and draw the line". Then there's the whole weird breakdown with the noises of what can only be described as someone severely disabled receiving some sort of sexual pleasure? I cringed thinking of a person having to go into a recording booth and make those noises. Like, what did Morrissey or the producer tell them to sound like? What was the aim?

Now, to play devil's advocate: the lyrics are very clever. They're not out to offend, they merely highlight the various ways society views the disabled, and the hypocrisy of those views. It's society who label these people as "poor" (faux sympathy) but also call them "twisted" (secret disgust/bigotry). It's society who remarks behind the person's back that it's such a shame they'll never live "normal" lives, that the nearest they'll get to being loved is only in their dreams.

I don't know, I just think as far as M's lyrics being open to causing offence, this one possibly ranks way higher than the ones that actually DID cause offence, such as National Front Disco. Anyone with a brain can see the latter is just a story of a disaffected boy and the tribulations of his family who think they've 'lost' him. Ah well. Once again maybe I'm over thinking things. But in an age of wider acceptance/understanding around disability (think of the positive way we view paralympians etc) this song can either be seen as shining a light on how 'normal' people still secretly and hypocritically view the differently-abled, or it's just offensive twaddle about how someone in a wheelchair can't do sexual things or buy their own clothes, and I'm over-analysing once again.

I'll let the rest of you decide.

 

[Light Housework]

He wishes that one day she’d be walking the streets in the clothes that she chose for herself, so I don’t think it was malicious.

 

[SuedeMoz]

I remember reading a review at the time pointing out that while the song seems overtly sympathetic... there is an underlying mocking tone to it. Of course, Morrissey could always say it was a metaphor for how he felt about himself at the time.

 

[Redacted]

I think Morrissey presents both sides, of one who mocks and one who has empathy he also speaks as the person he is singing of - so there are 3 povs there. This is one of the songs I don't really care about lyricially and I wondered if he did because the video is hilarious, one of his best.
Or maybe he wrote this when thinking about having children, as a potential negative outcome.

 

[Cornflakes]

Musically, probably the most easily-dated thing Morrissey has ever released.

People imo tend more of a view now than they then did that speaking on behalf/the subject of disabled people is best left to disabled people. So, that makes the lyric dated. Not that is anything other than a great lyric. Dated doesn't have to mean bad in any case. Shakespeare is extremely dated

 

[Crisstti]

One of his very best songs imo. The lyrics are brilliant and full of empathy, no mocking in it at all.

I don't think anyone else would have even thought of writing a song about this.

 

[Malarkey]

It seems to be about a baby being born & the parents fear she's disabled & worry about her future. Social attitudes are mean but she grows up defiant.

From Passions Just Like Mine:

"She's the oddest, most eccentric person I've ever met, I went into the vocal booth and said 'Just simply give birth', which she most expertly did, while I stood behind with a mop and a bucket."
- Morrissey on Mary Margaret O'Hara who supplied the screaming voice heard in this song's bridge, in Vox, November 1990

 

[bhops]

This is such a great track still as fresh as when it was first released.

 

[Redacted]

Paraphrase from Mozipedia -
Examining society's condescension toward a disabled girl whose one ambition is to pick out her own clothes, inspired by New York Dolls' Frankenstein.
So, not very original at all. He is not the Patron Saint of the Disabled.

 

[Joe Rolling-Stone]

At the time the world was more explictly cruel towards disabled people. The disability discrimination act was passed in 1995 in the uk, five years after this song. The world was completely inaccessible to disabled people. They were considered "other" and as such unattractive and unlovable. Morrissey was describing the world as it was, he wasn't endorsing it, he was describing the reality of the cruelty and loneliness experienced by many disabled people and he was relating to those feelings and reaching out to those people. He was saying I sees you, this world is so cruel, I'm not going to sugar coat it because you already know it, and I feel your pain, please don't give up.

 

[j*e*t]

It's an interesting question about an interesting song. Has Morrissey sung this live in the last decade or so? Maybe he doesn't consider it has aged well if he has not. Attitudes towards disability have changed in some places, superficially at least. The lyrics are open to mis-interpretation, and I'm not sure this can change. For example, the OP links 'pause and draw the line' to an inability to treat the person as a sexual being, but I always understood it to refer to the parents (probably because a couple I knew had a child born with serious health issues after they'd had healthy babies born in relatively quick succession and the doctors advised them not to have any more, or at least not for a good while).

 

[Luxo]

Musically, yeah it's aged badly. Lyrically, I think it's very sympathetic and empathetic to the subject of the song. I think it's quite clear he's on the subject's side on this one.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

The video is a hilarious embarrassment, and I agree with Luxo that the music hasn't aged well. The early solo efforts have that clean, late 80s, tinkly sound. But the lyrics are good. And Morrissey can't resist a mild theological dig: the girl's plea, "Jesus made me, so Jesus save me from | pity, sympathy, and people discussing me" has somewhat the flavor of Joseph Merrick's accusatory lines: "tis true my form is something odd | but blaming me is blaming God."

 

[Bluebirds]

It's an interesting question about an interesting song. Has Morrissey sung this live in the last decade or so? Maybe he doesn't consider it has aged well if he has not. Attitudes towards disability have changed in some places, superficially at least. The lyrics are open to mis-interpretation, and I'm not sure this can change. For example, the OP links 'pause and draw the line' to an inability to treat the person as a sexual being, but I always understood it to refer to the parents (probably because a couple I knew had a child born with serious health issues after they'd had healthy babies born in relatively quick succession and the doctors advised them not to have any more, or at least not for a good while).

He sang it at London Palladium 2018 (?)
My highlight of the entire concert

 

[Anonymo]

One does wonder why he sings November spawned a monster when he was born in May . . .


Just kidding. I'm a rather grumpy toad today. In other words, I'm in a typical Moz mood.

The video is fücking weird indeed. You know, they could've come up with not but one but several great storylines visualising that song . . . instead, there's Moz prancing around in some desert. There's even some spoof combining Shakira's song "Hips don't lie" and a couple of shots starring Moz shaking and swinging his hips.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

There's even some spoof combining Shakira's song "Hips don't lie" and a couple of shots starring Moz shaking and swinging his hips.

Just watched it. It's very funny. I "LOL"ed.

 

[Light Housework]

 

[Light Housework]

Meh

 

[Lucifer Sam]

Meh

The editing could've been better overall, but it starts off great (0:14-0:24). The first few "Sí!"s are synched up with the right Morrissey gesture, but it's almost as if Rosie got lazy and didn't want to keep doing it with every "Sí." Even with the laziness, though, the dancing is just hilarious to the Latin music. Is the genre Reggaeton? I have no idea.

 

[Johan de Witt]

A true Moz-classic, and definitely a live-classic. His most performed song of the 90s and well into the 00s.
I do agree it has a slightly dated sound now, and I wonder if that's the reason why he hasn't performed it in quite a while now.

Interestingly, a similar point of view was expressed in At Amber from the same period:

And you, my invalid friend
You slam the receiver when you say
"If I had your limbs for a day
I would steam away"

And oh, my invalid friend
Oh, my invalid friend
In our different ways we are
The same

Another great song!