What's the big deal with "Not Your Birthday"?

[Absurd]

It took a few listens, but I have grown to quite like it. I don't think rape comes into it.

Someone really ought to convince me that making my friend a (belated) birthday card with 'It's not your birthday anymore' on the front is a bad idea.

 

[SomeFormOfSusan]

sometimes, well, most-no, ALL the time i think i listen to a different Morrissey than everyone else. Carol is clearly the best track on YOR and the best Morrisey-esque lyrics in years. i also really like That's How People Grow Up. i'm in a very small minority it seems

I think Grow Up's pretty good, too. Iffy about the crashed and broke my spine bit, but the rest I don't see what people complain about.

Birthday is a brilliant song. And it is not a nice song or a love song about real love vs expensive presents and false affection. Sorry. It's heartfelt, I will agree, and it involves matters of the heart, but to me it is a remarkably cruel, angry song.

I love it.

 

[arkady]

I think It's not your birthday anymore and Black cloud are possibly my most favourite songs from the album at the moment. I like how INYBA to me sounds like lusty, rough love song, a bit angry but not at all in a bad way.. Also I'm throwing my arms around Paris is played now in repeat in here. In my thoughts I change Paris to Dublin...

 

[elusivecharm]

I get the Birthday hype.

It's a fantastic song.

 

[Walkers Crisp]

His voice on this track is pure heaven, it seems to be getting better and better with age. I'm not too keen on the lyrics though.

 

[pkw]

i'm in the love it camp, it's a cracking song.

 

[Comtesse]

It's a grower. The first ten times or so I listened to the album, I thought it was boring and couldn't understand what people liked about it. Now, I think it's a great song - perhaps my favorite on the album. I love the "evil" Morrissey songs. This one reminds me of "Jack The Ripper" in that the way he sings it sounds so romantic, yet when you analyze it closer it's cold as ice. I love that paradox. Nobody does it better than Moz.

 

[AllYouNeedIsMoz]

It's a grower. The first ten times or so I listened to the album, I thought it was boring and couldn't understand what people liked about it. Now, I think it's a great song - perhaps my favorite on the album.

Good phrasing.
This one gets in my head and won't leave...which isn't a bad thing.
I love the "syrupy sentimental" line because it just conveys that disgusted tone so well.

 

[EPbabe]

It's a grower. The first ten times or so I listened to the album, I thought it was boring and couldn't understand what people liked about it. Now, I think it's a great song - perhaps my favorite on the album. I love the "evil" Morrissey songs. This one reminds me of "Jack The Ripper" in that the way he sings it sounds so romantic, yet when you analyze it closer it's cold as ice. I love that paradox. Nobody does it better than Moz.

Yes, yes, yes, it's Jack the Ripper part 2, as it has been mentioned on this thread (and maybe somewhere else), you put it perfectly. It's about LUST as opposed to love, about yearning for something that cannot be or shouldn't be yours. This is the song I can most relate to from the entire album.

 

[Interesting Thug]

its my least favourite as well

when i last spoke to carol is my favourite

Opposite!

 

[arkady]

ermm, i quite like (especially) the last minute of the song

 

[alma matters]

I still don't really like it.

I like the ending, but the beginning is sort of meh to me still, but you must listen to the beginning to get to the end, so maybe it will grow on me.

 

[anon x]

At a birthday party people say nice, polite things and play the game of "you are special today" often not really meaning it. It's making a show of affection that may not be heartfelt. The (costly) gifts may be given out of obligation, and though of high financial value, can be meaningless to the recipient, (left gathering dust in a drawer) if the Birthday boy/girl has no great fondness for the giver. In fact, the ability/willingness to receive has more meaning than the object.


The love alluded to "right here right now" may be cruel, not always kind, not syrupy sentimental, but more heartfelt, real and lasting than the sweet things said before.

He's giving his lover something more, on the floor. What the heart really desires, but cannot always ask for.


So far as the music is concerned, it is quiet behind the description of the false sentiment, but overwhelms when accompanying the genuine emotion and action.

I agree with your interpretation:certainly don't see any rape/lust allusions.
It seems each listener interprets it the way it makes sense to them.

 

[dizzywhore_1804]

My brother just text me saying how much he loves it.

He's a very casual Morrissey fan (ie, been to a few gigs but couldn't tell you most of the song names even though he likes them) but he says he's had it on repeat.

I like the song, but don't think it's that great.

 

[still ill life]

I love the gentle vocal & resonance in his voice at the start of "Birthday". It reminds me a lot of "Now My Heart Is Full", which in my favourite Moz track. Admittedly the instrumentation comes nowhere close, though. The current band just seem a bunch of thrashers with very little subtlety, as displayed with that awful new live incarnation of "This Charming Man".

I agree about the "This charming man" version, although I actually think that Morrissey wants it played that way.
I've been a bit skeptical about the current band as well, but this video clip really shows another side of it, which kind of proves you "wrong": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBO2hJmjz6M&fmt=18

Beautiful.

 

[freakparty]

for the record....i would love if he recorded something like that. future b-side possibly?



he has, it's called 'sweetie-pie...