Not nearly as momentous, but I also like
this remembrance:
From a unique compelling review back in the day, by a MSolo member
"my favourite Smiths song is 'I Don't Owe You Anything'. No other song EVER captures my youth, my teenage frustration and exhilaration's like this one does. In our teenage years, my friends and I seemed to forever prowling the streets, doing nothing, going nowhere....just being. We'd walk the frozen pavements lit by the orange streetlamps, ill-dressed for the plummeting temperatures but uncaring. What were looking for? Where were we going? Was some great revelation about to be disclosed to us? Who knew?
When my musical cohort Griff and I formed ~Sighrens~, one of the first lyrics Griff wrote was called 'The Last Of The Lights' which dealt with this very subject. In 'I Don't Owe You Anything' Morrissey is out on his own streets and his words resonated deep within me.
"Bought on stolen wine// A nod was the first step// You knew very well what was coming next"; well maybe not stolen wine, but certainly underage purchased Merrydown Cider!
"And did I really walk all this way// Just to hear you say// Oh, I don't want to go out tonight..."
This is where it get's me...all those nights, walking to friends or a girl's house just to be casually knocked back....
"...Oh but you will// For you must", and it's that tremor in Morrissey's voice on the word 'must' that does it! He knows that this is a time in which EVERY night is important, every night is an adventure, every night will be recalled and spoken of as the dulling grey of adulthood descends. In your mid/late teens EVERY night is SO important....OF COURSE they are going to come out with you....for they must!!
"Too freely from your lips// Words prematurely sad"....more tear stained poetry far, far beyond his contemporaries,
"You should not go to them// Let them come to you// Just like I do...", sage advice Steven, that way you don't look like an idiot and face constant rejection, I wasn't just listening, I was learning..."
Scroll down twice -
https://thestreetlampdoesntcast.blogspot.com/2010/07/kitten-wine9-everybody-wants-to-be-joe.html