Morrissey A-Z: "There Speaks a True Friend"

[Deleted member 30524]

 

[Mike Rourke]

Love this one – the music’s sharp, punchy and tuneful unlike so much of the generic indie stodge that characterised a vast chunk of the '95-2010 output. And the words are glorious. Brilliantly honest, super witty and painfully self-aware. Vintage Morrissey!

 

[Mayfly]

I seem to equate the b-sides from this era as fairly equal in terms of quality ... songs like this one, Pashernate Love and Let The Right One Slip In. I liked them at the time but not much to revisit now. 6/10.

I also fall on this side. Listening to these b-sides now, they sound more like the songwriting partnership between Morrissey and Alain is still developing, which was intriguing at the time when we first heard them.

 

[MozIsGod]

Does Boz play the solo in this song? I like it.

 

[Ryan]

A very slight number, I played it frequently nonetheless around the time of its release. Wasn’t there a harmonica solo outro that was cut, hence the abrupt end to the song?

Not sure if it was a harmonica solo, but an “extended” or “full version” of this song was printed on a pre-release promo disc for a Your Arsenal reissue that @Famous when dead and I have been talking about for years. IIRC, all the other tracks from the CD made it online apart from this one. Which is a shame, because this is one of my favourite Moz songs.

Someone out there has it, just hasn’t shared it yet.

 

[Flibberty]

This might be one of the thinnest songs musically that Morrissey has ever put words to. I wonder whether Mick Ronson was unavailable to produce it, or whether he simply focused almost all of his efforts on the album tracks. This is a world away from the sound of Your Arsenal.

The lyrics make it moderately likeable, despite it being so throwaway.

In the poll on the Hoffman board it ranked 247th from 264 solo songs.

 

[Ryan]

This might be one of the thinnest songs musically that Morrissey has ever put words to. I wonder whether Mick Ronson was unavailable to produce it, or whether he simply focused almost all of his efforts on the album tracks. This is a world away from the sound of Your Arsenal.

The lyrics make it moderately likeable, despite it being so throwaway.

In the poll on the Hoffman board it ranked 247th from 264 solo songs.

Why does this Hoffman board keep getting mentioned?

 

[Flibberty]

Why does this Hoffman board keep getting mentioned?

As I said way back on letter "A", just to give a different opinion as these threads are all about opinions.

We are nearly at the end of the alphabet now anyhow...

 

[Anonymous]

Not sure if it was a harmonica solo, but an “extended” or “full version” of this song was printed on a pre-release promo disc for a Your Arsenal reissue that @Famous when dead and I have been talking about for years. IIRC, all the other tracks from the CD made it online apart from this one. Which is a shame, because this is one of my favourite Moz songs.

Someone out there has it, just hasn’t shared it yet.

Does anyone know the running time for it? Be amusing if it turned out all we were missing was a single final chord at the end.

 

[Famous when dead]

Does anyone know the running time for it? Be amusing if it turned out all we were missing was a single final chord at the end.

3:20 (an extra minute).
Regards,
FWD.