Music Monday: Frankly, Mr. Shankly

"Oh, I didn't realise that you wrote poetry,
I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry, Mr. Shankly."


It has been quite a while since I have "participated" in Music Monday in quite a while, mostly because I either did not have the time to consider an appropriate tune to capture and communicate whatever was happening with/for/to me on any given week. My most recent blogger brainstorm was to try and identify songs that I liked which had a poetry theme to them.

Anyone familiar with Eighties music will recognize that The Smiths have a catalog of songs chock full with nods to poetic giants, as well as, a very poetic perspective on life, thanks to lyricist and lead vocalist and writer (Steven Patrick) Morrissey.

The single (for which a live version is linked above) "Mr. Shankly" first appeared on the classic LP(!) The Queen is Dead. Allegedly intended as a message to Rough Trade record label "boss" Geoff Travis disguised as a letter of resignation from a worker to his superior, it is the series of lines quoted above that prompted my submission of it as this week's MM post.

A few weeks ago, as i was writing a rather crappy haiku, I was reminded of "Shankly" and of that particular series of lines. This recollection, along with the personal recognition that of of what comes from my pen-on-paper eperienecs is of less-than-stellar quality to Tweet:

"on the 105th spin of a smiths tune realizes he has become shankly revelling in his own bloody awful poetry & being a flatulent pain in the a**"

It's funny how as one gets older he turns into the goofy "old-man" stereotypes he giggled at as a youth. I reckon it happens to all of us common folk eventually.

Write on and Stay Poetic!