Happy Birthday Moz!

Morrissey, "Human Being"

Morrissey, "Good Looking Man Around Town"

Morrissey, "I Knew I Was Next"

There are important days every year, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, holidays. However, none is as important as today, the day 47 years ago that Steven Patrick Morrissey was brought into this world. My favorite performer, the leader of my favorite band The Smiths, the father of my children, Morrissey, Moz, Pound for Pound's patron saint. I hope that everyone is having a nice celebration of the day, that you've bought your gifts for the man, got the cake, invited your friends over.

My contribution to the celebration comes in the form of this post and the next one, which will hopefully give everyone a nice soundtrack for the night. I assume that everyone has all of the Smiths and solo albums already, so need to dig into them. Above are the B-sides to the first single, "You Have Killed Me", off the new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors. For those that don't know, Moz takes these B-sides real serious, always putting non-album stuff on to reward the fans. In this case, he has given us two unreleased tracks and a cover of the New York Dolls. "I Knew I Was Next" is classic Moz, dark lyrics sung with his perfect voice, nice, fuzzy guitar sound. The NY Dolls cover, "I Knew I Was Next" confirms the man's love for the seminal NYC pre-punk band. "Human Being" is a great choice for Morrissey, he's got a little of that sneer that we all love on this one. Love the backup vocals on this one, yeah! The other track, "Good Looking Man About Town", suffers from a lo-fi sound, but it's still better than most stuff I hear.



Good looking man around town, indeed.

A few other gifts are out there in the blogosphere. Kwaya Na Kisser has the outtakes from the Viva Hate session, one of the best Morrissey solo albums. Pierre also has put together a fictional farewell show to the people of Canada, in wake of their decision to allow seal hunting, with appropriate songs for the occasion. EAR FARM has an entire concert available from 2004, a great chance to hear the man in the live setting. Not just any live setting, but Radio City Music Hall. If you don't own one or all of the solo albums, make sure to go buy them all, no excuses.

Morrissey, if you read this, can you please do concerts in Philly and NYC for my birthday? I'm not asking for The Smiths to get back, I will wait until the second post to do that. I know that you have done some UK shows, please come across the Atlantic for me. Anyway, happy birthday, Moz, we love you here at Pound for Pound.