Monday, January 31, 2011

Let Me Kiss You

Given as a gift to Nancy Sinatra for her 2004 self titled album, "Let Me Kiss You" is a gorgeous song of yearning and inevitable romantic disappointment. So yes, it has a lot of brother and sisters within Morrisseys songbook but the songs irresitable melody and phrasing elevate it above more standard fare. It was even a modest hit for Mozzer when released as a single.

What I find interesting about the song is how its protagonist seems to romanticise the wrong elements. The act of kissing is seen as something which must go hand in hand with a fiction of some sort while America is presented as a mythic "place in the sun, for anyone who has the will to chase one". Having fled England and found a home in Los Angeles this section seems fairly auto biographical for our star. However well travelled he may be in life or in love, true romantic contenement seems to still be an unknown destination and in its place the singer would take sympathy over anything else.

The hang dog persona here is comically underlined with the chorus, a wonderfully wry self put down, "close your eyes and think of someone you physically admire and let me kiss you." How many of us have had that person in our life, whom we deeply care for but who could never see us in that light? The idea that the person would have to fake an attraction for you should be off putting enough to effectively end any sort of courtship but not so here. Desperate enough to take whatever love can be caught the person we're given would brave personal scorn for a chance to fully connect to something. It's a lonely world of closed eyes but opened hearts and whether sang by Nancy or Morrissey the songs melancholy can not be dismissed, nor can its truthful humour be denied. Close your eyes and think of someone you physically admire and throw this song on.

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