My Love Life

Even the title dispels our notions. Who knew he had one? This in between album single was a sea change for a few reasons. It was the last song he wrote with Mark E. Nevin before finding his post Johnny Marr group (which despite the detractors at the time, proved their staying power by working with the man to this very day) and it signalled that Morrissey had found his wayward "artistic voice" after an album or so of listlessness.

What I enjoy about this song is its style. For some time Morrissey was jumping between genres, be they indie, baroque pop and the latest, rockabilly. This gave him the sense of being somewhat rudderless. The honeymoon period of his first singles seemed like a hazy memory and I believe this song acted as a balm as well as a way forward. The song is a lazy mid tempo swoon and as such it has a relaxed light air. It crucially doesn't sound like it's trying too hard.

Lyrically it isn't at all. Sketching a vague love triangle in very low key terms, the song lacks an insight, skimming the surface of romantic affairs but offering no trick, no unique selling point on the matter. The singer sounds naive, like a child feeling around the contours of emotions too big for his own understanding. The simple plea of "I know you love one person, so why can't you love two?" is disarming in its simplistic way. The phrase "Give a little something to my love life" seems like a much softer version of the mans famous decree that "I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does" of some years prior. It's a very direct theme and its lyrics read quite plainly. The music however is a lovely smooth concoction drifting around Morrisseys voice with an ease that would not be heard again until the measured tones of Vauxhall and I. This is the kindle of a torch song, but not yet used to nurture that flame. The potential is there but the story is still too underdeveloped at this stage.

"My Love Life" was a breath of fresh air in the Morrissey canon,enough to shoo away some cobwebs before it's calm reserve would be replaced with the nervy energy of full on glam rock and the return of rockabilly to his sound. A glistening send off to the short lived Morrissey/Nevin partnership then, this mightn't have been his most incisive take on loves jagged edges but its focused mellowness certainly showed a different side to its author.