Roy's Keen

Southpaw Grammar had been such a dour album that it was a relief that when perusing the song titles on follow up Maladjusted (surely one of the first things every Morrissey fan does, the man knows how to name a tune) we were greeted with two songs named with puns and both were subsequently released as singles. The towering "Alma Matters" was seen as vintage Morrissey, and still garners great respect from those who otherwise would dismiss the whole record. This innocuous character piece named as a play on footballer Roy Keane, has not fared so well.

Its certainly inessential as far as his work goes, an agreeable ditty which has jovial word play but it hardly means all that much. But then when has pop ever been the province of depth? Give me a soaring guitar line and a great chorus and I'll be happy. Certain songs engage the mind or take you on journeys. These are worthy and are taken seriously but the song that makes your toe tap, gets your head bobbing, it's simply wrong to assign them no such worth. Well placed "la la las" can be just as vital as a probing lyric or great turn of phrase.

Like the previously discussed "Dagenham Dave" this seems to over romanticise a rather ordinary individual, a window cleaner who fancies himself as quite the ladies man and the song is littered with what I believe is innuendo. He "gets into every corner" and "its right under your nose". Settle down Moz! It all plays like some arch "Carry on film" about a bit of "rough and tumble" with the domestic who's "a bit of alright". Okay I'll stop writing like that straight away. The song is good fun and nothing else really has to be said about it. At a time when people were kicking him when he was down I believe this song acted as a lightning rod of criticism. Needlessly so, as it stands as a perfect example of the Morrissey comic song, more enjoyable than that Dagenham lad he mentioned and more accessible than a boy racer he had discussed. It sort of stands right in the middle of the Morrissey quality threshold. How ironic that this parituclar song should be in a real mid field postion like that.