Seasick,Yet Still Docked

A vulnerable ode to a total lack of confidence, this song has the quality of insistent rain, romantic if heard outside while you cosy up by the fire, devastating if caught in its downpour. There's a heavy quality to the compostion and in ways it seems the Morrissey solo equivalent of the desperately sad "Asleep" which can be found in the Smiths back catalogue. This does have a more world weary quality, the hallmarks of age, the disappointments that can bring to a lonely soul.

A subtle production style really emphasises the soulful nature of the piece, its musical backing seems to throb like a heartbeat, full of delightful turns but never overwhelming anything else. This is the music of apathy and while at other times Morrissey would turn this into bluster or fanfare, here he just lets it lie there, exhausted but absorbing.

Arrogance is conspicuous by its absence and would lead me to believe that this is an example of the facade faltering. Morrissey has always been a contradiction in this way (very much like REM's Michael Stipe), the extroverted introvert, the wallflower waltzer, if you will. Here he lacks the charm to attract the one he loves and it's quite upsetting for the listeners to hear such a defeated tone from our hero. If it had been presented in a more colourful context we might allow ourselves to get fired up, to rally against this despair but here it's easy to just shrug and agree. We in turn submit to the song. The title itself is a wonderfully succinct way of describing those self imposed feelings we can conjure from mere regret. The nervous quality of not being able to overcome ones own doubts and making yourself ill is a trademark of Morrisseys sickly Dickensian persona. It's rarer within his solo work but it does remain a thread of how he deals with "life's constant lows". Some of the old confidence is glimpsed in the closing lines "You must be such a fool to pass me by...". Whatever crisis befell the singer, one can only hope that the anchor has been lifted for the time being.

Regret, doubt, doomed romance, nihilism, our captain wants to take us through the course he has been charting for quite some time. All aboard.