The Alternative Number Ones: Morrissey’s “Tomorrow”

In The Alternative Number Ones, I'm reviewing every #1 single in the history of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks/Alternative Songs, starting with the moment that the chart launched in 1988. This column is a companion piece to The Number Ones, and it's for members only. Thank you to everyone who's helping to keep Stereogum afloat.

Morrissey has bangers. This is inconvenient. In his later years, Morrissey has revealed himself to be a self-centered, fucked-up, exhausting public figure. Those qualities were never hidden, exactly, but they have become so loud and perhaps performative that they have essentially eaten up Morrissey's entire persona. He's the guy who goes public with all his resentments and perceived slights, who stokes irrelevant feuds with former collaborators, and who shows public support for at least one scarily right-wing British fringe party. Thanks to the way that internet discourse works, it is unfashionable to concede that such a man might be capable of writing and singing bangers. I don't know if Morrissey is currently capable of writing and singing bangers -- his most recent work remains unreleased, to his great consternation -- but the man certainly has bangers in his back catalog.

It would be so much easier for so many people if Morrissey did not have bangers. When a public figure does or says something terrible, there's always an impulse to dismiss that person completely, to grandstand about how you never liked this person's work and how you always sensed that this person was not to be trusted. Given that Morrissey's work with the Smiths is deeply woven into the fabric of alternative music and culture, this is not so easy. Still, I regularly see people insist that Johnny Marr was the real genius behind the Smiths and that Morrissey never amounted to much on his own. This is simply not the case. (Please don't ask me to cite any of those Smiths detractors. I am creating strawmen out of vibes here. Work with me.)

Instead, I would argue that Morrissey is a textbook example of a shitty genius. As with fellow shitty genius Kanye West, the rancid instincts that came to define Morrissey's public life are inextricable from the great art that he's made. Many of the best Morrissey songs are the ones that most clearly reflect a bleak, ugly view of humanity. He put ugly ideas to gorgeous and compelling music, and his acid-tongued wit has always been one of his greatest artistic weapons. He made great art because of his personal faults, not in spite of them. Few people can sustain that kind of artistic life before everyone gets sick of them, but Morrissey made a very serious run of it.

None of this really applies to "Tomorrow," Morrissey's first #1 hit on the Billboard Modern Rock charts. Morrissey was an inescapable figure in the early days of alternative radio, and many of his biggest hits flaunt his darkest tendencies. Not "Tomorrow," though. "Tomorrow," the song that finally took Morrissey to the top, is a work of delicious ache. Maybe you don't write or record a song like "Tomorrow" if you have healthy relationships with yourself and the world, but "Tomorrow" carries no evidence of a small and bitter soul. Instead, it's just a perfect rock 'n' roll song about wanting something that you can never have. Nobody but Morrissey could've made "Tomorrow," and the mere existence of "Tomorrow" means that Morrissey has had a net positive impact on the world at large, at least from where I'm sitting. Sorry. Sometimes, that's just how it is.

I'm getting ahead of myself. If you're reading this column, there is a very good chance that you are deeply familiar with Morrissey's works and his public life, that you have strong and entrenched opinions about both of those things. But it's not a certainty. I'm always amazed at how many comments I get on these columns from people who have never heard these songs, or who have little familiarity with the artists I'm covering. If you're all set on Morrissey's backstory, feel free to skim past a large chunk of this column. If not, please allow me to introduce this beautiful and frustrating character.

Steven Patrick Morrissey, the son of two recent Irish immigrants, grew up working-class in Manchester's public housing. As a kid, he had to move from one part of town to another because the city's slum-clearing efforts meant that his first home was demolished; he simply ended up in a different slum. Morrissey was a smart and sensitive child. His mother was a librarian, and he got really into reading, especially Oscar Wilde, at a young age. He also fell head-over-heels for pop music, and he was especially focused on the glam-rock of the '70s. As a young man, Morrissey wrote a constant stream of letters to the UK's various music-focused publications. He was essentially a comments-section guy before comments sections existed. For a little while, he also dabbled in pop criticism as a career, but actual pop stardom beckoned instead.

As a teenager, Morrissey left school, worked menial jobs, and went to tons of gigs. He got involved in Manchester's punk scene when he became the singer for a later version of a band called the Nosebleeds, which didn't last long. (Originally, they were known as Ed Banger And The Nosebleeds, but the guy known as Ed Banger left. Another late-period Nosebleed was Billy Duffy. He later became the guitarist for the Cult, whose highest-charting Modern Rock single, 1989's "Fire Woman," peaked at #2. It's a 9.) Morrissey also wrote a self-published zine about American proto-punk greats the New York Dolls and another about James Dean; he was into iconography early. In 1982, Morrissey and Johnny Marr started the Smiths.

What can you even say about the Smiths? They were a miracle band. It's easy to take the Smiths for granted now, since their music has been used for all sorts of nostalgic and social-signaling purposes. In retrospect, though, you have to marvel at it: Those guys, from that place, were able to do this. The Smiths pulled plenty from all across pop history, combining familiar ingredients into something singular. By the time they released their self-titled debut album in 1984, or maybe even by the time they released their 1983 debut single "Hand In Glove," the Smiths were a complete unit, with a sound, and aesthetic, a feeling, and a point of view.

That point of view was mostly Morrissey. He sang with an exaggerated erudition that might've been a sort of drag-style parody of the English upper classes, and he got deep into alienation, self-loathing, and social awkwardness with a cutting humor that made the maudlin stuff hit so much harder. You could mock Morrissey as a histrionic gloom-poet, and that's probably how even plenty of his fans saw him. But Morrissey was a sharp enough writer to skate past stereotypes, and his voice, a movie-star baritone that sometimes leapt upward into a fragile falsetto, had a gravitas far beyond what most of his peers could muster. His lyrics made winking references to queer culture when that was still verboten and even dangerous. The press loved to trumpet Morrissey's claim that he was celibate, but I've always interpreted that as a way to shut down any speculation about his sexuality. (For the record, Morrissey still maintains that he's "not homosexual," so maybe I'm full of shit.)

In the UK, the Smiths were a functional pop act, something that will always blow my mind. They had chart hits. They headlined Glastonbury. They lip-synced "This Charming Man" and "What Difference Does It Make?" on Top Of The Pops. In the US, the Smiths were more of a cult phenomenon, much like R.E.M., their peers in probing jangle-rock. But R.E.M. stayed together and became crossover stars, and the Smiths did not. A few Smiths records went gold in the US, but that didn't happen until they'd been broken up for years. In alternative circles, though, they were a huge deal. "How Soon Is Now?" was one of the biggest college-radio hits of the '80s.

The Smiths didn't stay together long enough to hurt their own legacy. They didn't make any dated or embarrassing music, and they ended right at the moment that they seemed poised to break through, at least in the US. Johnny Marr quit the band in 1987, before their fourth album Strangeways, Here We Come was even in stores. Marr's bandmates toyed around with the idea of replacing him, but that proved untenable. Instead, Morrissey went solo, and he hit the ground running. He went to work with Smiths producer Stephen Street and with Vini Reilly, the Durutti Column guitar ace who'd also been a member of the Nosebleeds back in the day. Morrissey's solo debut Viva Hate came out early in 1988, and his first single "Suedehead" made it to #5 in the UK -- higher than any Smiths single had ever charted.

Viva Hate must've come off as an extension of the Smiths; Vini Reilly was one of the few guitarists on earth who could chime and sparkle just as well as Johnny Marr. Morrissey's first four solo singles were all top-10 pop hits in the UK. In the US, Viva Hate went gold, and so did Bona Drag, the collection of early singles that Morrissey released in 1990. (As in the Smiths, Morrissey saved a lot of his best solo songs for non-album singles, so it was always confusing for neophytes like me to figure out which Morrissey records were actual albums and which were comps.) "Suedehead" came out just before Billboard launched its Modern Rock chart, but Morrissey made it to #3 with his 1989 single "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys." (It's a 9.)

Over the next few years, Morrissey released a whole lot of music, and he became an alternative radio fixture without ever quite getting all the way to #1. In fact, Morrissey sent four different singles to #2 on the Modern Rock chart, threatening to become this column's version of Creedence Clearwater Revival or En Vogue. But Morrissey finally landed his first chart-topper in 1992, which means that the real Modern Rock Creedence is Soundgarden. (I doubt whether Morrissey has anything interesting to say about Soundgarden, but I wouldn't mind hearing his takes on CCR and/or En Vogue.)

For the record: The four Morrissey songs that stalled out at #2 are "Ouija Board, Ouija Board" (a 7), "Piccadilly Palare" (another 7), "Our Frank" (and 8), and "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" (a 9). The last of those songs came from Your Arsenal, Morrissey's third proper solo album. Morrissey recorded that one with a proper band. When he was touring behind 1991's Kill Uncle, Morrissey put together a group of musicians who were schooled in old-school rockabilly. This made visual sense, since it meant that there were five guys with pompadours up onstage, rather than just one. Morrissey also clicked with the harder, more driving sound and with the individual musicians in his band. Two of them, guitarists Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer, remained with Morrissey for many years afterwards. Boorer is still with Morrissey, and that has to be the longest creative relationship of the man's entire life.

The Kill Uncle tour went very, very well. The album didn't sell quite as well as Viva Hate on either side of the Atlantic, but Morrissey's icon stature was only growing. The rituals of his live shows -- the gladiolas, the messianic devotion, the fans literally tearing his clothes off -- were fully enshrined. In Los Angeles, Morrissey sold out the Forum in record time, and David Bowie, one of his idols, joined him onstage to cover T. Rex, another of his idols. Southern California became Morrissey country, thanks in part to the man's huge, fervid, and fascinating Mexican-American fanbase.

Morrissey co-wrote most of Your Arsenal with Alain Whyte, who still sometimes tours with Morrissey and who has since, weirdly, earned writing credits on songs from people like the Black Eyed Peas and Chris Brown. Morrissey and his touring band recorded the LP together. They brought in Mick Ronson, who'd been David Bowie's lead guitarist and main onstage foil in his Ziggy Stardust days, to produce the album. Some of Ronson's final professional work was on Your Arsenal. He died of liver cancer in 1993, at the age of 46. Morrissey absolutely loved getting the chance to work with him.

Morrissey's aesthetic shifted on Your Arsenal. There is very little jangle-pop on the LP. Instead, the album draws heavily on rockabilly and glam rock -- two styles that ultimately aren't that far apart, considering how much the early glam guys took from their rockabilly forebears. Morrissey also got more and more into the signifiers of British tough-guy life. He hung around in boxing gyms, and he made sure that the album's cover art showed just how jacked he'd become. Still, Morrissey remained a sensitive soul, and that contrast between toughness and sensitivity is written into the DNA of "Tomorrow," which remains my favorite Morrissey song.

"Tomorrow" is the last song on Your Arsenal, and it might also be the simplest. There's no clever concept in the song's heart, no bleak lesson to impart about the human soul. Instead, it's a direct appeal to another person: "All I ask of you is the one thing that you never do: Would you put your arms around me?" The way he sings the word around just kills me -- his voice going up an octave or two on the second syllable, as if he can barely choke it out. From a certain perspective, this is one more example of Morrissey's flamboyant self-pity, but you have to be OK with the idea of flamboyant self-pity to accept the Morrissey proposition. You have to locate your own reserves of flamboyant self-pity and let that align with whatever Morrissey is singing. Thankfully, I have no shortage of flamboyant self-pity, so I locked in with this one right away.

The song works, in part, because it sounds tough. It's got this awesome windmill-arm opening riff, a total slam-jam glam bam, before it goes into a lightly spangled shuffle. Every once in a while, that opening riff comes back in. The song flares and ripples and rushes. It's got this great walking bassline that sounds a bit like the bass singer of Morrissey's imaginary doo-wop group. When the guitar fades away, that bass remains. And then the guitar flares up again, going into a noisy fireworks display during the track's climax. The whole thing absolutely rocks, and that kind of thing isn't always a given when it comes to Morrissey.

While all this cool shit is happening behind him, Morrissey sounds unflappably flapped. He delivers most of his lyrics with rich, sonorous confidence, even though those lyrics are so manifestly not confident. On "Tomorrow," Morrissey's narrator is convinced that the future may never arrive, and he begs and begs for this unspecified other person's affection. He allows himself to become pathetic: "I won't tell anyone." He complains of the pain in his arms and his legs, his shiftless body. He demands that you tell him that you love him. He implies he doesn't want to keep living. It's a deeply needy song, but it's delivered with flash and economy. That's just pop magic at work. I love that shit.

Here's a personal story that might be more personal than most of my personal stories: The Ottobar in Baltimore used to host a Morrissey/Smiths karaoke night. I only went once, when I was 21 -- the first time, I'm pretty sure, that I went to the Ottobar's current location. That night, I got severely drunk, jumped up onstage, and belted out "Tomorrow." The memory is very hazy, but it definitely felt like I killed that shit. Then, for the first time in my life, I had sex with a stranger. (We were on a date, but that was our only date.) Morrissey might not approve. I would love "Tomorrow" even if I hadn't had that experience, but pop songs are memory machines. As memories go, that one is a little embarrassing and elusive, but it's pretty good, too.

"Tomorrow" was the third single from Your Arsenal, and the song never got a push in the UK. The version that got play on American modern rock radio was remixed especially for airplay on this side of the Atlantic, and it sounds fucking awesome. I am now forced to admit that I don't even know how the original mix of "Tomorrow" sounds, since the US mix is now the one the streaming version of Your Aresenal. "Tomorrow" also has a cool video -- a long black-and-white tracking shot of Morrissey and his bandmates wandering though quintessentially British streets. Morrissey looks amazing, and the camera practically worships the angles of his face.

You know who directed that video? Zack Snyder. Snyder was still well over a decade out from his Dawn Of The Dead remake, let alone 300, Man Of Steel, and his various Netflix interstellar epics. He was a few years out from film school, where he was classmates with Michael Bay and Tarsem Singh, and he'd only made a couple of videos, including one for former Alternative Number Ones artist Peter Murphy. In a fairly recent interview, Snyder said, "[Morrissey] decided that I was going to shoot all of his videos from then on. But then he ghosted me after that. I don't know what happened." But Snyder really killed it with that "Tomorrow" video. Good job, Zack Snyder. (This column will soon cover another song with a Zack Snyder video.)

To my mind, "Tomorrow" is a classic song and a key part in the Morrissey story, but it's not among his most popular today, and its streaming numbers aren't very impressive. And you know what? Fine. Good, even. Morrissey remains a totemic figure, and "Tomorrow" is still the kind of song that you can encounter in the wild every so often, as long as you're going to the right indie-club karaoke nights. But it's not overplayed, and I've never gotten sick of it. As far as nostalgic exercises like this go, that's right in the sweet spot. After "Tomorrow," Morrissey released one more Your Arsenal single, reaching #13 with "Glamorous Glue." We'll see him in this column again. We'll see another song called "Tomorrow," too.

GRADE: 10/10

BONUS BEATS: Here's guitar wizard Kaki King talking about loving Morrissey and playing a very cool solo version of "Tomorrow" at a London show in 2008:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=C7kwbQ7100w

THE NUMBER TWOS: "Tomorrow" was #1 for a long time, so there's a lot of stuff that needs to be down here in this bottom-of-the-page section. I've been told that the site goes haywire whenever one of these columns has more than 10 YouTube embeds, so I will have to forego my usual practice of adding little no-comment Bonus Beats for all the songs that show up down here. Instead, I'll link out to those. Anyway, the Cure, Morrissey's closest rivals in miserable excellence, got stuck at #2 behind "Tomorrow" with their majestically swoony "A Letter To Elise." It's a 9.

(Bonus: Blink 182's cover, from an MTV Icon special.)

During the "Tomorrow" reign, INXS also got stuck at #2 with their aching breakbeat lament "Not Enough Time." That one is an 8.

(Bonus: Steve "Silk" Hurley's Silky Soul Dub-Stru-Mental Mix.)

THE 10S: Pearl Jam's churning, chiming story-song freakout "Jeremy," perhaps the most consequential Seattle grunge watershed moment this side of Nevermind, peaked at #5 behind "Tomorrow." Daddy didn't give attention, oh, to the fact that it's a 10.

(Bonus: Hole's acoustic live cover at the Bataclan in 2010.)

"Sheela-Na-Gig," PJ Harvey's roaring, stomping, teeth-gnashing, wail of stark need in the face of hostile male indifference, peaked at #9 behind "Tomorrow." I've been trying to show you, over and over, that it's a 10.

(Bonus: Afghan Whigs working some of that song into their 1994 Reading Festival version of "Turn On The Water.")