6 Comments
User's avatar
Cherie Call's avatar

I loved Morrissey back in the day but it doesn’t hold up for me. The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get was so darkly funny to me at one point but is just creepy and annoying to me now. Maybe because I’m older and grouchier now.

One of the great things about teaching teens is that it has forced me out of the mindset that “there aren’t any good songs anymore.” There are actually tons. I love discovering the things that make a song good, popping up in songs all throughout time, including now and beyond. I also no longer am disappointed in kids who don’t know The Beatles or Prince. I just get excited for them that they can hear some of those songs for the first time. And maybe they won’t love it, and it’s okay.

I think I played at Geppetto’s one time in the nineties and I definitely played every song I knew how to play and one or two I didn’t really. That was a long time ago.

Expand full comment
Paul Jacobsen's avatar

Yeah, I feel like the dramatic sarcasm of the Smiths SHOULD do it for me, but mostly I just find myself hating the drum sounds and rolling my eyes at the vocal delivery and dissociating by listening to Johnny Marr's beautiful guitar playing.

Expand full comment
Waylon Prince's avatar

Dang, Paul, it warms my soul to see someone else compliment Michael Penn!

Expand full comment
Paul Jacobsen's avatar

An underappreciated songwriter, for sure. I was briefly in some Yahoo-groups email thing for his fans before I realizing that I was not hardcore enough.

Expand full comment
Waylon Prince's avatar

Yes, those types of people are waaaaaaay into things. I cannot hold a candle to them.

Expand full comment
Paul Jacobsen's avatar

IT HAPPENED AGAIN TODAY! I found out a Young Fathers album has been out for a full week and I didn't know it. The algorithm is failing me.

Expand full comment