MORRISSEY - EVERYDAY IS LIKE SUNDAY

EVERYDAY IS LIKE SUNDAY

MORRISSEY

Songwriters: MORRISSEY & STEPHEN STREET

Country: u. k.

Album: viva hate

Label: h.m.v.

Genre: alternative rock

Year: 1988

 

           Steven Patrick Morrissey (/ˈmɒrɪsiː/; born 22 May 1959), known mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer, songwriter, and author. He came to prominence as the frontman of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then, he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecating and black humour, and anti-establishment stances.

     Born to working-class Irish immigrants in Davyhulme, Lancashire, Morrissey grew up in nearby Manchester. As a child, he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism, and pop music. In the late 1970s, he fronted punk rock band the Nosebleeds with little success before beginning a career in music journalism and writing several books on music and film in the early 1980s. He formed the Smiths with Johnny Marr in 1982 and the band soon attracted national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his trademark quiff and witty and sardonic lyrics. Deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the image of a sexually ambiguous social outsider who embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, and Strangeways, Here We Come—and had a string of hit singles. The band were critically acclaimed and attracted a cult following. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the separation of the Smiths in 1987.

            In 1988 Morrissey launched his solo career with Viva Hate. This album and its follow-ups—Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, and Vauxhall and I—all did well on the UK Albums Chart and spawned multiple hit singles. He took on Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer as his main co-writers to replace Marr. During this time his image began to shift into that of a burlier figure who toyed with patriotic imagery and working-class masculinity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his albums Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted also charted but were less well received. Relocating to Los Angeles, he took a musical hiatus from 1998 to 2003 before releasing a successful comeback album, You Are the Quarry, in 2004. Ensuing years saw the release of albums Ringleader of the Tormentors, Years of Refusal, World Peace Is None of Your Business, Low in High School, California Son, and I Am Not a Dog on a Chain, as well as his autobiography and his debut novel, List of the Lost.

           Highly influential, Morrissey has been credited as a seminal figure in the emergence of indie rock and Britpop. His work has been the subject of academic study. He has been a controversial figure throughout his music career due to his forthright opinions and outspoken nature—endorsing vegetarianism and animal rights, criticising royalty and prominent politicians, and defending a particular vision of English national identity while critiquing the impact of immigration on the UK. In a 2006 poll for the BBC's Culture Show, Morrissey was voted the second-greatest living British cultural icon.

         Everyday Is Like Sunday" is the third track of Morrissey's debut solo album, Viva Hate, and the second single to be released by the artist. While the lyric was written by Morrissey, the song's composer was Stephen Street. It made number nine in the UK Singles Chart and remains one of his best-known songs. "Everyday Is Like Sunday", as well as the single's B-sides "Disappointed" and "Will Never Marry", feature on the compilation album Bona Drag.

The track has been covered by a number of other bands, including The Pretenders (on the Original Motion Picture soundtrack Boys on the Side), by 10,000 Maniacs (as a B-side to their single "Candy Everybody Wants"), the Armageddon Dildos (on their "Come Armageddon" maxi-single), Estonian 1990s pop group Mr. Lawrence and Mikel Erentxun (on his album Acrobatas). Colin Meloy of The Decemberists also covers the track on his solo album Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey. Dave Couse, former lead singer of A House, has performed this live with his later band The Impossible and alternative rock band Fate or Trouble, who released the song as their debut single. A mostly instrumental version (containing only the title lyric) was used in NFL Network's "When all you want is football" television ad campaign. As well as inspiring several cover versions it has also inspired the cult Canadian film Everyday Is Like Sunday.

           The lyric is reportedly inspired by Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach, about a group of people waiting for nuclear devastation in Melbourne, Australia.

         The single was re-issued on 27 September 2010, on CD and two 7"s, including the unreleased "November the Second", an alternative mix of "November Spawned a Monster". This re-issue debuted at number 42 on the UK singles chart. It coincided with the 20th-anniversary re-issue of his 1990 compilation Bona Drag.

Trudging slowly over wet sand

Back to the bench

Where your clothes were stolen

This is the coastal town

That they forgot to close down

Armageddon, come Armageddon

Come, Armageddon, come!

 

Everyday is like Sunday

Everyday is silent and grey

 

Hide on the promenade

Etch a postcard

How I dearly wish I was not here

In the seaside town

That they forgot to bomb

Come, come, come, nuclear bomb!

 

Everyday is like Sunday

Everyday is silent and grey

 

Trudging back over pebbles and sand

And a strange dust lands on your hands

And on your face

On your face

On your face

On your face

 

Everyday is like Sunday

"Win yourself a cheap tray"

Share some greased tea with me

Everyday is silent and grey.