Your favourite track: Paint A Vulgar Picture - I find this song to be as close to perfection as anything I have ever heard, I don't know who it's supposed to be about or what the story is, but I read it as being extremely autobiographical, with some amazing bitter irony in there ("you could have said no if you'd wanted to, you could have walked away, couldn't you? - when we all know he couldn't). I feel this song is everything I personally would want to say to Morrissey, it's how I feel when I think how great it would be to meet him, then I realise that to him I would just be another "faceless" "fawning" and "boring" hanger-on "who could never begin to know". I also love the way there is an almost Gaelic feel to the way the track end, it really is heart-rendering and an amazing song in so many ways.
Your worst track: Last Night I Dreamt... - I know this will be heresy to alot of people, but the intro really puts me off and the song never seems to have been completed, to me anyway - of course, I like what there is, but I feel it's maybe not quite polished as the other songs and therefore doesn't quite fit on the album
Best lyric: there are so many, and I'm not just talking about lines I am talking about whole songs. Honourable mention should go to "Stop Me" for being hilarious and so true, it gives a certain beauty to a mundane, ugly, weekly occurence. I also love this: Some eighteen months ago/I travelled to a mystical time zone/And I missed my bed/And I soon came home, because I can imagine doing that myself, again, pathos mixed with bitter humour. In the end though I have to go with this: Best of ! Most of !/Satiate the need/Slip them into different sleeves!/Buy both, and feel deceived It's funny, ironic, bitter, self-deprecating, satirical, and mournful. I love the way he goes from the advertising-board lyrics in the first two lines, through to representing the obsession of the fan, he builds up the optimism describing them preparing to listen to the album, and ends with those two devastating words "feel deceived". Genius is an over-used word, but applicable in the case of these lines, this song, this album, this band.
Song/lyric/line you relate to most/has relevance to you: I touched you at the soundcheck
You had no real way of knowing
In my heart I begged "Take me with you ...
I don't care where you're going..."
But to you I was faceless
I was fawning, I was boring
Just a child from those ugly new houses
Who could never begin to know
You know why
Overall opinion of album, how it compares to others, etc.: I love the individual songs, but I don't feel it has a particular "feel" as an album when compared to other albums. It all depends onwhether you judge an album on the individual tracks, in which case this album is hard to fault, or on the statement and impact of the album itself as a whole, in which case there are better albums.
PS I must add that I'm not saying that Morrissey resembles the character in Paint A Vulgar Pitcure, but I'm saying that he fears that is what he may become, or that a part of him the "ambitiont" and "zeal", I suppose, is pulling him in that direction.