Talk:This Charming Man

GA?

Why put up a former front page article for GA? Highway 07:20, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Why not? --kingboyk 08:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The Smiths

I have a Rough Trade Australia/New Zealand LP of The Smiths which features "This Charming Man" as the 11th song, after "Suffer Little Children", so there must have been at least one edition that featured the song prior to WEA's reissues.

Looks like it's shaping up to be a great article though. :) --Hn 20:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to modify the introduction to take this into account. Thanks for your help with the article. Hopefully we can get it on the front page one day. Live Forever 21:58, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Lyrics

Maybe something like this would work... Rossrs 05:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The lyrics of many of The Smiths' songs have been reviewed by academics and the sexual ambiguity, bisexuality and homoeroticism depicted are suggested as providing an insight into the attitudes and past experiences of Morrissey. In discussing the opening lyrics, "Punctured bicycle / on a hillside desolate / Will nature make a man of me yet?", Sheila Whiteley, Professor of Popular Music at Salford University suggests Morrissey is referring to a "rite of passage" and in another part of the song which refers to a "passenger seat" suggests he is referring to a real event in his life. [1]

Nabeel Zuberi in Sounds English - Transnational Popular Music notes that Morrissey often refers to a "deviant outsider" in his lyrics, which is represented in this case by the "charming man" of the song's title who offers the young man a lift when his bicycle tire is punctured. Zuberi describes the meeting as a "brief encounter" and suggests, on behalf of the songwriter, "partly a homoerotic attraction". He notes that Morrissey's lyrics often place working-class males in a homoerotic situation, [2]and the line "jumped up pantry boy who doesn't know his place" was taken from the film Sleuth, in which the protragonist uses the phrase as an insult to his working class rival. Ricky Rooksby in Inside Classic Rock Tracks: Songwriting and Recording Secrets of 100 Great Songs from 1960 describes the opening line as "wonderfully evocative" and says that Morrissey's lyrics are marked by a "droll wit" and colloquial phrases such as "I haven't got a stitch to wear". [3]

87.81.196.174 (talk)SA Are you really sure about the interpretation of the lyrics? The article says <after much deliberation he accepts the offer. While driving together the pair flirt, although the protagonist finds it difficult to overcome his reluctance: "I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear"> Surely there is nothing in the lyrics to suggest reluctance and much deliberation on the part of the pantry boy. Indeed, surely your notion that the pantry boy displays hesitation, reluctance and much deliberation is completely at odds with the repeated phrase <He knows so much about these things>. And as to the idea that the song is about 'flirting', surely <Why pamper life's complexity\When the leather runs smooth\On the passenger's seat?> means that rather than go and check into a hotel, they have sex on the passenger seat. Surely any other interpretation is quaintly naive? Surely "I would go out tonight, but I haven't got a stitch to wear" is the pantry boy asking the older richer man to take him clothes shopping?87.81.196.174 (talk) 09:03, 8 February 2016 (UTC)SA

References

Perhaps it would be a good idea to include band's that have covered This Charming Man, just to further expand the references section. I believe it would provide a context to the extent The Smith's music has permeated music culture.

216.211.68.208 08:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC) Having recently viewed the film Sleuth starring Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier, there is a line where Olivier calls Caine 'a jumped up pantry boy, who never knew his place.' Morrissey must have seen the film and quoted this line. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.208.92.50 (talk) 01:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Link to Video?

YouTube has the video for this song up on their site, would it be against Wiki policy to put a link to it in the article?

Nice choice...

Great article and a great choice for a front pager.

Cover Versions...

I don't know what others actually exist, but Death Cab for Cutie has a cover of this song on the You Can Play These Songs with Chords archive release in 2002. I believe this should be mentioned in the article, I wasn't too sure where to fit it in. --Drowse 07:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It is already mentioned, isn't it? --Hn 09:50, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Composition and Meaning

Although currently reference is made the jangle pop and surf rock influences on this track, I think the former should be changed to 'highlife'. In that Guitar Player article, Marr makes about three references IIRC to the highlife influence on his guitar lines. And this song might be his highlifiest. --Adamgarrigus 22:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Make it featured.

Yeah, place suggestions below and how to improve it. I can't be bothered myself right now. --Tom of north wales 12:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was featured, then demoted from FA, then relisted as GA. That's fine at the moment.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 18:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Could we have the Vinyl etchings please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.13.170.223 (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Track Listings?

Why did we get many of the different releases of the single? I'm sure many people would like to know the names of the b-sides and the different track listings of the single in different countries. - flowerkiller1692 23:16, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Lyrics

This article is pretty large, yet only elaborates on the first half of the lyrics. Obviously the charming man and Mr Bicycle have fallen out? Maikel (talk) 08:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

CD issue

This song was unavailable on CD in the UK until 1992, when it was released on CD single, and subsequently on the warners reissue of the first alvum and "Best" in early '93. Unless you count the BBC version on ''Hatful of Hollow''. Am I right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.77.1 (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes this is correct. All versions were released on a CD single, in two parts. Were was the "Single remix" released? On what format? I mean before it was issued on the 2CD single set in 1992. Dutchdean (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Dead external links to Allmusic website – January 2011

Since Allmusic have changed the syntax of their URLs, 1 link(s) used in the article do not work anymore and can't be migrated automatically. Please use the search option on http://www.allmusic.com to find the new location of the linked Allmusic article(s) and fix the link(s) accordingly, prefereably by using the {{Allmusic}} template. If a new location cannot be found, the link(s) should be removed. This applies to the following external links:

• http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=17:1550542

--CactusBot (talk) 18:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Pop rock?

Totally unrelated to the unsourced genre that I recently removed, but does the single source cited really support pop rock as a genre? The term 'pop-rock' (or 'pop/rock') surely just indicates maybe pop, maybe rock, as opposed to pop rock as a genre, which is used to describe the likes of Busted, Hanson, and McFly - not in any way what the Smiths were about. --Michig (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

"Contemporary".

There seems to be some ambiguity in the reception section as the word contemporary is used to refer to some reviews.

"A contemporary review in The Face asked, "Where has all the wildness and daring got to? Some of it has found its way onto the Smiths' record, 'This Charming Man'. It jangles and crashes and Morrissey jumps in the middle with his mutant choir-boy voice, sounding jolly and angst-ridden at the same time. It should be given out on street corners to unsuspecting passers-by of all ages." Another contemporary review by Treble magazine described the song as a "stellar jangle-pop track," based on one of Marr's first truly iconic guitar licks."

Unfortunately contemporary is one of those words that simultaneously seems to hold contradictory meanings. The Oxford dictionary seems to define contemporary as both

1. living or occurring at the same time. "the event was recorded by a contemporary historian".
2. belonging to or occurring in the present. "the tension and complexities of our contemporary society"

it seems to me this wording should be changed as the use of the word is inaccurate in either sense; the reviews in question appear to have been written long after the song's writing, recording and release, and so were not contemporary with the songs initial emergence, but also were written long enough ago that they are no longer contemporary in the second sense.

78.150.75.218 (talk) 16:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)