Single, 1986
. . .
“It’s the bomb that will bring us together”
“Ask” is a deeply weird song. On one level, it’s straight-ahead Johnny Marr (plus Craig Gannon) jingle-jangle-jingle, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on, and like “Shakespeares Sister,” it stands as a single that wasn’t quite as great as it should have been.
And that’s probably on Morrissey and Steve Lillywhite.
There’s an early version out there that shows that “Ask” was conceived as a much more rocking song than it became, especially with Mike Joyce doing his best Keith Moon after the first chorus. None of that is evident on the released version, which starts off with liquid crystal guitars dancing all around Morrissey as he sings the first verse.
Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life that you’d like to
Shyness is nice, and shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life that you’d like to
So if there’s something you’d like to try
If there’s something you’d like to try
Ask me, I won’t say no, how could I?
It’s during the second verse that things start getting weird: as Morrissey replaces “shyness” with “coyness,” there’s a weird chugging harmonica battling for sonic space. It’s . . . a bit disconcerting. Which is fine: I don’t need every moment of every song to be concerting, of course. Also disconcerting: the way Mike Joyce’s drums sound, all mashed up together.
Still, “Ask” does have its charms, as in the bridge or pre-chorus or whatever the hell it is, Morrissey reaching back to his letter-writing youth — his version of social media — for one of his funniest set of lines.
Spending warm summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg
His phrasing on “buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg” is a thing of beauty and leads right into the first chorus, Morrissey joined by Kirsty MacColl for the second half.
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me
Because if it’s not love
Then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
The bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
Will bring us together
There’s a lot going on here: the breakdown during the “ask me, ask me, ask me” part where Marr brings back the tremolo guitar from “How Soon Is Now?” while Joyce’s drums clatter all around him, and of course how weird MacColl’s vocals sound against Morrissey’s.
MacColl — who died way way too young, and is probably best known for dueling Shane MacGowan to a standstill on “Fairytale of New York” — which was recorded around the same time — had originally provided backing vocals for “Bigmouth Strikes Again” but had been unceremoniously erased in favor of the sped-up Morrissey chipmunk backing vocals.
Not this time, however, and the strangeness of her vocals probably detracts a bit from the incredibly awesome nuke fear of “If it’s not love / then it’s the bomb / that will bring us together”, making “Ask” yet another song written with the specter of nuclear holocaust lurking in the background.
That was just how it was for young people in the 1980s, of course, and I cannot fucking believe that I have to worry about that shit yet again as I’m pushing my 60s. Jesus fuck!
Anyways, MacColl was married to famed producer Steve Lillywhite, who has been praised many times in this blog and will be praised many times in the future. And without telling Johnny Marr or producer John Porter, Morrissey asked Lillywhite to remix “Ask,” making it too twee by half. This kinda pissed off Porter, who had a whole plan for the mix that he was going to do after they got back from their U.S. tour that never got to fulfill.
Of course, in the long run, it really didn’t matter: “Ask” was yet another huge U.K. single, topping out at #14, and was one of those songs that made it on both The World Won’t Listen and Louder Than Bombs.
There was also a video for “Ask,” which I think might be the first video the band actually commissioned for an individual song, and let’s just say that it takes the tweeness in the final version and triples down upon it, at least.
“Ask”
“Ask” live in London, 1986
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