4. “Sing Your Life” – Morrissey
(From the album Kill Uncle)
1990
While Morrissey had found that writing with the production team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley had not been a good match (only the Langer co-write “Novemner Spawned A Monster” had been released) he did decide to still work with them as producers for his next album Kill Uncle. However, Kill Uncle found Morrissey in a transition period of sorts as he left behind his early writing partnership with Stephen Street but hadn’t yet found his long-term writing partners Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer. So, for Kill Uncle, Morrissey wrote a few more songs with Langer but the bulk of the album’s music was written by Fairground Attraction’s Mark E. Nevin. Whether it is the songs themselves or Langer and Winstanley’s production (or both), much of Kill Uncle feels thin and underdeveloped, especially when compared with Morrissey’s work on Viva Hate, Bona Drag, or The Smiths and Morrissey would never work with Nevin, Langer or Winstanley again. One of the highlights though is the second single “Sing Your Life”, a percussive and rhythmic song that encourages everyone to speak, or sing, their own truth. Upon its release “Sing Your Life” became Morrissey’s least successful single to that point in his native UK peaking at only #33. However, it has become a fan favorite and something of a signature song in the years since. Some of its later popularity is due to a live version of “Sing Your Life” done at L.A.’s famed radio station KROQ near the end of the promotional cycle for Kill Uncle with his new guitarists Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer. This live version of “Sing Your Life” gives the song more of a rockabilly twist. Whyte and Boorer would become Morrissey’s new songwriting partners for his next few albums (and Boorer even longer) and this rockabilly sound would form a core part of Morrissey’s sound moving forward.
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