Should Morrissey Have Been Allowed To Sing For Queen Elizabeth At Her 90th Birthday Bash?

If Queen Elizabeth looked anything at her 90th birthday bash, it was bored beyond her years, but would Her Majesty have appeared so glum if the crown prince of easy listening, Mr. Stephen Morrissey, had been on the bill to croon gently about breaking into Buckingham Palace, with nothing but “a sponge and a rusty spanner,” into the aging Sovereign’s ear?

As a staunch anti-royalist and someone with actual talent, it’s unlikely to see Morrissey ever performing for the Queen, but here’s the rub. Morrissey is a bit put out that Warner UK and Sire US are not releasing a 30th-anniversary version of the Smith’s classic 1986 album The Queen is Dead.

As all fans of Morrissey’s old band know all too well, The Queen is Dead is a classic example of just what a timeless work of art an album stripped of nothing but the good stuff can be. Not one to mince his animals or his words, Morrissey described the album, which turns 30 this June, as “rising with time.”

“I would like to congratulate the Smiths, and also Stephen Street, and also Rough Trade Records for 30 fantastic years of sales for The Queen Is Dead, which is 30 years old in June.

“We have always been gagged, of course, but certain recordings rise with time, and The Queen Is Dead and also had the courage to put the fullest meaning of British life into words and music.”

With Queen Elizabeth celebrating her 90th birthday in June, and the Queen Is Dead celebrating its 30th, Morrissey believes it would be a perfect time to re-release The Smith’s ode to the oppressive and claustrophobic nature of a society where one is born to simply become a subject of “some old queen or other.”

Yet Morrissey believes the big wigs at the record label are treading carefully because to issue such a reissue during the British monarch’s 90th year could cause an issue all of its own.

“I am sorry that Warner UK or Sire US cannot provide any celebrations for the anniversary of the recording, but, perhaps some label bosses have their eye on a tatty OBE, and perhaps others simply have detachable heads. It would not quite be the Smiths if not classically ignored by the dried-out lawns of the establishment. I urged Warner UK to issue a special ‘The Queen Is Dead’ single release for the first week of June… but… brick wall.”

Fearful that a new generation might miss out on his musings on body-sapping pubs, money grabbing churches, and Britain’s “cheerless marches,” Morrissey has urged his fans to go that extra yard and put the Queen is Dead back into the hit parade this June.

“Bleeding to death, I therefore have the restless gall to ask of you that, should you have 99 cents/pence, that you purchase ‘The Queen Is Dead’ track in the final week of May, thus possibly edging it into the corner of everyone’s ear in the UK Top 100 – if only to let them know that we are still here and fully aware of the fox-fur on the hall-stand.

“I am sorry to ask more of you than you have already given, but we all do as well as we can in such ludicrous times. I can only ask.”

Sadly, the most poignant opportunity to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 90th and the 30th anniversary of The Queen Is Dead has now passed, namely the British monarch’s 90th birthday bash.

Morrissey asks fans to get 'The Queen Is Dead' charting for its 30th anniversary: https://t.co/ftRHA5jCSd pic.twitter.com/fYSjGD2V18

— Fact Magazine (@FACTmag) May 13, 2016

The Express reports that viewers of the Queen’s birthday celebrations were thrilled by Her Majesty’s “thoroughly bored” facial expressions.

Screenshots of Queen Elizabeth went viral on Twitter as viewers made jests that the monarch “couldn’t look any more bored if she tried.”

And let’s be honest: One look at the bill and you can see why. Hosted by the supremely banal and eternally unfunny Ant and Dec, Her Majesty was subject to another ear bashing by the nation’s favorite tax dodger Gary Barlow, who delivered his usual dirge to mediocrity with the sort of performance that would make medicine sick.

If that was not enough, there was also the horror of watching a plastic faced Kylie Minogue perfuming a duet with a bewildered Shetland pony. Oh, the indignity!

Would it not have been more apt, and a little more lively, if the Queen, who is apparently a fan of “Godfather of Gloom” Leonard Cohen had the opportunity to hear Morrissey sing the Queen Is Dead and perform such classic lines as, “I say Charles don’t you ever crave, to appear on the front of the Daily Mail, dressed in your Mother’s bridal veil?”

From such mighty moments, bridges could be built, fortunes made, and empires erected.

[Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images]