A savage send-up of music journalism that would fit in perfectly at 9pm on BBC4, Great Lost Albums is a new book that seeks out some slightly dubious entries in band's back catalogues.
Although there are many favourites (including the non-existent LPs Elbow's Off The Top Of My Head, U2's The Satanic Choruses and Blur's Critique Of All Reason), one particularly stood out. As such the four authors - Mark Billingham, David Quantick, Stav Sherez and Martyn Waites - have shared with Gigwise the first documented evidence of Frankly Widow Twanky by Morrissey...
Frankly Widow Twanky by Morrissey
RECORDED: 1999
PRODUCER: BOZ BOORER/CHRISTOPHER BIGGINS
LABEL: PARLOPHONE
"Morrissey has previous when it comes to recording material and not releasing it. He ditched an entire album in 1993, confining himself to bed for three months after Alan Bennett walked by on the other side of the street without waving. He later recorded tracks with Tony Visconti, then refused to release them after witnessing Visconti looking into a butcher’s shop window and later sneaking back to buy a bag of pork scratchings. But without doubt it is Frankly Widow Twankly, his great lost panto album, that has invited most speculation.
‘There’s nothing as British as panto,’ Morrissey declared. When the interviewer pointed out that panto was essentially a bastardisation of the Italian commedia dell’arte, Morrissey spanked him with a wet slipper. Carrying on regardless, thus was born Frankly Widow Twankly. (Incidentally, when the same interviewer pointed out that it should be ‘Twanky’ not ‘Twankly’, Morrissey said it rhymed, so it was correct and not to challenge him. He then went back to working on lyrics claiming all British monarchs were descended from Oliver Cromwell.)
Morrissey set to work, gathering a crack team of seasoned panto session musicians around him. At first he objected to the smell of Old Holborn pipe tobacco and the sight of Angler’s Monthly and Practical Caravanner in the studio, but he was informed by co-producer Biggins (famous for his work with cheeky scouse sex-bomb Cilla Black) that it was a different way of working; a different culture. Morrissey, unhappy – always, always unhappy – grudgingly went along with it.
He also surrounded himself with the very best talent to realise his artistic vision. The Krankies were called in to play the comedy Chinese policemen double act, here called ‘Meat’ and ‘Murder’. A heavily refreshed Charles Hawtrey played the part of the Genie of the Lamp; in a spirit of reconciliation Mike Joyce featured as Baron Hardup; Judge John Weeks was the Sheriff of Nottingham and John Barrowman was on hand to give Mozza his Dick.* David Bowie (at his most chameleon-like) was scheduled to appear as the Thin White Dame, but soon left after an argument with Morrissey because of his insistence on bringing his own Bovril sandwiches to rehearsals. He was replaced by the ever-reliable John Inman. Morrissey now had his dream team around him. ‘When I looked at some of the people I was working with,’ he said later, ‘I just felt my essential Englishness rise up.’
Unfortunately Morrissey and Biggins clashed constantly throughout the sessions,** Morrissey’s insistence that only organic lentils could be used during the cakemaking scene creating a tense atmosphere. Morrissey then decided to take the production on tour.
It opened at the Pavilion Theatre on Cromer Pier, with Morrissey singing the perennial classic ‘Oh I Do Like to Be beside the Seaside’ in his own inimitable manner: 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside/But only when it’s grim and really bleak/Oh I do like to stroll along the prom, prom, prom/While I pray they drop a nuclear bomb, bomb, bomb.' Then moving on to some traditional call and response with the audience: ‘Have you all had a lovely Christmas, boys and girls? Anyone who felt the need to viciously slaughter poultry in order to enjoy themselves can leave now.’
Sadly, it only lasted one performance, as Morrissey, who refused to throw sweets into the audience as they contained gelatine, almost blinded a four-year-old boy by hurling a stick of celery at him. Fearing another court case, Morrissey abandoned the project and fled the country for Jamaica where, rumour has it, he collaborated with Peter Tosh on his great lost reggae album, Ragga Polari. But that’s another story.***"
Tracklisting:
1. The Principal Boy with the Thorn in His Side
2. Meat Is Murder (Even For a Pantomime Cow) (feat. The Krankies)
3. Oh I Do Like to Be beside the Seaside
4. I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Organic Coconuts
5. How Soon is the Interval?
6. Frankly Widow Twankly (feat. John Inman)
7. He’s Behind Me, Oh Yes He Is! (feat. John Barrowman)
8. The More You Rub Me the Closer I Get (feat. Charles Hawtrey)
9. Devious Truculent and Unreliable (feat. Judge John Weeks)
10. Babes on Saddleworth Moor
11. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (Ensemble)
* Dick as in Dick Whittington. Give as in perform the role. God, you people!
**Morrissey would later chronicle their fallings-out on his coruscating hit single ‘Biggins’s Mouth Strikes Again’.
*** Oh no it isn’t.
Extract taken from Great Lost Albums by Mark Billingham, David Quantick, Stav Sherez & Martyn Waites (Sphere, £12.99). Click here to buy the book from Amazon.
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