Suedehead
"... a cocky, swaggering pop assault"

Suedehead
I Know Very Well How I Got My Name
Hairdresser On Fire
Oh Well, I'll Never Learn

Released In February 1988

Yea-Sayers:

SINGLE OF THE WEEK 2
One of the most appealing aspects of Morrissey's songs is the anonymity of the people involved in his lyrics. 'Suedehead' could be about anyone: himself, his mother, a male or female lover - little is revealed apart from a sense of personality and sensitivity that few others apart from Gedge and Barney Sumner can achieve.
Stephen Street's music has a crispness to it that The Smiths never managed. The second song, 'I Know Very Well How I Got My Name,' has a lushness that would have seemed too rich and competent for the Rough Trade days, and Vini Reilly's guitars certainly sparkle in a way it's hard to remember Marr's ever doing. Not that 'Suedehead' is so very different to The Smiths - Morrissey's voice is just as long, smooth and powerful as ever - but the overall presence of the music has stepped up and matured in a way you'd expect of someone creative enough to use big money imaginatively.
As he sings, "I'm so very sorry..." (sic) his vocals hit a pitch that turns your stomach with queasy delight. It makes you feel vulnerable and provokes emotions you've forgotten about. Like experiences from the raw zone, the break-ups and one night encounters, the falling in love and the confidence that comes with it.
The reason 'Suedehead' takes second place behind The Wedding Present is that Morrissey is romantic whereas Gedge is a realist. Morrissey writes poetry within the world of glamour pop whereas The Wedding Present still keep commercial popularity and the qualities you lose with it at arms length.
- James Brown, NME, 2/20/88

With the release of 'Suedehead' a sigh of relief swept through Dublin, Dundee and Humberside. The Stephen Street collaboration had worked. Of course it sounded like The Smiths, but it also sounded wonderful. Radiant and intoxicating and all those prissy things, but above all a cocky, swaggering pop assault - The best No. 1 '88 never gave us. A nation flopped to its chaise longues exhausted but happy and was even willing to forgive a silly, indulgent video where the lad himself drove a tractor and wandered pointlessly around James Dean's back yard. Moz had yet to learn that it was he, not his obsessions, that we were in love with.
- Stuart Maconie, NME, 12/24/88

Moz-Speak:

Did [you] really sing, "It was a good lay" at the end of "Suedehead"?
"No, 'It was a bootleg'. I mean, good heavens, in my vocabulary? Please..."
Honestly?
"Well, have I ever been dishonest?" he laughs. "Do people think it was 'a good lay'?"
I do.
"And is that quite racy?"
Oh, yes.
"Well, it was actually 'a good lay'."
And was there one?
"No, I just thought it might amuse someone living in Hartlepool."
- Morrissey, Sounds, June 18, 1988


"Does the song have anything to do with the title? Well, I did happen to read the book when it came out and I was quite interested in the whole Richard Allen cult. But really I just like the word 'suedehead'."
So it's not even based on an episode from Suedehead?
"No, not really."
And it's not about anyone in particular?
"Yes, it is, but I'd rather not give any addresses and phone numbers at this stage."
- Morrissey, New Musical Express, February 13, 1988

"Yes, that's me. That's true. When I was 13 I did experiment with bottles of bleach and so forth. I tried to dye it yellow and it came out gold, then I tried to get rid of it and it came out purple. I was sent home from school."
-Morrissey on the autobiographical origin of the "When 13 years old/Who dyed his hair gold" line in "I Know Very Well How I Got My Name", New Musical Express, February 13, 1988

"It's just a very simple song about trying to get hold of a hairdresser."
- Morrissey on "Hairdresser On Fire", NME, February 13, 1988