Song Of The Day 11/15/2013: Morrissey - "Moon River"

Quarterly Covers Report: "Moon River" by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer is one of my favorite songs of all time. It's nearly impossible to screw it up. It's got one of the greatest transitional chords in music history. At two points in the verse, where the lyric is "I'll be crossing you in style some DAY..." and "There's such a lot of world to SEE..." That chord on the words "day" and "see"? You hear it? That's one of the greatest chords in a pop song, ever. The following resolving chord is sublime. I can listen to those two chords all day. "Moon River" is the most perfect one-verse, no-chorus song ever written. That is my truth.

Morrissey covered it. Of course Morrissey covered "Moon River." I like his rendition a lot. I find it extremely satisfying, and I am not what you'd call one of those disciples of Mozz. He stretches it out to nearly ten minutes, extends an instrumental section for a bit, throws in an anachronistic, creepy sound effect of a woman in total tears, then comes back to sing the refrain in distant echo. I feel like jabbing bamboo shoots under my fingernails when I'm done with it, but I suspect that's not too far off from the intended effect.

Tomorrow to balance everything out and close out Covers Week, we'll have a song by a musician I think we can safely call the anti-Morrissey. I'm going to bet one of you will figure out who that musician is in ten minutes or less.