We know that any criticism of Morrissey will have a whole host of you pasty-faced sensitive little pantywaisters throwing fits of the vapours and putting green ink to yellow paper to bleat abuse at us, but what the hell... come and have a go if you think you're hard enough. The fact is that this simply isn't very good.
"EEEK!" begins Walter The Softy from somewhere up north in his Angst letter. "Oh how predictable: the NME slags Morrissey again. How dare the NME say these things about Morrissey! Morrissey is beyond all criticism, even if his politics could be construed as dodgy. I hope your pet cat gets run over, that you all get AIDS and your children suffer a plague of boils unto the third and fourth generation."
Actually, it's pure shite. If any further proof was needed that Morrissey has become the embarrassing incontinent grandfather of Britpop, look no further than this tune-impaired three-minute drone. He must have difficulty keeping a straight face as he dashes off this piss-poor old crap, secure in the knowledge that enough hard-core sycophants will keep him in royalities for a while longer, their loyalty making them selectively deaf when they listen to their Morrissey-god's increasingly dire efforts.
'Dagenham Dave' really smacks of "Will this do?" - just a generic Morrissey track that sounds like a weak album-filler - even the title is borrowed from The Stranglers. If this was a first single by Eggbreath from Hull, they would rightly be given sound advice regarding day jobs and not giving them up.
Time to think about opening that veggie restaurant now, old son.
- Tommy Udo, NME, August 19, 1995

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