Oscar Wilde may be long dead, the spirit of his writing lives on - in the literary efforts of later generations, in offhand (mis-)quotings of his famous witticisms, but also through what has long been considered the bastion of so-called "low" culture: popular music. The Smiths, despite their initial controversy, are generally taken to be one of the most influential British rock bands of the Eighties. And, it can be argued, no popular artist has done more to continue the Wildean tradition than their frontman, Steven Morrissey (whose stage moniker is only his surname).Morrissey must have made quite the impression on British audiences when he first appeared on Top of the Pops, sporting a pocketful of gladiolas and a hearing aid, singing in his trademark keening, self-absorbed croon. Of Oscar Wilde he said:

"Every line that Wilde wrote affected me so enormously. […] As I get older the adoration increases. I'm never without him, it's like carrying your rosary around with you."

        Morrissey clearly makes no secret of his admiration for the Irish author, and many elements of Wilde's theme, style, and humour pervade in his own work. This paper focuses on instances of camp humour in Morrissey's songs that are somehow reminiscent in style or technique of the comedy of Oscar Wilde. A somewhat crude example from "Bigmouth Strikes Again":

# Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said, "I'd like to smash every tooth in your head" / Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said, "by right you should be bludgeoned in your bed" / And now I know how Joan of Arc felt / As the flames rose to her roman nose and her Walkman started to melt

        The protagonist in this song is trying to make amends with his significant other after having said things he clearly shouldn't have. The opening lines harbour an incongruity of register: the tone of speech of a regretful lover, characterised by terms of endearment ("sweetness") and an apparent attempt to trivialise earlier statements ("I was only joking") is juxtaposed with the words of violence that follow. Hyperbole can be found in the ensuing lines, grotesquely comparing his situation to Joan of Arc's, as if her self-proclaimed "communications with God" were also, in fact, words that "just slipped out". This image is enhanced with an anachronism, picturing the French heroine burning at the stake sporting something as contemporary (in the 1980s, at least) as a Walkman.

Another example of camp hyperbole can be found in the decidedly gay "This Charming Man":

# I would go out tonight / But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said, "It's gruesome that someone so handsome should care"

        Note that the exaggeration used here is reciprocal in nature, thus enhancing its camp value: a protagonist confesses about his limited wardrobe to an anonymous (but nonetheless "charming") man, who replies with equal overstatement: "gruesome" is a word commonly applied to truly shocking and frightful things, not to the relatively minor tragedy of not having the right clothes to go out in.

        During their five-year existence, the Smiths provoked one controversy after another. However, probably the most infamous row came about after the release of a single (and eponymous album) titled "The Queen is Dead". The lyrics can be viewed in their entirety as a scathing diatribe against British Royalty:

# Her very Lowness with her head in a sling /
I'm truly sorry - but it sounds like a wonderful thing

        These abrasive two lines bear an inversion of established value systems: the traditional British revery of Her Majesty is turned upside down through the image of the Queen in a noose, as if she were to be hanged. This ghastly picture is confounded, however, by the use of flowery speech patterns commonly associated with upper-class English speakers: "her very Lowness", "I'm truly sorry". The protagonist goes on to break into Her Majesty's palace of residence (a reference, no doubt, to Michael Fagan's succesful break-in into the Queen's bedroom in 1982) upon which the Queen says:

# "Eh, I know you and you cannot sing" /
I say, "That's nothing, you should hear me play piano"

        Self-deprecation, of course, but in a manner that also glorifies the self, if only for the smug assumption that the Queen would even know who he is. The protagonist proceeds to take the monarch out for a good conversation:

# We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
Like love and law and poverty
Oh, these are the things that kill me

We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
But the rain that flattens my hair ...
Oh, these are the things that kill me

        An inversion of expected rhetorical routine becomes apparent: whereas the 'grand themes' of "love and law and poverty" mentioned in the first quatrain seem perfectly conceivable subjects to discuss with someone as high in standing as the Queen - regardless of the absurd setting - this idea gets overturned completely by the near-repetition of the second four lines. "The rain that flattens my hair" seems a matter too superficial even to mention in the presence of the Queen, yet to the protagonist, it is a thing that equally "kills" him. Note that the use of "kill" here is in itself a hyperbole; however, this is an accepted use commonly found in informal English, therefore it does not need to be treated as camp. Another manifestation of camp talk can be the co-occurrence of 'high' culture and 'low' experience: an example from "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now".

# What she asked of me at the end of the day /
Caligula would have blushed

        This line obviously refers to Caligula, the Roman emperor, who was (at the time) regarded as being both crazy and sexually perverted. It depends greatly upon your ability to recognise his name, and the connotations one might have with his person with regard to common sexual relationships between people.

        The final example in this paper is from Morrissey's solo compilation album, appropriately titled "Bona Drag". The peculiar, not-quite-English words used in the song are in fact Polari, a form of cant slang used among gay subcultures in Britain, especially in the 1950s and -60s. The title uses an alternate spelling: "Piccadilly Palare".

# The Piccadilly palare / Was just silly slang
Between me and the boys in my gang
"So Bona to Vada. Oh you
Your lovely eek and / Your lovely riah"

A short glossary:

Palare - from parlare, Italian for "to talk"
Bona - from buona, Italian for "good"
Vada - see, look at, probably from Italian vedere
Eek - shortening of ecaf, backslang for "face"
Riah - backslang for "hair"

        And the lineage continues: just as uttering one of Wilde's famous aphorisms might elicit a knowing smile from your conversation partner, lines from some of Morrissey's songs can be quoted to produce a similar response, among some crowds at least. Also, it must be noted that Canadian author Douglas Coupland (of "Generation X") has published a novel titled "Girlfriend in a Coma", which, is sprinkled with references to Morrissey's lyrics (the title of the book, to start with). These are themselves often either direct references to Wilde, or very similar in style, which in a sense brings the topic full circle.

        In Victorian times, camp talk served the purpose of a cant, a sub rosa way of separating the in-crowd from the outsiders. This helps to explain some of Oscar Wilde's more veiled attempts to refer to his sexuality, which contributed to our current understanding of camp. Nowadays, use of camp has come to be a conscious decision, a technique to give a text a certain flavour. Numerous manifestations of camp can be found in today's pop culture, but seldom are they as true to their roots as in the songs of Morrissey. ***