Trudging slowly over wet sand
Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
This is the coastal town
That they forgot to close down
Armageddon - come Armageddon!
Come, Armageddon! Come!
Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey
Hide on the promenade
Etch a postcard :
"How I Dearly Wish I Was Not Here"
In the seaside town
...that they forgot to bomb
Come, Come, Come - nuclear bomb
Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey
Trudging back over pebbles and sand
And a strange dust lands on your hands
(And on your face...)
(On your face ...)
(On your face ...)
(On your face ...)
Everyday is like Sunday
"Win Yourself A Cheap Tray"
Share some greased tea with me
Everyday is silent and grey
An absolutely classic song and probably the highlight of Viva Hate. Street's fine backing is
transformed by Morrissey's incredibly well-realised vocal, and what I would hold up as an example
of Morrissey's lyrical genius. Ironically enough, this song (as in the other classic fool's gold track,
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now) is often cited as an
example of Mozzer's miserablism. Nothing could really be further from the truth,
when it comes to this song, at least. None of the critics seem to have noticed
that there is deliberately no space between the words "every" and "day". I suggest they
look at the difference in meaning between "everyday" and "every day". Rather than moping about his
whole life being dull, this song is a brilliant eulogy to finally escaping from an awful life best left
behind. It's almost as if Moz had purposefully set a trap for the foot-in-mouth merchants, those who
speak before even considering.
In the song, the protagonist is looking back at the bad old days when he was stuck in a dead-end
seaside town. The usual holiday clichés are reversed, with Morrissey caustically commenting
in a contempory interview "The idea of a resort in Britain doesn't seem natural".
Regarding the strange dust, there are (of course) several theories as to the symbolism. I believe
it is deliberately left open-ended so the listener may reach their own conclusions :)
The Cheap Tray mentioned is probably referring to the god-awful cheap holiday gifts you get in poky
little shops in Scarborough.
Greased tea could be exactly what it says - greasy horrible tea from a "Greasy Spoon" beachfront cafe. Or a
slightly more contrived theory is that it is a clever pun on the greased poles seen in team sport fun-day event
things. The image of the nation's most comforting symbol, our national drink, as a dangerous and slippery
item, is quite compelling. Or it could just mean tea with the attending sweet scones and jam.
Many people have commented on this song's resemblance to John Betjeman's poem "Slough".
Charles Blair suggests this song may be connected to the Neville Shute book "On The Beach".
William Kurt has this to say :
the world of "Everyday is like Sunday" takes place in the town that
wasn't bombed. Life seems to be imprisoning and dreary without the freedom
and excitement that fearing the bomb had previously brought. The lines "Trudging slowly over wet sand/Back to the bench where your clothes were
stolen" seem to clearly show this transition from freedom and joy to a duller,
more miserable world. It seems as if the protagonist was formerly running
joyously naked along the beach, as would be expected of the protagonist in
"Ask", but after the fun is gone, he returns to find that his clothes have been
stolen, leaving him naked and alone on the beach on a cold grey day. The rest
of the song seems to be describing the walk of the protagonist hoping for the
bomb to drop to put a quick end to things. Then the "Strange dust lands". I
feel that what this 'strange dust' is is pretty clear: it's the dust from
nuclear fall out. While the sudden flash of a nuclear bomb will eliminate your
life in a quick and brilliant flash, nuclear fall out will slowly give you
radiation poisoning, leaving you with a long painful death. That's also what I
believe the 'greased tea' is. The grease give the image that the tea is
tainted and sickly; basically it's radioactive tea, polluted and dirty,
leading to a slow miserable death.
Overall the entire song is much like when someone says 'life is long'; this is
never viewed as something positive, as opposed to when someone says 'life is
short'. A short quick life means that one can do whatever one wants and can
ignore all the consequences, but a long
life is full of responsibility and consequences for every action.