{"id":1954,"date":"2019-04-13T00:01:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T06:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2025-08-08T23:37:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T05:37:05","slug":"careless-whisper-pansy-patois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/13\/careless-whisper-pansy-patois\/","title":{"rendered":"Careless Whisper: Pansy Patois"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In December while trying to verify the colloquialism in The Smiths’ song title “Reel Around the Fountain”<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> I noticed that the band’s singer Morrissey had employed a now-abandoned slang in his solo single “Piccadilly Palare,” sung in the character of a former street hustler. It was the lead track on his album Bona Drag<\/em>, but I hadn’t really collected Morrissey records and skipped that one because it was a compendium of singles.\u00a0I had, however, collected much Smiths, but I was confused by the band’s many, many compilations and 12-inch vinyl product. In fact “Paint a Vulgar Picture,” from the final album, can be seen as a commentary on this excess, as it laments a pop star\u2019s exploitation in death but also questions the star’s complicity in life.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satiate the need
slip them into different sleeves!
Buy both, and be deceived<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

To elaborate: As I understand it, artist appearances on the television show Top of the Pops<\/em> were based on their standing in the UK Singles Chart, and so to boost unit sales (and standing) record labels would issue multiple editions of a single, mm\u2026, single hoping that fans and collectors would buy each version. For instance the A-side would be the same for each of a two- or three-edition release, but be backed with (\u201cb\/w\u201d) B-sides of non-LP tracks and rarities, coveted live versions, dubs and instrumentals, etc. Other come-ons included slipped-in stickers and posters.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> A single \u201cslipped into different sleeves\u201d might be less common, but The Smiths had instances of 12-inch singles with such similarities.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a record collector, my aspiration of being a Smiths completist was challenged by the sheer volume of vinyl, much of it redundant\u2014illustrated by the deservedly titled website Vulgar Picture<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pansy Patois<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The patois in Morrissey’s song “Piccadilly Palare,” aka Polari<\/em>, is a coded language employed in Britain by workers where an element of sexual ambiguity was more or less a given: theater, dance, circus and sideshow, the merchant marine. Outside of these areas\u2014and Morrissey’s rent boys\u2014Polari had a wider use amongst gay men. In his song, Morrissey inserts just a little of the “silly slang\/ Between me and the boys in my gang,” quoting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So bona to vada [good to see], oh you
Your lovely eek [short for face<\/em> spelled backwards] and
Your lovely riah [hair<\/em>\u00a0backwards]”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, this is from the lead cut on the compilation Bona Drag<\/i>, the latter word rich in its own slang sense: downer, strasse, ciggie hit, and of course the drag we don each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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