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Morrissey - Seasick, Yet Still Docked

Music Video | 1992
ArtistMorrissey
SongSeasick, Yet Still Docked
DirectorCharles Wittenmeier
EditorScott Bibo
IntroNo
OutroNo
Production CompanyThe End
Set LocationVallencia, California, USA
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - 16

Wiki

Synopsis

Filmed in stark black and white, Morrissey performs "Seasick, Yet Still Docked" in a series of intimate close-ups, shifting between direct gazes, shadowed profiles and moments of quiet stillness. Intercut throughout are grainy, home-movie-style images of a family, creating an uneasy contrast between private domestic life and the singer's emotional isolation. The deliberately modest visual approach mirrors the song's themes of loneliness, romantic failure and paralysis, allowing the mournful vocal and stark imagery to carry the video.

Factoids & Trivia

  • The video began production in 1992 but was not completed until 2000, when it was included on the compilation DVD "Oye Esteban!".
  • "Seasick, Yet Still Docked" was one of the previously unavailable videos promoted as a reason to seek out "Oye Esteban!". Its eventual appearance came years after the song had first been released on "Your Arsenal".
  • The family material has often been mistaken for Morrissey's own home movies. The footage is generally described as archival material, and an account attributed to the filmmaker identifies it as footage from his father's family. The identities of the people have never been conclusively established in widely documented sources.
  • The song itself was written by Morrissey and Alain Whyte and produced by Mick Ronson. On "Your Arsenal", its sparse, melancholy character stands apart from the album's otherwise glam-rock-influenced attack.
  • The video is notable for avoiding a conventional narrative or performance setup. Its combination of close-up portraiture and aged family imagery gives the song a reflective, almost elegiac quality, which helped make it one of the more distinctive entries in Morrissey's video catalog.

Lyrics

I am a poor, freezing-cold soul,
So far from where I intended to go.
Scavenging through life's very constant lulls,
So far from where I'm determined to go.
Wish I knew the way to reach the one I love.
There is no way.
Wish I had the charm to attract the one I love,
But, you see, I've got no charm.
Tonight I've consumed much more than I can hold,
Oh, this is very clear to you.
And you can tell I have never really loved.
You can tell, by the way, I sleep all day.
And all of my life no-one gave me anything.
No-one has ever given me anything.
...
© Morrissey - Seasick, Yet Still Docked. This is an excerpt, provided as citation under fair-use.
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