And They Catch Him And They Say He’s Mental

Spring-Heeled Jack was a Victorian character of folklore; a leaping, springing, impish and devilish figure with gentlemanly characteristics that might tear you in two with his clawed fingers or simply stare you half to death with his fireball-red eyes. He was able to leap high across the sooty rooftops of old London town and vanish quickly into the thick and murderous night. I’m sure he must pop up (and pop off again) in some Sherlock Holmes story or other, but I’m no Conan-Doyle expert. If he doesn’t, then that’s a perfect opportunity wasted, Arthur. It truly is.

Spring-Heeled Jim is a track off of Morrissey‘s last great solo record, Vauxhall And I. Still dressed in decent jeans and with great hair, Morrissey takes the idea of Spring-Heeled Jack and turns the Victorian villain into a post-War East End gangster – pwopah salt of the earf, loves his mother, makes sure old Mrs Jones’ milk and paper is on her doorstep each and every morning…you gotta look after one annuva, aintcha? The sort of a figure that’s part Ronnie and Reggie Kray and part Jack-the-lad, just don’t you dare cross him. I’m sure you get the idea.

Morrissey – Spring-Heeled Jim

The track creeps in on a highly atmospheric guitar track, all stealth and menace and ominous foreboding. It rolls slowly and stately like a pea souper curling from the Thames, a mixture of high in the mix plucked acoustics and a wash of reverb and sustain that would probably be more at home in Kevin Shields’ home studio but in the surroundings of a Morrissey record sounds exotic and perfectly-placed as track two’s wrong-footing mood setter. There’s sampled film dialogue playing in the background and, just as you’re trying to place it (it’s very Morrissey), the chords change and Morrissey makes himself known.

Spring-Heeled Jim winks an eye

He’ll ‘do’… he’ll never be ‘done to’

He’ll take on whoever flew through

It’s the normal thing to do

There’s scene-setting and then there’s Scene-Setting and Spring-Heeled Jim sets out its – his – stall very clearly.

So many women his head should be spinning…Spring-Heeled Jim slurs the words…once always in for the kill, now it’s too cold.

He’s an old soak, is Jim. Happy to sit in his armchair, French brandy by his side, Daily Mirror lying open at the racing pages, ready to share his stories with his many visitors – he still demands respect, after all. He’s a one-time womaniser who’d cut you from ear to ear (from ‘ere to ‘ere) should you as much as look at his female companion, although that’s probably all for show anyway, as Morrissey has pegged him as a mixed-up individual with latent homosexual tendencies that just won’t cut it in the world Jim has chosen for himself. (That’s just my opinion, your honour.)

That film dialogue that runs through the track until the last, “…and they catch ‘im and they say ‘e’s mentuhl” is from We Are The Lambeth Boys, a late ’50s documentary that follows a gang of young south London teddy boys, aiming to disepl the myth that they’re violent and delinquent youths.

When the plummy, clipped accent of the presenter isn’t spoiling things, the Lambeth Boys ride in an open top truck singing “We are the Lambeth Boys!” and shouting “‘allo darlin’” at every female they pass. They sing cockney knees-up ditties. They go to the dancing and eye up the girls (or boys) on the opposite side. They sidle up to prospective partners and with a cool nod of the head, lead them on a quickstepping jitterbug around the floor of the dusty dancehall while Lonnie Donegan’s ‘putting on the agony, putting on the style‘ skiffles its way to its conclusion. They care very much about their hair and their two-piece suits and ties. They also smoke like the London of the industrial revolution. As far as social history documentaries go, it’s a must watch.

Give yourself 50 minutes and watch the full thing here. You’d love it.

It’s an obvious Morrissey go-to, We Are The Lambeth Boys. There’s the us-against-them gang mentality that he instilled in The Smiths and every other group he’s formed around him since. There’s the rock ‘n roll reference points. The haircuts. The clothes. The attitudes. The good-looking male protagonists. Any still from the film could have been a piece of Smiths cover art.I can’t emphasise just how essential a watch it is!

For being fiercely Mancunian, Morrissey seemed to form a special bond with London in the early ’90s. That train heaved on to Euston and before you knew it he was referencing Battersea and Bethnal Green, Arsenal and West Ham, East End boxing clubs, Piccadilly and Dagenham and Ronnie and Reggie and having his picture taken outside the Grave Maurice pub, a favourite watering hole of those same Krays. Creating characters that were so clearly unfluenced by and based upon the unsavoury players of old London was the natural conclusion to this, and Spring-Heeled Jim endures as one of Morrissey’s best tracks on one of his greatest albums.