Morrissey Forever Immortalized El Paso Inside One of his Albums
El Paso, Texas is full of music fans -- including the band The Smiths & their lead singer, Morrissey. And he seemed to be fascinated with El Paso too as one of his solo albums actually has El Paso inside. And just not one photo, many photos of the Sun City are inside the liner notes for the album.
Which Morrissey album featured photos of El Paso?
Look no further than his 1995 album, Southpaw Grammar. Or more specifically...the 2009 expanded version of the album. That is where you will find SEVERAL photos of El Paso inside the album.
In fact, The Reagan, a restaurant on 313 E Mills, posted a lot of the images on their Instagram page, confirming that yes, these photos were indeed taken in El Paso.
The album says taken in November 1992 by photographer Linder Stirling; it would make a lot of sense since Morrissey DID have a show for El Paso on November 2, 1992 (maybe these were taken before the show?).
A total of 13 different photos were used for the liner notes inside the album; many show him posing in front of various landmarks like The Clock Restaurant & Paseo De Las Luces (as shown on the front album cover). The Clock Restaurant is currently at 8049 Dyer & Paseo De La Luces at 450 S El Paso St.
Other photos show him under the street sign for Hercules Ave & in front of another local restaurant, La Bola de Oro (which is sadly no longer open).
There are other shots around El Paso that they included; one showing Stanton St, a warning sign involving cigarettes, and another building that appears to read "El Paso Industries Inc". You can find even more photos of the inside of the album on the Passions Just Like Mine website, which goes into great detail about the expanded edition.
A better quality of the El Paso Industries building was used in a YouTube video for the alternate version audio of "Southpaw" thanks to various users.
It's amazing to think that El Paso was featured in one of Morrissey's albums even back then; who knows if other artists have done something similar to this effect?
All we know is that Morrissey did, so thank you. Ya charming man.
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