What's the World? (James cover)

It's an early song by the British band James. The lyrics that are listed here are what seem to have been picked up from the Smiths' live performance, which sounds slightly varied from the original, but these listed do actually sound like the words Morrissey sings in the cover. The original lyrics are as follows:

"What will you sell with the glasses and suit? Heart and soul? It won't wear out!

"That's not enough I want what's inside! Fish fillet knife would cut right through my eyes!

"I'm looking for some words to call my own. Not worn-out phrases and hand-me-downs.

"They'll knock me in where I stand, Put on its back in a corned beef can.

"I'm going under! You can feel them stripping me down... to the rust inside!

"This is the way Frankenstar is born! From bits and pieces others have worn. All held together by a management glue. Too much glue, and the stars turn blue! Turn blue! Turn blue! Turn blue! Turn blue!

"I'm going under! You can feel them pulling me down... to the holes inside!"

The song is about the compromises that a dedicated music artist is often asked to make by the business side of the recording industry, and this often seems to the artist(s) like a fundamental choice between their integrity and identity vs. an artificial image that is made of them to the public by marketers. Images in the song like being stuffed into a corned beef can, or being patched together with mainstream elements a Frankenstein monster, evoke the hands of recording marketeers mucking with the personality of music artists. This mucking can bring success, but the newly made stars can "turn blue" from the process. The process can almost seem unavoidable at times, because keeping a studio interested would require at least some of this mucking, and over time I would think it would become progressively worse, hence the imagery about being "dragged down" into the process and the system.

Early on, this struggle was common for both The Smiths and James, as it was for many alternative bands in the '80s. The '80s was often filled with alternative bands that had a successful run in that world, only to be reinvented into something more mainstream by their recording studios for at least one album. Some bands remained within that element. Others reverted back to their original image. This would inevitably lead to band with a more public face as a one-hit-wonder, while simultaneously being more well-known and varied through a pretty solid career in the alternative scene.

Still others (like The Smiths) never participated in this at all and always fought to stay true to what they saw as their genuine image. More widespread success eluded those groups, and this song expresses I think the frustration in that situation. I think Morrissey, Marr, and the Smiths identified with the struggle against this choice, which motivated the cover.