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Morrissey wears his arse on his sleeve

Upon opening Morrissey's Greatest Hits, I never expected a photo of his bum in all its peachy glory. What is Moz telling us?

'Some people keep their brains between their legs ... ' Photograph: Amanda Schwab / Rex Features

"Morrissey's arse photographed by Jake Walters." Now there's six words I didn't expect to find when I opened up Morrissey's new Greatest Hits CD. Nor - obviously - did I expect to find the photo of the bum in question in all its peachy glory.

It's somewhat uncharacteristic for a man who's traded in coyness and ambiguity. But not for one who's also always loved to shock and surprise us. Like everything Morrissey does, the photo is rich with readings. Is he trying to show us he still feels naked and vulnerable? Is he being titillating and inviting? Perhaps it's a message to NME and the rest of his haters? Not "Fuck me", but "Fuck you!"

As we're celebrating the Smiths' silver jubilee perhaps that arse is saying; "This is where I came in." The first line of their first single Hand in Glove was an equally bold declaration: "The sun shines out of our behinds..." The sense of a suggested continuum continues - the cover of Hand In Glove featured another beautiful photograph of a man's arse by Jim French. In 1983, Morrissey gave his first - and only interview - with the gay press, telling Him Magazine (now Gay Times): "I adore the picture... Naked males should be splashed around the Co-op."

Iggy Pop and John Lennon have gone full-frontal, but it's worth noting how rare it is for a male artist to put his arse on his sleeve. Mozza may be making a nod to his idol, the failed gay glam singer, Jobriath, who displayed his backside on the cover of his first album. Keith Moon made a crap pun on his name on Two Sides of the Moon. And Bruce Springsteen probably never grasped the playful semiotics behind the photo on the cover of Born in the USA - shot by Annie Leibovitz (Susan Sontag's lover, please note).

The new photo may also be mocking his own public image. Ever since the Smiths' first Top of the Pops appearances, Morrissey has been dismissed as "That bloke with flowers coming out of his arse." A reference to his habit of appearing on stage with a bunch of gladioli in the back pockets of his Levis - arguably also an homage to that famous final scene from one of his favourite films, Carry On Nurse ("Come come, matron. Surely you've seen a temperature taken like this before?")

Tellingly, Mozza waved goodbye to the Smiths with Poppy Cocteau, a poem etched onto a live flexidisc given away with trade magazine the Catalogue; "So then I went to Liverpool, and got held up outside a nightclub by two merchant seamen who said; 'Give us your money or give us your trousers.' And as I handed them my trousers ... "

Elsewhere Morrissey has shown a fetishisation of the fear of being caught naked; "I cannot steal a pair of jeans off a clothesline for you ... Me without clothes? Well, a nation turns its back and gags" (Late Night, Maudlin Street). "Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen" (Every Day is Like Sunday). And on the new song, All You Need is Me, we hear how; "There's a naked man standing, laughing in your dreams."

On Nowhere Fast, Morrissey showed that showing your arse was his ultimate insult; "I'd like to drop my trousers to the Queen / Every sensible child will know what this means." Reinforced by: "Through hail and snow I'd go just to moon you" (I Have Forgiven Jesus).

It's not too fanciful to suggest that Morrissey also sees a man's arse as not insulting, but inviting: Let the Right One Slip In, Wide to Receive. "I entered nothing, and noting entered me, 'til you came with the key..." (You Have Killed Me). And is he really singing "So find me," on A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours?

And what should we read into this particular choice of photo? Judging by its pertness and the referencing of Your Arsenal, it was probably taken back in the early-to-mid 90s. The photographer, Jake Walters was Moz's live-in PA for much of the 90s.

Many have commented on how this self-styled Greatest Hits collection contains hits that are - all bar one - from the first year of his solo career, and the last four. His 90s are represented by just one song, The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get, as if he now sees that entire period of his life as a big gaping hole. Conversely, the title Greatest Hits could have been chosen for its obvious anagram - Tightest Arse.

I'm tempted to conclude that that photograph of this charming arse is a visual play on words: Posterior/Posterity. No? Perhaps Morrissey is trying to tell us something: "This is the end."

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