As you will have noticed, on his current tour Morrissey is using a stage backdrop of French singer Sacha Distel. He had been invited to perform at Morrissey's Meltdown in 2004, but had been too ill. And then, aged just 71, he died in 2004.

It's really rather sweet that Morrissey is using his image, instead of the amusing yet frighteningly egotistical lit-up name he used on his 2004 tour. Then again, perhaps he can't fit them on stage as some of the venues on the 2006 are quite small. They're probably in his mum's shed, ready to go in the lounge when he finds a bijou Roman palazzo to live in. But it occurred to me that there were other dead heroes of his he could've used, such as Arthur Kane from the New York Dolls, who died last year.

So why this particular image?

Well, of course it's beautiful, worthy of a Smiths' sleeve, and Morrissey is evidently a fan of his work - melodramatic, melancholic, strings and crooning. But then, after some reflection, it occurred to me that there is a deeper significance to the image that goes beyond Morrissey-the-superfan. Taken at face value, it's a photo of a French guitarist. And who might that remind us of?

It struck me while watching them perform "Life is a Pigsty", Boz rattling his B-cups, Mikey banging the world's biggest illuminated drum - this is Alain Whyte's song, Alain Whyte's masterpiece, and it's a shame he isn't on the tour. But, when I looked up at that photo of Sacha Distel, I realised that he was.