I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris

So, what’s Morrissey been up to lately? Being insufferable, as usual. For one thing, he’s still indulging his lifelong habit of canceling tour dates. There have been times when he’s canceled dates or even whole tours because he just plain didn’t feel like playing, but this time he’s canceled the remaining dates of his US tour for medical reasons. Pneumonia, I believe, plus something else having to do with the esophagus. You know, things that aren’t compatible with singing. Obviously, this is a huge bummer for anyone having tickets, although I for one got a refund on mine. Let’s hope he gets all better and reschedules sometime soon. And it’s kind of a weird honor to fall victim to one of Morrissey’s famous cancellations. He’s also kept busy pissing people of in other areas of life. He refused to appear on some late night talk show because he disapproved of his fellow guests, some reality TV ’stars’ with a show about hunting. Par for the course, Moz. And, of course, the feuding, always the feuding. Still not getting along with David Bowie, Bryan Ferry or Paul McCartney. Their crimes: refusing to let him print their pictures in his reissues and not being vegetarian; not being anti-fox hunting and not being vegetarian; and being vegetarian but not enough, respectively. I think Morrissey gets off on irritating the living daylights out of anyone he can. Well, he does make a lot of people hate him, but nobody has more devoted fans than he, and we find his cantankerous ways quite lovable and amusing. Because half of what he says is a joke, and the fact that nobody but a select few followers even gets it is the whole punchline.

I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish

Z

Behold a relatively rare thing, a Smiths promotional video. If you’ve been up to date here, you know the import. The Smiths didn’t film very many videos during their brief time on Earth, and although Morrissey has made a great many videos in his solo years, most of them have been notoriously terrible. So this one is rare in that it both exists and isn’t in any way awful or bizarre. It is also rather relevant towards understanding the Morrissey appeal.  It features Moz as the leader of Manchester’s least intimidating gang of bikers, cruising around with a crew of motley acolytes decked out in poorly fitting jeans and government issue spectacles. To say that it illustrates the cultish nature of The Smiths’ fandom might be incorrect, insofar as nobody likes being labeled a cult, and as far as cults go Mozfans are a mild bunch. But it’s definitely an element that’s always been present. Being a Morrissey fan is maybe like belonging to a secret society, united by a love of cats, thrift store clothing and Oscar Wilde. I can only guess at what the action on the ground looked like in the 80′s but to this day you can still spot true believers sporting the tell-tall anti-gravity ‘do. Perhaps it’s less notable since the Morrissey look has pretty much been absorbed into the generic morass of hipster style. For which perhaps we can shovel a little blame on Moz himself. For he was self-consciously ‘uncool’ decades before self-conscious ‘uncoolness’ became a universally recognized cry of “look how cool I am!” His look crops up in fashion magazines and on runways often enough – every season some enterprising designer orchestrates a collection of saggy cardigans and droopy, rolled-up pants modeled by undernourished waiflings with impeccable hair. Not entirely inappropriate either, given that the teenaged Steven Patrick’s ambition was to become a top fashion model. A lot of people, not necessarily fans, would like to make Morrissey’s sad outcast chic their own, but for the real fans the desire to be more Mozlike often extends to more intimidating lifestyle choices. How many people have become bicycling, cat-hoarding vegetarians because Morrissey makes it look so appealingly unappealing? A lot, I’d wager. Although I myself have no intention ever to quit eating dead animal flesh or driving a car with smooth leather seats, and I can’t help but look askew at anyone who would make those decisions based on the opinion of some rock star with a typewriter, I do have a lot admiration for the object of such following. It’s amazing when a person has the stature and personal appeal to wield that kind of influence, and insists on using his powers to promote literacy and kindness to animals. Instead of, like, invading Poland or something equally stupid and destructive.

I Like You

“Because you’re not right in the head, and nor am I. This is why I like you.”

I love you too, Mozface. This is, of course, as passionate a declaration of true love as Morrissey is capable of. Really, it’s his nicest, most sincerely affectionate song. I can certainly relate to it, and it’s fun to sing along to. It makes perfect sense, too. Isn’t it at least somewhat important to just plain like someone? Especially if they’re not right in the head in just such a way that fits in with your not-right head.

I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday

There’s quite an interesting story to this. All about the cycle of mutual appreciation between David Bowie and his acolyte Morrissey. But I don’t have the time, so I will let David Bowie do the telling. You can skip to the four minute mark of the interview. It’s David Bowie doing a parody of Morrissey doing a parody of David Bowie. Meta.

I Have Forgiven Jesus

Only Morrissey. Only he could blaspheme so and get away with it. Only he would have the ego to grant his forgiveness to Christ. Well, maybe Jesus does want forgiving for all of His failures, but not that Morrissey is one of them. He looks fabulous in that priest suit, for one thing. For another, it may seem like he’s going off in a particularly fraught and ridiculous direction here, but it’s actually one of his less ironic songs. It’s hard to tell with him, but it seems like he’s being sincerely spiritual and not winking his eye. It’s not something that comes out often  with Morrissey, but he has to deal with his Irish Catholic background same as anyone. Or it may be an enormous joke to him. His charm, as always, is in not clubbing you over the head with his meaning and just sitting back and watching everyone make up their own meanings. Morrissey songs are like musical Rorschach tests. You hear what’s already inside of your head, and then some doctor tells you whether you’re mad or not.

How Soon Is Now?

How soon is now? Here is something that I feel not worthy enough to eviscerate, except to say that it quite nicely sums up a lot of people’s idea of their lives. Which is, I suppose, Morrissey’s job in this world. He’s here to make you think it’s romantic and glamorous to be a socially retarded brainiac in thrift store cardigans. It’s an illusion, of course. He looks glamorous in thrift store cardigans. You’re still a loser. But what a perfect illusion. He’s the perfect pretty outcast you wish you were, you that you wish your first boyfriend was, depending on how you swing. People have written books… I won’t be writing a book, leastways not soon, though I have plenty of thoughts. Let me just leave you with one of pop’s perfect moments, untarnished by any teenage Russian lesbians (aren’t we all!)

Handsome Devil

I repeat, the only thing to be in 1983 is handsome! – Morrissey

Outside anything found on a Greatest Hits album, a definitive Smiths song. Musically, lyrically, attitudally. It’s one of the first songs Morrissey and Marr wrote together, one of the first to be performed and recorded, and one of the first to become controversial for absolutely no good reason. Musically it’s a perfect example of The Smiths’ odd and instantly memorable sound, a combination of bouncy melody and distinctly unbouncy front person performance.

The tune is, according to Johnny Marr, “a Mancunian anaemic Patti Smith Group,” an homage to Ask the Angels. Not a connection I would have made, but if Johnny Marr says so. Either way, it’s extremely boppy and can be danced to. At the same time, in typical early Smiths manner, Morrissey is singing from his own corner of the universe, seemingly unaware of what anyone around him is playing, sounding flat and completely off-beat. Morrissey is in fact one of the least musically inclined rock stars, never having mastered any instruments and possibly a bit tone deaf, and in the lifelong habit of composing his songs on the typewriter, as opposed to at the piano or on the guitar like most songwriters do. He’s gotten immeasurably better over the years both at singing with the musical accompaniment instead of on top of it, and writing songs with some built in sense of rhythm, but his early songs were peculiarly unmusical and sung in a deliberately amateurish manner. All of which is precisely the charm that makes The Smiths still relevant and beloved. Because they didn’t sound like anything else before or since.

Handsome Devil contains a fistful of classic and oft-quoted lyrics, including “let me get my hands on your mammary glands,” and “a boy in the bush is worth two in the hand.”  Even though the subject is addressed as a ‘handsome devil’ it sounds distinctly like the subject might be a female, not least in the reference to mammary glands. By the references to exams and things bookish and ‘scholarly’ it sounds like this handsome mammary-gland-haver is involved in higher education of some kind. Perfectly rational things to write songs about, all that. Why the English press flew to the conclusion that child molestation was the topic, I can’t imagine. There are other Smiths songs that are definitely about child-related unwholesomeness, like Suffer Little Children, which is about a real-life kidnapping and killing spree. Or Reel Around the Fountain, which is more ambiguous, but decisively sleazy all the same.  Handsome Devil seems pretty innocent by comparison – it’s only about chasing after someone who, since she’s old enough to have mammary glands ‘eager to be held’, is presumably not a child. How anyone could come to any other conclusion is beyond me, but it did lead to Morrissey having to take a public stance against child molesting “and anything that vaguely resembles it.” Pretty absurd.

Hand In Glove

“No it’s not like any other love, this one is different because it’s ours”

Yes, that’s what we all like to think. Everything is special because it’s ours. Such frantic angst, though! Why didn’t I grasp it sooner? I actually became a Smiths fan literally overnight. I just woke up one day thinking I needed to hear everything that’s ever come out of Morrissey’s mouth. And with a very teenage intensity, I did just that, to the best of my ability. Just when I thought I was too old to be obsessed and have rock star crushes anymore. Watching those old videos really makes me regret my own place and time. They must’ve been a bolt out of the blue. I did get lucky enough to see Morrissey perform last year, and it was phenomenal, of course. But he’s kind of an irascible elder statesman now, and what an impression he must have made as a young maverick I can only imagine.

Half a Person

Call me morbid, call me pale
I’ve spent six years on your trail
Six long years
On your trail 

And that’s the story of my life too. Some may say that relating passionately to The Smiths is a teenage pursuit, but I disagree. Admittedly, many of Morrissey’s early songs have a certain immaturity behooving the mindset of a loser who lives with his mom. Not necessarily a teenage mindset but definitely the mindset of someone young, unhappy and at loose ends. Maybe it’s a sort of arrested adolescence mentality. The burden of our clumsy and shy adolescent selves is something most of us secretly still carry inside. Youth can be hard, especially the limbo years of wondering when and how your ‘real life’ will begin. Myself, near 30, passionately relate to this mopey Smiths song, not because I feel like that now, but because I used to. Ironically, at the time when I was pallidly and morbidly pouring my heart down the toilet and on the trail (six whole years!) of the wrong, wrong person, I didn’t like The Smiths very much. I didn’t have the maturity, I guess. I didn’t get what their songs were even about. It wasn’t until I was older and much worse for the wear that I suddenly understood what Morrissey was talking about. Perhaps being old enough to put some distance between myself and my emotions, I can see myself more clearly. I realize that I’ve been this half a person, maybe I even will again. Why, I don’t know.

Hairdresser on Fire

One of Morrissey’s gayer songs. Morrissey has said he wrote this tune in a fit of frustration after being unable to secure a hairdresser’s appointment or somesuch. Moz is a man whose identity is closely tied to his hairstyle, so he is one to understand precisely the power to transform or totally destroy that the hairdresser wields. As someone who takes pride in doing her own hair, I don’t fully understand this sort of symbiotic relationship that people develop with their stylists, but apparently it’s a very powerful thing. I have a friend who used to drive four hours to another state for a hair appointment. Don’t know if she still does that, but I thought it was mightily insane. Clearly, people are just at the mercy of whomever they’re paying to wield the clippers.