Daily Record: "Morrissey used to be a charming man..."

The Daily Record placed this article behind a survey/advertising question, so I've taken the liberty of reproducing the entire thing here.
Written by / all credit: John Niven.

Morrissey used to be a charming man. Now it's more big mouth strikes again. And again. And again - Daily Record
John Niven muses on his teenage idol who has fallen off his pedestal in recent years as his political views have changed.

“Pictures of Strummer that fell from your wall, and nothing was hung in their place...” So sang Roddy Frame on Aztec Camera’s single Walk Out to Winter, all the way back in 1983.

I always took that lyric to be about the death of teenage hero worship.
Funnily enough, 1983 was about exactly the year the pictures of Strummer finally did fall from my wall, but, back then, at the age of 17, it was pictures of Morrissey that hung in their place for the next couple of years.

I worshipped the Morrissey of 1983 -1985. Every NME interview was an occasion, every Smiths Top of the Pops performance a jaw-dropping landmark moment of your teens. (A bush you could actually have hidden in hanging from his back pocket when they did Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, the words Marry Me scrawled across his chest during William It Was Really Nothing.)

He hated Thatcher, played benefits for the GLC and openly praised CND.

It would have been hard indeed for me to connect the Morrissey of then with the Morrissey now, who a week ago said: “Last night Marine Le Pen easily won the French Election debate. Today both the BBC and CNN say Macron won the debate.

"This is precisely the reason why mainstream news media outlets cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Their private agendas are more important than facts, reality, or their duty to the people.”

It’s hard to know where to start with the unpacking of all this.

What’s most infuriating? Is it the parroting of the Trumpian “fake news” and “mainstream media lies”?

Or is just the fact that he’s expressing any kind of admiration of Marine Le Pen at all?

This is the Marine Le Pen who very recently pretty much denied France’s role in deporting Jews to the concentration camps.

The Marine Le Pen who worships Trump and Putin and who thought Brexit was great and who would have pulled France out of the EU too, had she not been (thankfully) defeated at the polls.

The same Marine Le Pen that any right-thinking person believes is about as close to an actual fascist that you would want to get.

Then you cast your mind back to Morrissey’s comments last year. He said: “As for Brexit, the result was magnificent, but it is not accepted by the BBC or Sky News because they object to a public that cannot be hypnotized by BBC or Sky nonsense.”

Or, a couple of years before that, when he said in a Loaded magazine interview: “I like Nigel Farage a great deal. His views are quite logical – especially where Europe is concerned.”

Well, as Father Ted said to the man with an enormous collection of Nazi memorabilia: “They say you do get more right wing as you get older...”

It has reached the point where Morrissey fills pretty much the same function for me as the Red Hot Chili Peppers do for Nick Cave.

The Smiths feature on an NME front cover from 1984:
JS119364700.jpg


In case you don’t know the quote, Nick Cave famously said: “Whenever I’m near a stereo and I say, ‘What the hell is this rubbish?’, the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” NB He didn’t say “hell” or “rubbish” but this is a family newspaper, kids.

Similarly, whenever I hear an outrageous racially sensitive quote and I say: “Dear God, what idiot said that?” The answer is almost always Morrissey.

If you’d told the 17-year-old me back in 1983 (the me who would have taken the proverbial flying bullet for Morrissey) that his Labour-campaigning, vegetarian, pro-CND, Thatcher-hating god would one day be a Farage and Le Pen-loving Brexiteer, he wouldn’t have believed you. He’d probably have attacked you.

But that’s hero worship for you, always tending towards disappointment in the end.

Or, as Julie Burchill once said: “The same pop star that you would have laid your life down for at the age of 15, a couple of years later you’d have to be coaxed across the road with red hot pokers to pour water on them if they were on fire.”

NB She didn’t suggest using water to put out the flames, it was another liquid. But this is a family newspaper, kids."

Regards,
FWD.
 
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He could have at least gotten the Roddy Frame lyric right...

"Faces of Strummer that fell from your wall/But nothing is left where they hung"
 
Crykey, reckon I am still being mentioned in the Daily Record. Reckon this is why all of us Brit rockers move to Malibu 120,00 miles away from Brit Tin.
 
You do know it's possible to believe in animal rights, and have right-wing views when it comes to immigrants? I mean - hello - Adolf Hitler may have been vegetarian, but he wasn't exactly left-wing now, was he?
True , but you could argue Morrissey's vehement opposition to animal agri-business (i.e. corporate gluttony and destructiveness ) is where the term "left-wing" may be warranted ...
 
So you say it's ok expressing he shouldn't have help if he is on fire? That's cruelty.
It's a joke? Cruelty would be setting him on fire and not helping him. Saying you wouldn't cross the street to piss on him, errr, I mean "give him a glass of water," if he were on fire is a joke. An exaggerated statement meant to register as humor to those who have a sense for it.
 
Now THAT was a very ill-conceived and hurtful statement to hear for the victims, relatives and many other people at the time.
It was in my opinion rude an cruel.

But I can think of his outrage of the day to day murder of animals and his anger......

There are things where there is no ''but...''. It was simply and purely a hurtful, idiotic, arrogant, stupid and upsetting comment. There are situations when supporting a cause don't support saying idiotic things. We all should agree on that. Except blind Morrissey followers, of course.

I would be curious if Morrissey's mother died, and a journo wrote ''that's terrible, but nothing compared to...'' how fast bots here would tear him/her into shreds (rightfully, must I add). But of course Morrissey the Artist is different?
 
There are things where there is no ''but...''. It was simply and purely a hurtful, idiotic, arrogant, stupid and upsetting comment. There are situations when supporting a cause don't support saying idiotic things. We all should agree on that. Except blind Morrissey followers, of course.

I would be curious if Morrissey's mother died, and a journo wrote ''that's terrible, but nothing compared to...'' how fast bots here would tear him/her into shreds (rightfully, must I add). But of course Morrissey the Artist is different?

"There are things where there is no ''but...'".
Yes. But not that many.
You are completely right and I agree with you as I said.
And no, Morrissey the artist is not different.
The artist and the person are the same. You can't separate them in my view, although I try and many times fail.

But can we agree that however ill-conceived, without any thinking about how his statement would hurt victims, relatives and many others, his sorrow, frustration and disappointment about the day-to-day murder of animals is genuine?

Or do you think it is all bullshit and he has compromised that stance and people feel at ease and can eat their meat without any worrie whatsoever?
 
What is a charming man?

For some women a charming man is a mild mannered man and for other women it is a brutish bike thug selling drugs and shooting people for fun.

Rich girls go for brutes and poor girls go for quiet losers (if they get a man at all). They can always choose to be feminists instead and forget there is a thing called razors.
 
:crazy:
There is fake news but this article should be considered Totally Fake News.:banned:
 
"Racially sensitive" is not the same thing as racist. And it's fair to say that if a xenophobic comment, or a comment about skin color or nationality is made by a pop star, that pop star is probably Morrissey.
And the part about not crossing the street, etc, isn't necessarily about Morrissey. Haven't you admired anyone when you were a child or teenager and later changed your mind?
If you believe Morrissey has grown that's your perception and you're entitled to see it that way.

Of course Morrissey grew. But I was talking about some fans who never grow and get stuck in their teen years. It's very difficult to move them from their comfort zone, their first loved songs and the same old sounds. They are like parrots, always repeating the same things, which is not essentially bad except when they close the door to new things just because they are new and make them feel uncomfortable because they have to... think. God save them of the sin of having a new thought or a new feeling about music or whatever. It's easier for them to fire the sinner in the pyre and keep holding their pre-packaged ideology as the most absolute truth. It's so easy in this way, isn't it? Let's make a lot of fires, there are so many witches to burn, so many books to destroy, so many people who talk out of the official script who don't deserve to be alive. Let's have another inquisition! We are so f***ing good and tolerant people, we hate so much any kind of dictatorship and we would die defending freedom of speech. Ours, of course.
WTF do you mean with "racially sensitive"? You believe in human races or not. Please notice I'm talking about a "belief", because race is a cultural construction, not a scientific one. You belong to a cult.
 
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Of course Morrissey grew. But I was talking about some fans who never grow and get stuck in their teen years. It's very difficult to move them from their comfort zone, their first loved songs and the same old sounds. They are like parrots, always repeating the same things, which is not essentially bad except when they close the door to new things just because they are new and make them feel uncomfortable because they have to... think. God save them of the sin of having a new thought or a new feeling about music or whatever. It's easier for them to fire the sinner in the pyre and keep holding their pre-packaged ideology as the most absolute truth. It's so easy in this way, isn't it? Let's make a lot of fires, there are so many witches to burn, so many books to destroy, so many people who talk out of the official script who don't deserve to be alive. Let's have another inquisition! We are so f***ing good and tolerant people, we hate so much any kind of dictatorship and we would die defending freedom of speech. Ours, of course.
WTF do you mean with "racially sensitive"? You believe in human races or not. Please notice I'm talking about a "belief", because race is a cultural construction, not a scientific one. You belong to a cult.

I am in awe of your command of the ironic.
 
Of course Morrissey grew. But I was talking about some fans who never grow and get stuck in their teen years. It's very difficult to move them from their comfort zone, their first loved songs and the same old sounds. They are like parrots, always repeating the same things, which is not essentially bad except when they close the door to new things just because they are new and make them feel uncomfortable because they have to... think. God save them of the sin of having a new thought or a new feeling about music or whatever. It's easier for them to fire the sinner in the pyre and keep holding their pre-packaged ideology as the most absolute truth. It's so easy in this way, isn't it? Let's make a lot of fires, there are so many witches to burn, so many books to destroy, so many people who talk out of the official script who don't deserve to be alive. Let's have another inquisition! We are so f***ing good and tolerant people, we hate so much any kind of dictatorship and we would die defending freedom of speech. Ours, of course.
WTF do you mean with "racially sensitive"? You believe in human races or not. Please notice I'm talking about a "belief", because race is a cultural construction, not a scientific one. You belong to a cult.
Reminds me how sad it is with old bands and artists still touring making a fool of themselves and becoming all the things they swore never to become. People pay to watch the freak show instead of growing up and move on in life.

It is like middle aged people who still go out. They need something to keep themselves off the streets.
 
Reminds me how sad it is with old bands and artists still touring making a fool of themselves and becoming all the things they swore never to become. People pay to watch the freak show instead of growing up and move on in life.

It is like middle aged people who still go out. They need something to keep themselves off the streets.

You are being rude and unfair with a lot of artists who are now even better artists than before.
 

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