Who put the 'I' in Morrissey

[Lost]

Why do people assume that when Morrissey writes or performs a song in the first person that it is autobiographical?
It's really irritating. The media are the most guilty ones but there are a lot of threads on here which automatically jump to this conclusion then proceed to equate the songs with his private life which is quite ludicrous!
Great writers create characters in their work and sometimes use the first person to make them more vivid and believable. Morrissey is no different.
Of course there will be the occasional reference to his life experience, that's inevitable, but the first rule of reading poetry is that we should never assume that the 'speaker' is the 'subject' of the poem.

I wouldn't mind betting the man himself finds it most annoying.

 

[Please]

Who are these people? Everyone? A select few? A select many?

I think many of his songs are written in both the First and Third person, and that he even ducks and dives between the two.

 

[Kewpie]

Partly it's easy to presume that Morrissey's songs are autobiographical.
Morrissey hardly gives private information on interviews which somehow makes them think his lyrics are directly link to his privacy.
People who think in this way are unimaginative and lazy IMHO.

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

people tend to be stupid
and the dumber they are
the more they require that things have a static meaning
rather than even attempting to even slightly grasp the multiplicity of meanings to any one thing at any one time...

 

[Grim O'Grady]

I think that is what makes Morrissey different from almost every other artist*, he actually does write about things that affect him, that do say something about his life. So ok I can interpret his lyrics, as with any other song to fit my needs/wants but the thing is with Morrissey's lyrics they connect on a much higher plain than just entertainment. Lots of people admire Robby Williams & plenty buy his records & go to see him, but the difference imho is that whilst thay go off loving angels I get to choose between having forgiven jesus or being rejected by satan, I know which says more to me about my life!
With Williams you get to escape, with Morrissey there is no escape.
Williams wants to be Sinatra, Morrissey wants to be Morrissey though I'm not 100% sure of that


love

Grim
*paul weller (I'm sure there must be others that write about 'reality')

 

[Oh my god. it's Robby!]

Robby Williams & plenty buy his records...

excuse me
but i believe that Robert Peter Williams
usually spells 'Robbie' with ie
not a y
like me

 

[Grim O'Grady]

excuse me
but i believe that Robert Peter Williams
usually spells 'Robbie' with ie
not a y
like me

sorry Robby, it's nearly 1/2 1 here so I'm a tad jaded at the mo'.

love

Grim
P.s. please read Robby as Robbie in my above post everyone.

 

[stillasleep86]

I think it's comforting to think they're autobiographical. Because many of his songs hit so close to home with a lot of us it's nice to think that maybe Morrissey had experiences similar to ours at one point in his life and he went home and wrote about it, like narration, it lets us into his personal life. And since he tends to write lyrics that describe exactly how we feel at times, it gives us that connection. I think this is why a lot of young people have always gotten into Morrissey/The Smiths, we draw connections and fantasize that he understands us and exactly how we feel/what we're going through... which is a nice feeling when you feel utterly alone and down... especially Smiths songs since they were written by a young Morrissey.

 

[slum mum 1974]

Why do people assume that when Morrissey writes or performs a song in the first person that it is autobiographical?
It's really irritating. The media are the most guilty ones but there are a lot of threads on here which automatically jump to this conclusion then proceed to equate the songs with his private life which is quite ludicrous!
Great writers create characters in their work and sometimes use the first person to make them more vivid and believable. Morrissey is no different.
Of course there will be the occasional reference to his life experience, that's inevitable, but the first rule of reading poetry is that we should never assume that the 'speaker' is the 'subject' of the poem.

I wouldn't mind betting the man himself finds it most annoying.

I don't assume, coz it makes an ASS out of U and ME.....hehehe....
It's really irritating. Yup the media are to blame for everything that involves my beloved Morrissey.
Morrissey does find it really annoying...he tells me this all the time, he says, "why do people assume that all of my lyrics are about me? My name ain't Christian Dior"

I think it's comforting to think they're autobiographical. Because many of his songs hit so close to home with a lot of us it's nice to think that maybe Morrissey had experiences similar to ours at one point in his life and he went home and wrote about it, like narration, it lets us into his personal life. And since he tends to write lyrics that describe exactly how we feel at times, it gives us that connection. I think this is why a lot of young people have always gotten into Morrissey/The Smiths, we draw connections and fantasize that he understands us and exactly how we feel/what we're going through... which is a nice feeling when you feel utterly alone and down... especially Smiths songs since they were written by a young Morrissey.

Yes, i agree with what you have said here.

 

[konstantinl]

Why do people assume that when Morrissey writes or performs a song in the first person that it is autobiographical?
It's really irritating.

If a friend left you a note saying 'I'm going to the shops back in 10 minutes' I'm guessing you would assume your friend was describing her own actions and not those of someone else.

That's because 'I' is most employed as a pronoun meaning 'the one who is speaking or writing'.

You see it's a perfectly natural assumption because most people don't have the time to analyse Morrissey lyrics in great depth and look for links and consistancies with his own 'known' personal views and life.

If it annoys Morrissey (and I don't think it does, he goes out of his way to blur meanings) it could always stop it, be clearer, or write in third person.

 

[nightandday]

I don't think it annoys Morrissey. I think he probably doesn't give a toss about it.

His songs may not be autobiographical at all, or they may be partly autobiographical, he may be inspired by books or films or real life cases, or he may combine them with his own experiences, he may use his experiences but change some things, etc.

He has written a lot of 'character songs', and a few of them were in the first person. It would be very weird to assume that the 'I' in The Last Of The Famous International Playboys, Jack The Ripper, Piccadilly Palare and Maladjusted literally means 'Morrissey'. Unless one belives that Moz is a serial killer, that he has worked as a male prostitute, and that he was also a 15 year old girl at some point and worked as a female prostitute.

BTW he doesn't just write in the first and third person. He also writes in the second person quite often (Accept Yourself, Sheila Take A Bow, Pregnant For The First Time, Southpaw etc.). I don't assume that 'I' in his songs must mean "Morrissey". But if some of his songs are autobiographical - and it's likely that at least some of them are, more or less - there's no rule that he must be talking about himself in the first person. He might be talking about himself in the third, or second person.There are actually quite a few songs where I feel he's doing the latter. Accept Yourself is the most obvious example - he keeps switching between 'you' and 'I', as if talking to himself.

 

[Claudia2006]

Well, I don't think every song is autobiographical. But I do think a fair number of them are, and one reason I think that is b/c he's said it himself in interviews occasionally about one song or another.

To me, honestly I don't really think about it too hard when I'm listening to the songs because it seems instantly obvious it is about his life or it isn't. As an example of "obvious" - How Could Anyone Possibly Know How I Feel... from what other perspective could he be singing but his own? There are some that are in a grey area for me, but I don't know - I feel like I have a gut reaction to each one the first time I hear it and it immediately gets put in the category of "autobiographical" or "not" and it's very hard for me to change my mind from that point.

 

[Jones]

I always think that people that assume the "I" is the same as the writer probably haven't read very widely or don't know much about the way artists work.

They probably relate to art as an extension of the entertainment or gossip industry rather than as a area to express ideas.

 

[Captain Tractor]

I don't think it annoys Morrissey. I think he probably doesn't give a toss about it.

His songs may not be autobiographical at all, or they may be partly autobiographical, he may be inspired by books or films or real life cases, or he may combine them with his own experiences, he may use his experiences but change some things, etc.

He has written a lot of 'character songs', and a few of them were in the first person. It would be very weird to assume that the 'I' in The Last Of The Famous International Playboys, Jack The Ripper, Piccadilly Palare and Maladjusted literally means 'Morrissey'. Unless one belives that Moz is a serial killer, that he has worked as a male prostitute, and that he was also a 15 year old girl at some point and worked as a female prostitute.

BTW he doesn't just write in the first and third person. He also writes in the second person quite often (Accept Yourself, Sheila Take A Bow, Pregnant For The First Time, Southpaw etc.). I don't assume that 'I' in his songs must mean "Morrissey". But if some of his songs are autobiographical - and it's likely that at least some of them are, more or less - there's no rule that he must be talking about himself in the first person. He might be talking about himself in the third, or second person.There are actually quite a few songs where I feel he's doing the latter. Accept Yourself is the most obvious example - he keeps switching between 'you' and 'I', as if talking to himself.

Good post

And in Southpaw the girl of his dreams could be sad and all alone

 

[Still Tired]

Morrissey’s songs always seem so personal and intimate to me, they really draw you into his world. Obviously not every line or idea is going to be a direct experience of something he’s been through but I don’t think that’s particularly important. I don’t think too much about whether it’s completely true to his life or not, he sounds like he understands and that’s enough for me to be connected to his words.

But then of course there is the issue of what ‘autobiographical’ actually means- taken in the literal sense as I guess this thread is about- it’s the direct re-telling of his life experiences, but it could also be said that anything a person writes becomes autobiographical. That the way the world is described, how the language is used and all the specific events written about in the songs are entirely written entirely from Morrissey’s unique subjective view of the world, and that all the songs obviously have to originate from somewhere within him. And then there is the idea that even the first meaning I mentioned- of the literal autobiography- cannot actually exist because our view of the world/ interpretations of how we’d describe ourselves, or events we experience becomes fictionalised to some degree in our own minds. So who’s to say what’s genuine and what’s not? And that feeds back into the other idea that it’s whatever a person creates within themselves. Just wanted to bring that up, ignore if you wish!

 

[Lost]

I think what prompted me to start this thread was that i was playing ROTT and was reminded of all the nonesense spouted about it being autobiographical and him finally having sex: "explosive kegs between my legs" and "I entered nothing and nothing entered me until you came..." etc etc.
Now that DID irritate him. I remember him more or less saying so in an interview, although i can't remember which one.

To answer a few of your points...of course Morrissey writes about real life. It's one of the things we love him for....but it doesn't always mean he's writing about 'his' life if he uses the word 'I' in a song. He could be merely creating a character. (E.g. in 'half a person'.) That was my point.

 

[Please]

I think what prompted me to start this thread was that i was playing ROTT and was reminded of all the nonesense spouted about it being autobiographical and him finally having sex: "explosive kegs between my legs" and "I entered nothing and nothing entered me until you came..." etc etc.
Now that DID irritate him. I remember him more or less saying so in an interview, although i can't remember which one.

To answer a few of your points...of course Morrissey writes about real life. It's one of the things we love him for....but it doesn't always mean he's writing about 'his' life if he uses the word 'I' in a song. He could be merely creating a character. (E.g. in 'half a person'.) That was my point.

I take it you're a female fan?

 

[nightandday]

I take it you're a female fan?

Now how did you possibly arrive at such a conclusion?

 

[Lost]

I take it you're a female fan?

Not last time i looked.

 

[Please]

I think what prompted me to start this thread was that i was playing ROTT and was reminded of all the nonesense spouted about it being autobiographical and him finally having sex: "explosive kegs between my legs" and "I entered nothing and nothing entered me until you came..." etc etc.
Now that DID irritate him. I remember him more or less saying so in an interview, although i can't remember which one.

To answer a few of your points...of course Morrissey writes about real life. It's one of the things we love him for....but it doesn't always mean he's writing about 'his' life if he uses the word 'I' in a song. He could be merely creating a character. (E.g. in 'half a person'.) That was my point.

I take it you're a female fan?