Oh well, here it is then. Done! No more transcribing or translating for a long time now (I hope).
Funny to see, how Parfume and myself translated some of the same words differently (but with same meaning), just proves how complex and confusing languages (even one's own language sometimes) can be.
Enjoy
Gaffa Magazine, April 2006
Review by Lars Lobner Jeppesen
The Roman Renaissance
It’s not just because of his hair that Morrissey is considered to be one of the most charismatic living figures in English rock music. Even though the razor-sharp opinions are harsh and the lyrical universe suffers from mood-swings, the former The Smiths-singer has always walked the line between self-irony and self-importance. And it isn’t without a glint in the eye that the Italian-based icon lashes out at children, Madonna and his own taste buds.
The helicopters swarm in the air and hundreds of armed officers are positioned around London’s Hyde Park. No, it isn’t because the country’s, for a short while, homebound son Morrissey needs extra protection at the majestic Dorchester Hotel where the former The Smiths front-man is staying in a £1500-per-night-suite. The reason for the special protection is a massive demonstration where 10.000 Muslims protest against…yes you guessed it; The Mohammed cartoons.
When Morrissey greets me in his room he asks if I noticed the demonstration.
- “Well, it was difficult not to”, I answer.
‘Yes, and it’s all because of you’, the singer smiles with a glint in his eye and asks for an explanation about the whole misery. After having explained I apologize for the whole fuss.
‘No no, please don’t apologize and I hope that the paper doesn’t apologize either. You have the right to say what you want.’
- That’s actually what I expected your opinion to be, you’re not exactly afraid of offend anyone.
‘I try my best,’ says the singer who in 1986 released the controversially named masterpiece The Queen Is Dead, which among other songs includes the single with the telling title Bigmouth Strikes Again.
It has never hurt a singer to be bigmouthed and Steven Patrick Morrissey, as he was born 46 years ago, has long since secured his place on one of the finest thrones of song writing. Even though the Manchester-band The Smiths only existed between 1982-1987 they managed to release four studio-albums and a string of legendary singles whose overall misery themes have infected teenage-bedrooms all over the world ever since. Moz, Mozito, Mozarella, Mozalini or simply Morrissey began his solo career in the late eighties and since then he’s made 8 studio-albums including the latest, Ringleader Of The Tormentors, which is a follow-up to the singer’s so far biggest solo success You Are The Quarry which in 2004 launched a much needed comeback after a seven-years break.
To celebrate the new album produced by Tony Visconti, who previously worked with David Bowie, T.Rex and Kashmir (Danish band) on their No Balance Palace, Gaffa has been blessed with an exclusive audience with the stylish crooner who has a reputation for being impossible and ironically distanced in interviews. For years he’s been shown as a chronically depressed intellectual loner but on this day he seems to have put his arms down and completely unexpectedly he smiles and laughs several times. Maybe it’s age that has mellowed the singer or maybe it’s the intake of the two big vodka-tonics during the next hour that creates the good mood.
ROME VS. LOS ANGELES
- Well, but hello, how are you?
A deep breath follows and Morrissey glances ironically at the ceiling and says with a sigh, ‘that’s a very complicated question.’
- I just tried to begin the conversation in a polite manner.
‘Thanks, but I think we should just move swiftly on.’
- I read somewhere that Madame Tussauds are in the middle of modelling a wax-figure of you. Is that a scary thought or a nice gesture?
‘It’s the most horrific thing I have ever heard and I hope that someone soon will vandalise the place. I would love to help arranging a direct action. How dare they turn me into wax; I can imagine that it would make me look like the most unflattering, disgusting, hopeless, foolish, perverted… You’re nodding and laughing so I don’t have to go on.’
- Why did you choose to make the album in Rome instead of Los Angeles where you made your last record?
‘I fell in love with the city and became soft at the knees. I can’t say anything particular about Rome but all the beautiful clichés captured me. The style, the physical beauty of the people and the old streets sing to me.’
- Did Rome capture you all the previous times you’d been there?
‘No, it just came suddenly. The previous times I have been to Rome I was so critically depressed and I couldn’t see the beauty. Once I thought that England was superior artistically and culturally but I was wrong.’
- But you still live in Los Angeles?
‘No, I sold my house in Los Angeles last summer and put all my things in storage and now I’m trying to find a house somewhere in Rome. But it is very difficult because the properties stay in the families generation after generation so it’s almost impossible.’
- Well, then you have to get married to someone down there.
‘That’s a possibility.’
LA DOLCE VITA
Besides the music there are three words that time and time again are connected with Morrissey: Vegetarian. Quiff. Celibacy. The diet remains the same (more of that later), the hair is still stoically wavy and the celibate life, well, it seems as if something’s cooking and it has become a bit of a tale. On the new album we find the, to date, most gender-fixated song from Morrissey, Dear God Please Help Me, where he sings “He motions to me with his hand on my knee” and “Now I’m spreading your legs with mine in between.”
- So have the non-existing sexual urges suddenly been replaced with the sweet life?
‘It’s been years since I said I was celibate, I’m not anymore, at least not all the time,’ the singer says and follows his answer up with a look that insists on moving on (to another topic).
- You have travelled a lot in your life. Besides Rome, do you have a favourite place somewhere in the world?
‘I have always been fascinated with Copenhagen. Always. Again (like Rome) I think the people there are physically beautiful, have you ever noticed that?’
- One never does when one is in the middle of it all, but isn’t it just a cliché, I mean: musicians have to flatter the country they’re doing promotion in?
‘It doesn’t say that anywhere in my contract, but I can’t put a finger on what makes Copenhagen so fascinating because you’re quite pale but yet you’re beautiful whether or not one’s inclined towards women or men. Unfortunately one sees an awful lot of fur in Copenhagen, especially among the really young and the really old women and it’s a mystery to me. I presume that a part of their brains is dysfunctional and I don’t say that to be funny. I don’t understand why people can ignore the tragic circumstances, which the fur they’re wearing, has been made under.
- Is there a place on earth then, that you like the least?
‘Yes, but there is no point in dwelling on that is there?’
- No not really…Let’s talk about something harmless then. Do you cook when you’re at home?
‘Yes but it’s ridiculously simple food. I have some very primitive taste-buds and I can’t stand spicy food. I eat almost only bread, tomatoes and pasta, it’s quite silly. But I’m actually scared of herbs.’
- You are joking right?
‘Oh no, I can’t imagine eating Thai, Indian or Mexican food. It (the food) is too exciting and inciting and I’m too monotonous and bleak.
- How did the collaboration with the legendary film-composer Ennio Morricone come about (on Dear God Please Help me)?
‘He was working in one of the other rooms in the studio while we were there and we decided to give him a song and ask if he would work on it, like so many other people have tried before (like U2 and David Bowie, Ed). We were told that it was hopeless, because he always says no but he said yes straight away and wrote a very complicated piece, which unfortunately was too long, so we just used the best parts. It was ravishing that he said yes and brought along his 37-piece orchestra. It was the final fascinating addition to the Italian adventure.
CUTE ANIMALS AND OVERRATED CHILDREN
The comedian W.C. Fields discourage, in a famous quote, people from working with children and animals. You have just worked with a children’s choir on some of the new songs, was that a painless experience?
‘I think they saw me as if I was W.C Fields; they were very young and could only speak Italian and I think they thought I was an old fool. But that doesn’t matter because they sang precisely as they were told to. Children are a mystery; luckily they live in their own world, a world which one can sometimes envy but I’m, more than anything, happy that I’m no longer part of that world.’
- Do many of your friends have children?
‘Yes but I’m not particularly interested in them. I don’t run towards them and pat them on the head or tickle their chin. I always wait in vain for children to impress me and I honestly think they’re overrated. When children are around one is always supposed to be impressed and to go down to their level and be interested in their impossible cuteness but I never am. I always think: Come on child, impress me, let me see you step-dancing or playing the flute.’
- Do you think animals are cute?
‘Yes always. I don’t have dogs anymore because I travel so much and I can’t stand leaving animals with friends. One day I would like to open a kennel…for tired musicians.’
MORRISSEY, DYLAN AND…
- Your favourite concert on your last tour was apparently at Roskilde Festival in 2004. What made that concert so special?
‘The audience was fantastic at that show, which was very uplifting for me. Even though they were very young they knew all the lyrics. And as a minor detail, they appreciated the solo-songs more than the Smiths-songs. I’m always told that I have an audience only because of The Smiths and in England they have always ignored that I have had a solo career for 18 years now. The Roskilde Festival felt like a celebration of the person I am now rather than the past.
- I actually think you’re more famous for your solo work here in Denmark, because when The Smiths existed the Danish press didn’t really write about that kind of music.
‘I think that is very true.’
- So you’re returning to the Roskilde festival this year?
‘Yes, along with, among others Bob Dylan and Queens Of The Stone Age. Aren’t you excited to see Bob Dylan?’
- Not really, I have seen him so many times and he has become so…erm…
‘Boring,’ Morrissey whispers acknowledging and adds with a hissing laugh: ‘But that’s nothing to do with me.’
AGEING WITH GRACE?
- Some artists get better and better with age, something you are a perfect example of.
‘I think you’re the only one who thinks that.’
- I bet I am not. Well, but do you think there are some artists who should have shelved their microphones by the time they turned 30?
‘I think most of them never should have picked up a microphone in the first place. I think most of them are terrible The Rolling Stones, for example, only exist because they refuse to quit. It’s not as if they are creating important spiritual music which the whole world needs. Death will get them one day.’
- What do you think of Madonna, who is about your age but who regularly performs dressed up a teenager?
‘I think the whole thing with Madonna is the same as it’s always been; she makes music for herself, she sings for herself and on stage she dances for herself.’
- But isn’t that the point, doing it for oneself?
‘Yes but she has no contact with her audience, she doesn’t see them. The only things she sees are the photographers, taking her pictures. She’s like an eight-year-old girl who’s performing in front of a mirror in her room. She could sing for a herd of cows and wouldn’t care less.’
THE PRICE OF FORGIVENESS
- On your previous album you forgave Jesus (on the single I Have Forgiven Jesus, Ed). Are there some people you will never forgive?
‘Oh yes, many, many people, the list is endless. And most governments are on that list. Because they’re corrupt and immoral, cold, tactless and without mercy. But I think that’s a necessity to get by in politics. I don’t know any innocent or pure people in politics, do you?’
- Not successful ones. You have recently said that you don’t see any difference between Tony Blair, George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, you call them all egotistical dictators. Can you explain that view?
‘When people get power they stop listening to the people who elected them and they instead they become eager to go to war and to kill. It’s so easy going to war and observe murder, but it’s not brave and Blair isn’t listening to the British people, just like Bush isn’t listening to the American people. I hope people in the Middle East don’t think that everyone in England and America agree with Bush. People in America are actually grotesquely embarrassed about Bush.’
- At least half of them.
‘Yes the intelligent half. I can’t imagine there’s a young boy in America who dreams of growing up to become George W. Bush. And the same goes for Blair. They are pathetic’
- Do you vote?
‘No.’
- But isn’t it too easy just mouthing off about all these things that don’t become you?
‘There has never been a politician whose opinions I have agreed with so I can’t vote, at least not until it becomes possible to vote AGAINST a politician.’
- Shall I end our chat with asking if all’s well?
‘Like I said in the beginning, it’s a very difficult question. Who is actually happy? I doubt you are.’
Gaffa’s reporter manages to avoid a major self-analysis as suddenly there is the sound of playing and running children from outside in the hall. A comical surge goes through the singer and dramatically he says: ‘Oh no, the children are coming, hide!’
