The Guardian: "Matt Berninger webchat: your questions answered on Morrissey, Taylor Swift and infinite creativity" (October 13, 2020)

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The Guardian - October 13, 2020.
Laura Snapes.

Matt Berninger webchat: your questions answered on Morrissey, Taylor Swift and infinite creativity.

"I want my daughter to listen to the Smiths.
I don't want her to pay attention to what Morrissey says now.


djdazz asks:

Hi Matt, we are about the same age, with many of the same formative influences. The reception of all art changes over time, but I’m wondering how you reconcile your love of the Smiths with Morrissey’s recent political dalliances. Of course, I want to trust the art rather than artist, but sometimes it’s not easy. Your thoughts on the issue would be greatly appreciated!

Matt:

I'm really glad somebody asked me. I brought up Morrissey and the Smiths so many times to journalists over the past few years because I'm interested to talk about that, and so often it never makes it into the interview because it's just such tricky territory, right? Because Morrissey was one of the voices, writers, performers that made me - maybe more than almost any, at this phase in my life when I was 15, 16, 17. When you just feel like a misfit. But I was a misfit with a lot of confidence. I had a lot of chips on my shoulders, small chips. And then to hear this other person from a place that I'd never heard of, didn't know anything about Manchester, didn't know anything about England, really, and then here was this band and this singer singing about all these emotional, hugely dramatic grievances - the Boy With the Thorn in His Side, Please Please Please let me get what I want, these raw pleas to the universe to be understood. And so funny. Morrissey, the thing that's hardest to square now, is how a person with such empathy for himself and for the misfits and those around him, writing so beautifully about that, now seeming to have very little empathy for other perspectives. It's a hard thing. I listen to the Smiths a lot still, and I listen to Morrissey a lot, and then I do pay attention to the things that he says and it's heartbreaking. I feel like fear and the anxiety of the world has maybe kinda overtaken him a little bit, and I guess it makes me try to keep my mind open and keep listening to everyone. At some point, the older you get, you can close your brain off. I feel like Morrissey became very frustrated because he wanted the world to be a very specific way. When festivals have to change their rules because he's there, I understand that when he's making sure the entire festival is vegan because he believes in that. But I think at a certain point you can't control everything, you get bitter and angry and that's happened to a lot of people. The world is chaotic and out of control and people retreat to a very small corner when they feel they cannot control the world, and I feel he's retreated to a very small corner that doesn't have the empathy that he used to have. I think about it a lot. I wish I had a better answer. But the Smiths still provides me a lot of comfort and inspiration and empathy. I still listen to the Boy With the Thorn in His Side and feel less alone in the world. The Smiths really helped me out of some emotional, dark tangles and they still do. Morrissey's body of work, so much of it provides me really healthy, positive answers, still. I won't give up that. I won't put those records in a box and bury 'em. I want my daughter to listen to the Smiths. I don't want her to pay attention to what Morrissey says now. She listens to them now in fact, she loves them. Frankly Mr Shankly - how can you not love that song? Girlfriend in a Coma, it's great."


Regards,
FWD.


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And that's your opinion, others have a different opinion, not sure why you can't accept that.

still a terrible band though. I don’t know why you can’t accept this.
 
I quite like the National, I have been listening to them quite a bit lately...I can understand what he is saying, and he says with more respect for Morrissey than Billy Bragg ever did. The thing is, if he comes out in support of Morrissey even being allowed a different opinion then his career hits the skids and he will get a knock on the door from Antifa!

I often feel people are not seeing the full picture, ok, so the most difficult thing to explain is the support towards For Britain, but like any party, Morrissey will not agree with everything that comes out of that party just as not all Laboir voters are big on anti-semitism .
 
WTF are you on about? Melvis walks around in frumpy trousers and a jacket that looks like it was rescued from a demolished 1920s tenement home. ...and that’s just on the street.

On stage, he wears ill-fitting trousers, a disposable jacket and daft t-shirt - with floppy, grandpa hair. Then he rips off his jacket and shirt to reveal his cheese-fed bitch-tits ...and is surrounded by style-less hacks in increasingly daft - matching t-shirts.

Not much weight can be placed on the fashion preferences of Mandingo. He’s got his head right up Morrissey’s anus, with the rest of the sycophantic slags around here.

Carry on.




FHS this kreten is back from Poland where he was supposed to be a big star with a no 1 song.🤐
guess it didnt work out :laughing: back to being an
expert in depositing his tiny brained head inside of various backsides.:barf:
 
who is guy:crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy: '??. has only six years in the music career. and wants criticizing those who have more years of experiencie musical careers and life , these artists today are of that presumptuous and alienated communist generation

he is a member one of the suckiest groups available today the sucko group known as National:blushing:
 
I quite like the National, I have been listening to them quite a bit lately...I can understand what he is saying, and he says with more respect for Morrissey than Billy Bragg ever did. The thing is, if he comes out in support of Morrissey even being allowed a different opinion then his career hits the skids and he will get a knock on the door from Antifa!

I often feel people are not seeing the full picture, ok, so the most difficult thing to explain is the support towards For Britain, but like any party, Morrissey will not agree with everything that comes out of that party just as not all Laboir voters are big on anti-semitism .

I’d like to start by saying that I’m fully aware of what I think may not be relevant to most people (or even all people) in this place. However, I like to think that I can express myself here because Morrissey-solo is truly a democratic space. To all people. From all places. From all walks of life.

Having said that, I must add that as someone who doesn’t have the knowledge of British politics intricacies, I don’t intend to pick sides to the left or to right of it. Not my place.

What I’d like to convey is that, as a Morrissey fan, I think I understand him a little (just like any other fan thinks, I’m sure). So, when he says he’s not far-left, not far-right, but far-forward, it rings true to me because that’s exactly how I feel regarding the political spectrum in my own country. I don’t find my place within its confines.

Therefore, politically speaking, what’s there left to cling to when one thinks about policies to address this or that matter affecting his life¿

Principles, ideas, anything deeply rooted in our hearts and souls.

Sometimes those principles, ideas, might be in part (and only in part) represented by some political act more to the left, centre, or more to the right of said political spectrum, but that doesn’t mean we buy the whole thing that party represents at all.

I’ve been reasoning about all that for my own sake, of course, and also abstracting those thoughts to reach Morrissey, in an attempt to grasp some understanding of his support of For Britain.
 
I often feel people are not seeing the full picture, ok, so the most difficult thing to explain is the support towards For Britain, but like any party, Morrissey will not agree with everything that comes out of that party just as not all Laboir voters are big on anti-semitism .
Steve is not a genuine supporter of For Britain. When it comes to politics he is a lazy and deeply foolish man. You can absolutely guarantee he has not read their manifesto as so much of it clashes with his worldview, especially them being extremely pro-military. He just knew about Annie Walters from a while back (before she joined FB), liked some of the stuff she said, the kind of person she was, and stupidly (the stupidest thing he's done in his whole life), thought it would be a good idea to actively endorse them. Two thirds of his fanbase have voted with their feet (as has British radio) resulting in the tiniest ever sales for one of his best albums, at least of the last 20 years.
He tried to make amends on his 2020 tour by wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm not far right".
But it's not enough. As long as his unambiguous endorsement for the party continues to sit there on his own personal website, people will obviously assume that he is.
 
Steve is not a genuine supporter of For Britain. When it comes to politics he is a lazy and deeply foolish man. You can absolutely guarantee he has not read their manifesto as so much of it clashes with his worldview, especially them being extremely pro-military. He just knew about Annie Walters from a while back (before she joined FB), liked some of the stuff she said, the kind of person she was, and stupidly (the stupidest thing he's done in his whole life), thought it would be a good idea to actively endorse them. Two thirds of his fanbase have voted with their feet (as has British radio) resulting in the tiniest ever sales for one of his best albums, at least of the last 20 years.
He tried to make amends on his 2020 tour by wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm not far right".
But it's not enough. As long as his unambiguous endorsement for the party continues to sit there on his own personal website, people will obviously assume that he is.
This is true, but he’s not going to backpedal on any of that stuff now, because it’s truly what he believes. I mean, remember the dog whistles in his statement the day after the Manchester bombing? It’s only grown much worse from there: the conspiracy theories, Der Speigel, endorsing far-right youtubers, etc, etc. I agree he’s not as smart as so many people make him out to be, but he’s also not dumb. People that have known him personally have said that he has always said derogatory things in private about people of Asian origin in the past for example. He’s basically always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing regarding things like immigration and brown people (not Mexicans though because he loves them, their half of his fan base). My point being though, is as he’s gotten older he’s only started revealing his true colours more and more. There won’t be any renunciation of anything.
 
This is true, but he’s not going to backpedal on any of that stuff now, because it’s truly what he believes. I mean, remember the dog whistles in his statement the day after the Manchester bombing? It’s only grown much worse from there: the conspiracy theories, Der Speigel, endorsing far-right youtubers, etc, etc. I agree he’s not as smart as so many people make him out to be, but he’s also not dumb. People that have known him personally have said that he has always said derogatory things in private about people of Asian origin in the past for example. He’s basically always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing regarding things like immigration and brown people (not Mexicans though because he loves them, their half of his fan base). My point being though, is as he’s gotten older he’s only started revealing his true colours more and more. There won’t be any renunciation of anything.

Since he's been attacked his entire career by journalists deliberately or otherwise misunderstanding him, that's clearly rubbish.

& how would you know what he's said in private?
 
Since he's been attacked his entire career by journalists deliberately or otherwise misunderstanding him, that's clearly rubbish.

& how would you know what he's said in private?

Just popping in to say that I AGREE WITH KAREN. Steve has been unfairly attacked. But he really does not need a comms strategist to help figure this out. Anyway gotta go !
 
Moz is a racist and he will be offed on stage after the pandemic. The time for him and his followers to pay for their racist sins has arrived.
 

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