Glad he seems happy, at any rate. Strange guy but oh well - live and let live.

-lots of interviews with Alain Whyte, he comes across well
-brief chat between Moz and Deano!
-some nice pics of the band and Morrissey wandering around together
-a bit too much of Morrissey's friend James.
-Moz claims not to know what the word 'homo-erotic' means!
-bit before they enter stage at Albert Hall is amusing. Moz and band seem v nervous and shake each other's hands!
-Nancy Sinatra describes him as a great hugger!
-lots of Noel Gallagher and Bono; both quite funny
-some footage of the band meeting Oasis (Alain shaking Liam's hand!)
-Liam Gallagher says something like, "nice scooter Moz!"
-loads of Linder clips
-generally Moz comes across as pretty funny although wishing Mike Joyce the very worst for the rest of his life is probably the low point (they then played "beware I bear more grudges..."
-get to hear quite a lot of 'First of the gang' and the outro to 'Irish blood'
-Moz looks incredibly different in the different light, sometime young and gorgeous, other times less so!
-Joanne Rowling v keen that he gets a record deal!
-right it's bed-time for me. will leave it for others to fill in the gaps!
John Steed, England

Amazing profile and of an amazing man. And the memories of Blackburn came flooding back. Cant wait for the next tour/album.

Not enough of the man himself. Lots of footage we've already seen plus Linder Sterling (AGAIN!) Fascinating, the thing's he said about Joyce though. And my tape knacked half way through! Do you C4 will put it on again? Bugger it I'll mail them and plead with them! Good night all.

Great to see moz in top form again,roll on the album!

and owns a very nice dog, and lives in a very nice house, and makes exceptionally good records, and is incredibly articulate, entertaining and amusing.

It's a pity the actual interview footage of Morrissey didn't take up the whole of the running time and too much was given to people's comments about him. While some of this was interesting and added to the documentary (Bono, Gallagher, Self) some of it wasn't (Sawyer, Rowling).

They showed There Is A Light from te Blackburn gig!! Being there to witness that live was a perfect moment. All in all a good programme, far better than These Things Take Time which was shown last year. And just incaseany of you out there are lacking substance in the back catalogue department, you can win it all at http://www.channel4.com/music

Superb totaliy enjoyed it,a must see for any fan I taped it but I will not be offering it up for sale at inflated prices like some desperados

A fascinating insight as was to be expected, some nice comments from Bono, Will Self and Noel Gallagher, they were very protective of him almost. There was some great footage of Cosmic Dancer dueting with David Bowie, where Bowie gets a flower thrown at him. Overall he seems quite content with his life, he has his same old friends and his own very private life.

What more do you want to know exactly?

It was summed up well - Moz doesn't know anything more than the rest of us about his personality, it is there to see.

It's there in the music, most of all.

What more do you want?!

- Fallon

hmmm... they daren't probe anything. On channel4 's site http://www.channel4.com/music/ [channel4.com] it says "Morrissey's mysterious nature has led to all kinds of myths attaching themselves to him: that he is celibate, eccentric, a manic depressive - even racist. Here he addresses all these matters directly for the very first time." So he says "yes i was, i might be, i took prescribe drugs, what would i achieve". Great interview...

Just me who thinks Will Self is an absolute twat then?

Guess so...

I hope somebody felt sorry for the less British of us. Anyone kind enough to stream it for the rest of us who didn't get a chance to? Please respond with, mmhmm.

how can i see this? i live in the us. anyone want to sell me a copy?
niko
nikog@att.net

the usual suspects lined up with their heavily rehearsed lines~:

JK Rowling laughing hysterically at something HE said in a 'Smash Hits' interview in the 80's that wasn't very funny - something about going back to bed after making a cup of tea - and she still has a penchant for odious bacon rashers after being a Smiths fan for over 20 years!

Miranda Sawyer - "It's men! It's always men who fall in love with Morrissey - not women!"

U2 lead singer, Bongo managed not to make an arse of himself for once talking about Morrissey and his songs, but methinks he was reading off an autocue - he's never sounded this coherent before in his life.

Linder Sterling was wonderfully serene. She came across as genuine, radiant and discreet, no wonder she's his best friend! In fact this would have been a much better documentary had it been Linder's indepth and private views on the man himself - but that would have been too risky and a bit dangerous I would say.

Will Self offered his usual high brow analysis which will require me to rewind the video tape and absorb his erudite thoughts on all things relating to Morrissey. Though he did say he spent more than two hours in conversation with him once and discovered he liked watching 'Coronation Street' regularly. Our Moz doesn't give much away - would be the general consensus from this lot, including Alan Bennett.

James O'Brien is LYING when he says Morrissey is a stranger to intimacy and relationships - he's obviously getting a back hander for saying that or a free signed copy of the forthcoming CD or indeed something else! YOU must smell a rat when pararmours like Jake Walters and Murray Chambers are not mentioned at all!

MORRISSEY lies as he tries to dupe us into thinking he's all on his own-ee-o with just his huskie dog for company in the house Clark Gable built. "Oh Poor Lonely Me," he is saying - "Buy my records and my back catalogue and you're in with a chance - still not married yet. Roll up! Knock on my door! Love me, buy my records".

Part of me really does not want to believe this, but if this is true, then it truly is the height of cynicism, and Morrissey is just as corrupt and devious as the music industry he so despises!

There was excellent footage from concerts in the early 90's, including a fascinating clip with David Bowie on stage. His royal highness dips the knife in salt before sticking it into Bowie. And why not? Always knew Bowie was a strange dangerous little man indeed.

Overall Morrissey came across as over confident, arrogant, aloof, and grimaced a lot. It is clear to see he is not a genuinely happy person, but tries to put a brave face on every day of his life. He is probably a lonely old soul but who isn't? He was at his most genuine in the footage where he is wearing a denim jacket and specs. When he is this vulnerable you know he is speaking the truth!

It was very brave of him to talk about his depression, and he goes on to express how cynical he is about people's motives for befriending him. He only unmasks himself to a few people - Linder Michael Bracewell and James O Brien it would seem.

Before seeing the documentary tonight I saw a footage again of The Smiths first appearance on Top Of The Pops - it was quite striking what a splendid set of gnashers HE possessed twenty years ago - what has happened to his teeth? They're not aligned correctly. Was he in a bar room brawl are something. Don't say it is age, plenty of people keep their own teeth well into their 60's.

At the beginning there was some very old footage, home movie style of Mozzy as a boy. Very brief so you're not missing anything much. No reference to his parents or sister, BUT some sweet footage of his very healthy looking nephews.

The photography and editing were very good indeed, but part of me wished I never saw it. His feet after all are made of clay and they crumbled before my very eyes. Sadly he is not aging very well, and is not the dashing icon he used to be in his 20's.

Read the rest of this comment...

I've just sorting it out. The file I have to work with (fantastic quality incidentally) is currently 960MB (!), so I'm just going to compress it a tad...

Interesting just to see what he's like these days, but surely all pretty straightforward for anyone who already knows of/about him. A surface profile, and Morrissey does himself no favours with the outright nastiness towards Mike Joyce. Although obviously only an aspect of his personality, it was the most revealing insight into his world. I wonder if he's got an ulcer yet...

Could have been better, we DON'T need Kathy Burke and Noel Gallagher to tell us what we already know and why is their opinion more valid than ours? it kind of spoils it. The entire show could have been filled with just footage of Moz and interviews and the tour, etc. I'm sure most of the people on here would have happily sat and watched Mozzer being interviewed for most of the programme. After the debacle of These Things Take Time, I think this programme was another slightly missed opportunity to actually interview Moz properly, not all the stuff about his private life but his love of music, his influences, his current band and new material. Maybe one day somebody who isn't interested in trying to make him upset people or dig up dirt might get the chance to treat him as the person he is. But overall it was a good portrayal of the man and showed how much he was loved, and he is.

As i just said in the chat room to the regulars, i thought this would have been made a pay per view event so Morrissey could redistribute the money back to butterworth and his unpaid roadies LOL! Maybe this is a strategy for the American market....... HeHe i'm only being a cheeky little boy, i would have still paid £10 just to hear that Mike Joyce comment :p I must get a Funny rating for this, it took me an hour to concoct the joke!

Something's always just amiss, isn't it people? Sometimes one's imagination is the best documentary and you don't need a licence fee for that. Make up your own minds and don't worry too much about it all, it's only life.

Filename - The Importance Of Being Morrissey.mpg
Size - 201MB
Keywords - Morrissey The Smiths Nancy Sinatra Will Self Kathy Burke Alan Bennett Noel Gallagher Chrissie Hynde

Original file was just under 1GB, so video and audio have both been compressed heavily for the sake of getting it out there. A much smaller file will be available on Kazaa tomorrow night for 56k users (probably divided into 4 parts).

I'm going to reimport the original DV copy to my desktop via a firewire connection later in the week, so those looking for a top notch copy for free will have to wait until then. If you pay for it, you're a mug.

Enjoy!

This was the shortest hour of the week (yeah o.k. it wasn't really an hour due to excessive and annoying advert breaks) but I really could have done with more. It was a wonderful celebration of Morrissey's originality and uniqueness and I'm glad that finally he's getting the recognition he deserves in the U.K. despite the many (failed) attempts by the British press to critically assassinate him. Fascinating short clip of an old home movie of Morrissey and family when he was a boy in the 70's (he now looks so much like his Father did then!) and humorous clips of Morrissey in a strip club wiggling his eyebrows at the strippers. You might not learn anything new but nevertheless it's great to see him on British T.V. again. Any non-British residing fans should grab a copy of this because despite a few grumbles in the comments above, it was a great programme.

Hello I was wondering if the moz doco included any interviews with the loyal Moz fanbase (or only famous people??!)

I was interviewed during the Australian tour and was wondering if any Aussie footage made it into the program?

A friend of mine is currently posting this to alt.binaries.multimedia, for those who have newsgroup access.

Morrissey makes me feel proud of being an admirer of him/his work

I thought the documentary was airing in the U.S.
Its 9:30 pm,Sunday and I was so excited. If anyone can be sweet enough to give some info on where I can get a copy of this interview, I'd appreciate it. Thanx

i didn't get to watch the show becuase i love in the us. i can't find it anywhere so gimmie so info. on where i can find it.

So the man who appeared on the front of Smash Hits cuddling a cat AND quipped that the reason The Smiths split was because of differences between Johnny Marr's dog and his cat is now a dog owner. HEEL!

reading these comments above just made me realise why visiting this site is such a fucking depressing experience.
It was a truly entertaining documentary; Morrissey was funny and genuine. You lot are a bunch of moaning fucks who want too much from him. If he was a complete media whore and showed too much he wouldn't be the artist he is. Morrissey is a true Aesthete, comparable, as the doc. said, to Francis Bacon in his realisation of true eccentricity. The artistic expression of sexual confusion and how fucking depressing it is being surrounded by this gruesome animal, the 'human being'.
Full marks to the programme makers. And you lot, stop whingeing for Christ's sake.

Love

Damian Morgan (Stretford boy, born and dread)

braveuk@yahoo.co.uk

wow !
i watched , it taped it and watched it again straight away!!
got to bed at 1.30 am only to have to get up at 6am but it WAS well worth it.

loads of rare stuff in the docu, and very well executed by channel 4 i might add.

best clip for me was a rare studio / demo recording of nowhere fast.
best celeb quote from actress 'kathy burke' -''u should always be wary of the quiet ones, they are the worst - i bet he's a really dirty bastard!''
best Mozz quote ''i love mexican people , they have great hair, great skin and great teeth.........

this week there is a reason for living in england.
i knew one would exist sometime.

Great documentary!

get the dvds of this brilliant show
email, janewinston@fsmail.net

Is the dog a vegetarian too?

Watched moz on television last night and I must say that he comes across
like a bit of a bitter old man. He still fights for the right side and I still love his music
but i find him quite loathsome. I would cross the road to avoid him!

I loved the doc, because a) lots of my friends were in it!!!, b) I got to see Moz in his home, c) I got to see Moz at the hairdresser's in Mayfair doing his own quiff!!! That was priceless.

im such a fart weasel, i thought it was 'the importance of being earnest' and i recorded 'six feet under' beforehand...what an idiot
although im kind of glad i am not going to see him withering into old age..

I loved the doc, but realised afterwards that I learned nothing new. It wasn't the 'probing' documentary we were led to believe it would be...

it's a bit pathetic that all the talking heads (Bono etc.) were people that Moz has said nice things about other the years; it would have been funnier and better if they'd got David Bowie or Elton John to add their two penneth worth.
It was just one long Moz love-fest. still the best doc on him I've seen, though.

I really can't believe the arrogance of some of the people above. For Christ's sake, this documentary was not created exclusively for you, you know.

Even Morrissey likes making a buck or two, so u can't blame me for trying!

I've taped the Channel 4 show last night and even cut the adverts out!!! Please Bid

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2537517680

Nothing about a foriegn war on channel 4 last night!

How many contradictions did you spot?

Here's two...

1) james o brien talking about "the phone calls at 1am". later, Moz - "I never use the phone"

2) miranda wonkygob sawyer - "women don't fancy morrissey" (bullshit!). later, kathy burke "he's really sexy".

anymore???

I really can't believe the arrogance of some of the people above. For Christ's sake, this documentary was not created exclusively for you, you know.

I'm sure a great many people (non-Morrissey fans included) learned a hell of a lot about The Man from this documentary. Just because there was nothing ground breaking, you have the audacity to complain! Do you really think Channel 4 are gonna gear this programme exclusively at hardcore, obsessive fans who know everything there is to know about Moz?

Well I've got news for you - you already know everything you are ever going to know about Morrissey, so if you are on some quest to know the man inside out, I suggest you give up.

I must say, I really enjoyed the programme. Moz came across as being very human, very relaxed. And his recent comment about thanking God every day for not having a Manchester accent... Um, Moz's Manchester accent really came through, in this documentary!

And not that it matters, but he looks great as he gets older. The greying hair looks fantastic, and you can see the guy looks really healthy.

How strange that, before he went on tour with Bowie, Morrissey was raving about how nice a person he was and how he "changed the face of music in a very dangerous way and continues to do so" (on Later with Jools Holland in 1995). Now Bowie has upset him a bit and they are no longer friends he dismisses him as being irrelevent since 1971/72!

I am not a huge fan of Bowie (he makes me cringe a bit to be honest) but I am not sure this is really on. Just cos Mozzer has stopped being friends with him it doesn't mean his importance to music has changed. I think its very shortsighted.

I don't really see what everyone seems so upset about, we all know he is a secretive man what did you expect?

As for offering nothing new at least be grateful he is receiving the exposure he deserves at the moment, all this press and all the TV guides picking up on the documentary can only help to return him to where he belongs.

While the opinions of J K Rowling, Bono etc offer little to those who are already fans it can only help to endear him to a new generation of fans.

There was the first new interview footage for a long time, a new album is on the way and finally the press seem able to say they like Morrissey again. Stop complaining and get behind him.

I thought that the doc was great,Moz looked fantastic,the older he gets the better he looks,if the programme let known anything we didn't know then all the mystery would be gone and as he himself said"It's nobodies buisness",i don't give a fuck about if he is gay or not as long as he stays true to himself & nobody else.
Noel was bloody spot on with the current state of the music world.
After watching the doc i realised i just lovesd Moz even more,god bless you Morrissey just you do whatever the fuck you want to do.

Generally a good programme. Couple of red herrings from Moz, the no-relationship/could never live with someone thing. Jake Walters/ Woman from Maladjusted period with no name etc anyone?

I knew every face on the program except O'Brien's. What's the background on him? I had him in mind as being a director of the Introducing Morrissey vid but I may be and often am, very wrong.

nothing really new in it but good nonetheless. he kinda appeared a bit more pansy like than i remember him.....

one thing that really gets on my tits is this constant meat bullshit. for someone who deals so little in the 'political' i hate his fascination with all things meat. that alienates me but i suppose it is his own opinion and one he is entitled to.

one funny thing - when the unseen footage of him as a kid came up - did anyone see the quick 1/2 second shot of what i can only assume was his dad! talk about a spitting image of moz now.
also, that irish twang is slowly getting the better of him.

i have not seen a great deal of footage of moz talking but he did not appear to me to be the most intelligent of chaps - by no means thick, don't get me wrong, just not the intellectual i believed he is. just my opinion.

also, that bit with nancy was just cringeworthy. why does he entertain such people???

Nancy Sinatra: They took me to The Queen's tattoo.
Morrissey (scowling): The Queen's tattoo?
Nancy: It was for her celebration.
Moz: Any good? (shaking his head)
Nancy: It was fabulous!
Moz: Oh, it was fabulous? I didn't know The Queen had a tattoo!

Re: Nancy Sinatra being a huge Moz fan... she certainly made a massive faux pas when talking about the Monarchy! Well, some jubilee celebrations she had seen which were 'magnificent' or similar. Our Moz just sat there going 'really? Hmmm.....'. If she knew anything about him surely she would not have brought that up, given his staunch anti-royal stance!

If Nancy married Moz she'd be called Nancy Morrissey! That'd make the headline writers job at The News of the world an easy one.

It was beautifully made and narrated but not enough Moz. Shame. And Bono? A nation turns it's back.......

GD

that the moz looks just like my dad did 20 years ago