Re: new Word Magazine; perhaps most vicious attack ever on Moz (in Greatest Hits revi
I read the article. It's harsh, but it's honest, and to be fair, he does raise some incredibly valid points. Once upon a time, Morrissey TRULY DID stand for "outsiders" (define them for me, if you can), but now, we find ourselves at the stage where the likes of DAVID f***ING CAMERON can express love for The Moz (has he not listened to 'Margaret On The Guillotine'? He definitely hasn't watched the promo vid for 'Interesting Drug', with its anti-Tory graffitti at the start. Having seen him on 'Newsnight' once when questioned on his "love" of the Smiths, this wouldn't surprise me at all). How has this come to pass?
Didn't you just answer your own question? Cameron, for some reason, has not really understood Morrissey's music.
Is Morrissey not singing for outsiders? Let's look at
Ringleader Of The Tormentors and a few other recent songs.
"The Father Who Must Be Killed" sides with an abused stepchild. "Ganglord" with outlaws. "I Will See You In Far Off Places" empathizes with innocent Middle Easterners caught up in a war. "I'll Never Be Anyone's Hero" now is written from the point of view of an outsider ("Warm lights from the grand houses blind me/Haves cannot stand Have-nots").
"On The Streets I Ran" is about guilt over betraying his working class roots, singing of "streets of wet black holes" that always "have you" no matter how much money you make among "friends" who aren't really friends. "The Youngest Was The Most Loved" got the refrain "There is no such thing as normal" into the upper reaches of the pop charts.
"Song From Under The Floorboards" is Magazine's remake of the prototypical modern outsider, Dostoevsky's Underground Man. "Slum Mums" takes the side of welfare mothers mistreated by the state. "Teenage Dad On His Estate" mocks the middle class and (albeit somewhat ironically) sides with the "boy with the methadone grin". "That's How People Grow Up" is practically an anthem for those excluded from love.
Most of
Ringleader of the Tormentors is clearly and poignantly written from the standpoint of a man on the fringes of society, a few steps beyond conventionality.
Of the new songs, "Mama Lay Softly In The Riverbed" empathizes with a "Mama" who was victimized by "uncivil servants", "pigs in grey suits", and "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" is an upbeat rocker written about a sufferer hooked on various "behavioral modifying" drugs!
This is all recent material, and the songs I didn't mention, again, by virtue of being Morrissey songs, pretty much bleed outsiderness. (I didn't even bother going back a year or two further for songs like "Mexico", championing "a small voice", or "America Is Not The World", with its line about the President never being "black, female or gay".) I'm sorry, but Quantick-- who has clearly
not done his homework-- and anyone else who says Morrissey has turned his back on outcasts need their heads checked. The idea is a farce, all the more so because people saying he's turned his back on his former ideals are usually the same ones moaning about how he hasn't changed in twenty years.
