The Guardian has a long profile of / interview with the poet Simon Armitage, and of course Morrissey comes up.
Relevant sections below:
In 2010, the Guardian commissioned him to interview his then hero, Morrissey, the controversial solo artist and former frontman of the Smiths. It was a memorable interview, not least because Morrissey described the Chinese as a “subspecies” in reference to their treatment of animals. It provided Armitage with a great scoop, but he shudders when asked about the interview and says he’d prefer not to talk about it.
The Guardian had effectively sent a poet to interview a poet. Photographs were taken of the two nose to nose. But Morrissey wasn’t having any of it. He refused to allow the photos to be used, and there was a reshoot with Morrissey wearing a cat on his head instead. The pop star treated the poet with contempt. It was disillusioning for Armitage, at best.
and, right near the end:
If I need to check stuff with you, I say, how do I get in touch. He starts to spell out his email. Have you got a phone number? “Er, no,” he says. Then he remembers his phone, propped up in the breast of his coat like a pocket square. “I never answer the phone anyway, so there’s no point in ringing me.” As Morrissey did with him, he makes it clear that this has not been a meeting of equals. In the very next sentence he returns to his meeting with the musician that left him feeling so diminished all those years ago. “When I interviewed Morrissey, right at the end he said, ‘Have you got one last question and you better make it a good one?’ And I said, ‘Can you drive?’ And he said to me, ‘D’you think that’s a good question?’ So erm, what’s your last question, Simon, because I’m going home? I can drive by the way.”
I ask a question half-heartedly, and the answer doesn’t register. I’m thinking about what he said about his father – his humour, his hospitality, his warmth. I imagine I would have liked his dad very much.
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Relevant sections below:
In 2010, the Guardian commissioned him to interview his then hero, Morrissey, the controversial solo artist and former frontman of the Smiths. It was a memorable interview, not least because Morrissey described the Chinese as a “subspecies” in reference to their treatment of animals. It provided Armitage with a great scoop, but he shudders when asked about the interview and says he’d prefer not to talk about it.
The Guardian had effectively sent a poet to interview a poet. Photographs were taken of the two nose to nose. But Morrissey wasn’t having any of it. He refused to allow the photos to be used, and there was a reshoot with Morrissey wearing a cat on his head instead. The pop star treated the poet with contempt. It was disillusioning for Armitage, at best.
and, right near the end:
If I need to check stuff with you, I say, how do I get in touch. He starts to spell out his email. Have you got a phone number? “Er, no,” he says. Then he remembers his phone, propped up in the breast of his coat like a pocket square. “I never answer the phone anyway, so there’s no point in ringing me.” As Morrissey did with him, he makes it clear that this has not been a meeting of equals. In the very next sentence he returns to his meeting with the musician that left him feeling so diminished all those years ago. “When I interviewed Morrissey, right at the end he said, ‘Have you got one last question and you better make it a good one?’ And I said, ‘Can you drive?’ And he said to me, ‘D’you think that’s a good question?’ So erm, what’s your last question, Simon, because I’m going home? I can drive by the way.”
I ask a question half-heartedly, and the answer doesn’t register. I’m thinking about what he said about his father – his humour, his hospitality, his warmth. I imagine I would have liked his dad very much.
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