Morrissey's diaries

B

butley

Well-Known Member
Does anybody know about the diaries belonging to Morrissey that Johnny Rogan has seemingly read? He refers to them in The Severed Alliance and The Queen is Dead documentary. Interesting.
 
butley said:
Does anybody know about the diaries belonging to Morrissey that Johnny Rogan has seemingly read? He refers to them in The Severed Alliance and The Queen is Dead documentary. Interesting.
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How did he get his hands on them, though? I can't believe Morrissey would have willingly handed them over.
 
Peppermint said:
How did he get his hands on them, though? I can't believe Morrissey would have willingly handed them over.
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Only when he trusted him and when he immediately found out he shouldn’t he wrote the song “Truly Dissapointed” (again), maybe?
 
He didn’t see any diaries, if they even existed.

It’s cobbled together from the letters Morrissey sent to Robert Mackie and the recollections of former friends of Morrissey.

The idea that Morrissey would hand his diaries over to anyone at all, not least a biographer is laughable
 
The Mackie letters only came to light in 93, the year after The Severed Alliance was first published.
 
Anonymous said:
The Mackie letters only came to light in 93, the year after The Severed Alliance was first published.
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Rogan does mention them in the book though, and the text suggests he had seen at least some of the content. So maybe Mackie showed them to Rogan before he made them public.
 
Anonymous said:
The Mackie letters only came to light in 93, the year after The Severed Alliance was first published.
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They were only collated and published in 93, but they were known about before this.

One was published in fanzine "Frankly Charming" before the release of "The Severed Alliance".
 
There wasn't just one penpal. I think The Severed Alliance mentions that at one point Moz was writing to about 30 people. He also writes about it in Autobiography.

"I am reliant upon the postage stamp, and tactlessly revealing letters are catapulted north and south – anywhere where a considerate soul might lurk. There is such a godsend as ‘penpals’ – friends known only via letters, and these are easier to construct than any living embodiment."
 
The Mackie letters were in the public realm long before Severed Alliance was published. I was handed a photocopy bundle of them in the pub, years before. However, they were generally treated as possibly fake at the time. We had no information to verify the authenticity of them.

The problem I have with Rogan is that he abuses the writers license. Presenting as factual record what Morrissey did in private, and even dreamt about, is taking liberties with the reader and subject.
 
I never for a minute thought Morrissey would have handed them over to Rogan. I assumed he got hold of them nefariously or was making it up. Bit of a mad thing to make up though and he refers to specific things he has read. Curiouser and curiouser.
 
If you revert to the original edition if the Severed Alliance, I guarantee there is no specific reference to the Mackie letters. The text may have been revised to refer to them in subsequent editions, but those letters did not come into the public realm until almost a year after the Severed Alliance was first published in April 1992. The letter that was in Frankly Charming came out after Robert Mackie collated the letters in a zine himself in early 1993 - the only cache of the Frankly Charming letter is that it was one excluded from RM’s zine. I’m aware of the futility of arguing about anything on the internet, but I am absolutely certain of this!
 
Anonymous said:
If you revert to the original edition if the Severed Alliance, I guarantee there is no specific reference to the Mackie letters. The text may have been revised to refer to them in subsequent editions, but those letters did not come into the public realm until almost a year after the Severed Alliance was first published in April 1992. The letter that was in Frankly Charming came out after Robert Mackie collated the letters in a zine himself in early 1993 - the only cache of the Frankly Charming letter is that it was one excluded from RM’s zine. I’m aware of the futility of arguing about anything on the internet, but I am absolutely certain of this!
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Interesting. I have the 2012 edition and it devotes just one paragraph to the letters on p.165. It talks about how they mostly corresponded about music and exchanged sarcastic banter but Morrissey didn't reveal much about his inner self, although he made a throwaway comment about being bisexual. So this isn't in your copy?
 
Hi Peppermint, I have the 92 hardback edition (somewhere) - from memory, it was added to and revised in subsequent editions. Those Mackie references weren't in the 92 edition. For what it's worth, I don't know what Johnny Rogan's original sources were - I remember being amazed/puzzled by the revelations at the time (particularly the adolescent Morrissey's fondness for horror films and UFOs)!
 
Anonymous said:
Hi Peppermint, I have the 92 hardback edition (somewhere) - from memory, it was added to and revised in subsequent editions. Those Mackie references weren't in the 92 edition. For what it's worth, I don't know what Johnny Rogan's original sources were - I remember being amazed/puzzled by the revelations at the time (particularly the adolescent Morrissey's fondness for horror films and UFOs)!
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You should be puzzled about the horror connection because that's rubbish. But the other one is not.

It's probably not worth digging up old news like this to be honest. There are plenty of other things we can discuss instead of giving time to Mr Johnny Rogan !
 
I thought the title of the thread said "Morrissey's diorrheas".
 
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