Excellent, excellent, excellent! Thank you. I bah with delight.
> Ta very much. I did the text too, which is below.
> Sk./Peter
> Morrissey Interview part two from the NME 1st March Issue – there’s a
> couple of pictures and a little section on Morrissey Quotations.
> “I’m not celibate and I haven’t been for a long time”
> -Has this most celebrated of abstainers really go his hands on some
> mammary glands? Or is Morrissey just toying with us?
> “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…” a brylcreeme’d presenter, reeking of some long
> lost Eurovision, barks into camera, only in Italian. “It’s my pleasure to
> present to you…MORRISSEY!”
> The grainy lens pans to a Des O’Connor –ish stage set. Morrissey fingers
> his acrylic, broad-winged shirt collar while a bumbling Alan Bennett-like
> technician in patched tweed and NHS glasses fumbles with a camera last
> used to film Coronation Street in 1968. Outside in the balmy Roman suburbs
> one assumes it’s still January 2006, but inside Opus Studios we’ve stepped
> through the screen into some lost Channel 9 variety show from 1971.
> Beside pandering to Moz’s recent passion for revisiting the tacky
> television of his youth – he’s also playing three Sunday nights at the
> London Palladium – we’re here to film videos for two of “Ringleader of The
> Tormentors” first three singles, intended to mimic the two songs that
> bands would play on ‘70s chat shows. Right now we have green felt and “You
> Have Killed Me” – a classic Mozpop mic-lead whipper in the vein of “Alma
> Matters” which leads off with the line “Pasolini is me, Accatone you’ll
> be”, referencing controversial Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini and
> his debut 1961 film about a Roman pimp.
> So Morrissey, what exactly was it that first attracted you to
> anti-establishment-homosexual-with-work-including-movies-in-which-people-eat-people
> Pasolini?
> “I understand him and I appreciate his art,” Moz winces, “but we weren’t
> scrubbed off together in the same bathtub. And believe me, that’s nothing.
> You know absolutely nothing of Italian life, that’s de rigeur! If you’ve
> seen any of the films, they’re stunningly beautiful. They’re not oozing
> all the things you’ve listed. – if you scrape away at anybody they can
> seem quite sordid or subversive because we’re all, privately, a bit
> sordid.”
> He was an artist who had to shock in order to push art forward, facing
> vilification and prosecution because of his work – is that a way you
> relate to him?
> “I think all people who’ve made a difference have to push and exaggerate,”
> Moz considers, “and have to almost say too much in order to get a certain
> degree of attention”
> Is that something you’ve done?
> He raspberries. “Oh ppfftt. Hither and thither”
> LOUDER THAN BOMBS
> Certainly the opening track on “Ringleader...” will raise a few eyebrows
> at MI5. A more extreme sister-piece to “You Are The Quarry”s “America Is
> Not The World”, “I Will See You In Far Off Places” opens with an imposing
> Arabian pipe refrain and what could be the sound of scuds striking the
> mosques, going on to ally with the Iraqis in lines such as “If your God
> bestows protection upon you/And if the USA doesn’t bomb you/I believe I
> will see you somewhere safe”. Was that intentional?
> A nod. “Absolutely, yes, I do feel very sad for the people of Iraq having
> been invaded by Bush and Blair – so many people have unnecessarily lost
> their lives and Bush and Blair don’t care. But within the song I believe
> there’s a certain spiritual sensation whereby, although we know that life
> will end we all have a feeling that we will meet again. Now why should we
> have that feeling? If we realise that everything is temporary, why do we
> all have this innate feeling that we will be together in some place?”
> The song seems to be a message to the Iraqi dead, that you will see them
> in this far off place.
> “I hope so and understand that that’s what they believe. The country’s a
> mess and all we see in response to this is Blair’s Cheshire Cat grin all
> over the place, “Victory!” Great, all these dead Iraqi children and
> persecuted people, and every day in Iraq there are 40, 50, 60 dead in car
> bombs et cetera. Yet in Los Angeles they don’t even bother to mention it.
> They’re absolutely preoccupied with whether Brad and Jen will get back
> together.”
> You predicted attacks in the UK. How did it feel to be proved right?
> “My view was how would anyone be remotely surprised? It’s an obvious
> retaliation against Blair’s intentions. And you can’t refer to these
> things as being terrorist attacks and yet assume that the actions of Blair
> and Bush are not terrorism. They’re worse than terrorism. They’re the
> actions of egotistical monsters. Bush views Iraq and thinks, “Well, we
> will control this country eventually anyway so it doesn’t matter how many
> innocent people we kill.”
> WILL (POSSIBLY) NEVER MARRY
> Which brings us to the prickly subject of “Dear God Please Help Me”,
> Morrissey’s most blatant reference to sex on record. (“Now I’m spreading
> your legs/With mine in between”) and including the line “Then he motions
> to me/With his hand on my knee/ Dear God, did this kind of thing happen to
> you?” – the root of the renewed speculation on his sexuality which has
> made recent interviews difficult for him. Hmm, now how to tackle this…”
> How’s the whole celibacy thing working out for you these days, Mozzer?
> “Well, I’m not celibate. I only used the word celibate in 1984 and it’s
> haunted me like a soothsayer walking behind me everywhere I go. I’m not
> celibate and I haven’t been for a very long time, but before you ask me
> any questions even my GP wouldn’t ask, I’m not answering them.”
> It sounds like you’ve realised that shagging is brilliant.
> “Yes, well I’m 87. If that is the realisation then surely it’s about time,
> and just in the nick of time!”
> The character in the song appears to be undergoing a personal battle
> between homosexuality and religion.
> “No, I don’t think homosexuality is mentioned in the song.”
> Well, there are blatant sexual references, and the only gender mentioned
> is in the line “His hand on my knee”, and so the inference can be taken.
> “Well, there are ‘he’s’ all over the place. It’s a matter of having
> interest from someone who is a ‘he’, which one can’t help and one can’t
> orchestrate, and so turning to God and saying ‘Did this happen to you?’.
> We don’t really know much about His (points upwards) personal
> relationships but he must have had a few. Somebody must have put their
> hand on his knee.”
> How do you feel when people constantly question your sexuality?
> “Sometimes it’s interesting, but it’s not interesting when people don’t
> question it and just assume, because it seems as if they know more than I
> do – then it’s quite boring. We all have sexuality and why is mine so
> unique? So I very childishly feel inclined to say nothing at all and often
> wonder if I did say to people that I am very close to somebody who is
> female, what would the reaction be?”
> Probably utter shock.
> “Well there you go, so it’s best I say absolutely nothing.”
> How do you feel when gay groups get angry that you’re not saying anything
> as if it’s almost your duty to define your preferences?
> “(Splutters cocktail) My duty to do what? To speak out at what? From
> where? To whom?”
> There are people who believe it’d be beneficial if you were to say you
> were gay.
> “How would that help anybody? I do often find that people who listen and
> who are homo, or however you’d like to say it, want to believe in that
> aspect of the songs and people who listen who are hetero – it’s
> cringeworthy using both terms, but how else can I say it? – they want to
> believe in that aspect of the songs. It’s all down to the ear of the
> beholder. I’m not going to interfere.”
> What did you think of Elton’s marriage?
> “I was a bit shocked by the menu., which wasn’t remotely animal-friendly.
> Pate de foie gras, which is horrific, and lamb! Would you serve curried
> child at your wedding? Lambs are simply children. But, that aside, I think
> it’s historic and proves 100 points.”
> HOLD ON TO YOUR FRIENDS
> A shuffle, an inward shrink, an eye to the door. Morrissey swerves the
> conversation to a message he recorded on a Dictaphone for NME’s ill
> girlfriend three years ago and hands down Moz judgement on Arctic Monkeys
> (“Some Clearasil would be nice”); still chatty, cordial and comfortable,
> but happier to wind up our allotted hour talking about anything but
> himself. But before we go, and with NME/Moz hatchets firmly buried, it’s
> perhaps time to grasp the thorny root of grievance.
> So, Finsbury Park – do you think an error of judgement was made?
> A crumble of the brow. “By NME?”
> By both sides.
> “No I don’t”.
> Do you not think that performance, in front of a Morrissey crowd who
> understand that ‘National Front Disco’ isn’t a racist song, would have
> been taken in the manner intended, but by performing it to the average
> Madness audience member who was simply seeing a man waving a Union Jack
> and singing ‘England for the English’, you were open to gross
> misinterpretation?
> “No, because the audience didn’t review the night, NME did, and one would
> like to assume NME knew the song. I don’t get out of bed for the average
> Madness audience member. I’m not the kind of person who throws something
> out to the lowest common denominator – I like to assume that somewhere
> along the line everyone has a basic gist of intelligence.”
> And there we leave Il Mozalini, perched on his Roman parapet; fitter,
> happier, less reclusive. Assured that the glories and tragedies of life
> are still close bedfellows, at peace with his wandering soul and proud
> that ‘Quarry…’ is no sharp up-peak in a dying career, but that stage two
> of Moz solo is gloriously, unstoppably underway and may well remain
> spectacular to the grave. Even if, according to ‘Ringleader…’, that it
> will probably be about April.
> But what of the voices, Moz? The head voices that told you to move to
> Rome? Are they telling you anything now?
> Morrissey consults for a second.
> “No, no communication,” he grins broadly. “There must be a fault on the
> line.”
> BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN
> Behold the sharpest barbs ever to fall from Moz’s silver tongue
> “Age shouldn’t affect you. You’re either marvellous or you’re boring,
> regardless fo your age”
> “Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death”
> “Reggae is vile”
> “Bring me the head of Elton John”
> “Rave is the refuge for the morally deficient. It’s made by dull people
> for dull people”
> “I always thought my genitals were the result of some crude practical
> joke”
> “Music is like a drug, but there are no rehabilitation centres”
> “I would never, ever, do anything as vulgar as have fun”
> “If Prince came from Wigan, he would have been slaughtered by now”
> “I do think it’s possible to go through life and never fall in love, or
> find someone who loves you”
> “I am capable of looking on the bright side. I just don’t do it very
> often”
> “The Americanisation of England is a terminal illness – I think England
> should be English and Americans should go home and spoil their own
> country.”
> “Don’t talk to me about people who are ‘nice’, because I have spent my
> whole life in ruins because of people who are ‘nice’”
> “If I met Vic Reeves I’d have no desire other than to smack him in the
> face”
> “I’ve never intended to be controversial but it’s very easy to be
> controversial in pop music because nobody ever is”
