Morrissey Central "OPEN LETTER TO JOHNNY MARR." (January 25, 2022)

This is not a rant or an hysterical bombast. It is a polite and calmly measured request: Would you please stop mentioning my name in your interviews?

Would you please, instead, discuss your own career, your own unstoppable solo achievements and your own music?

If you can, would you please just leave me out of it?

The fact is: you don’t know me. You know nothing of my life, my intentions, my thoughts, my feelings. Yet you talk as if you were my personal psychiatrist with consistent and uninterrupted access to my instincts. We haven’t known each other for 35 years - which is many lifetimes ago. When we met you and I were not successful. We both helped each other become whatever it is we are today. Can you not just leave it at that? Must you persistently, year after year, decade after decade, blame me for everything … from the 2007 Solomon Islands tsunami to the dribble on your grandma’s chin ?

You found me inspirational enough to make music with me for 6 years. If I was, as you claim, such an eyesore monster, where exactly did this leave you? Kidnapped? Mute? Chained? Abducted by cross-eyed extraterrestrials? It was YOU who played guitar on ‘Golden Lights’ - not me.

Yes, we all know that the British press will print anything you say about me as long as it’s cruel and savage. But you’ve done all that. Move on. It’s as if you can’t uncross your own legs without mentioning me. Our period together was many lifetimes ago, and a lot of blood has streamed under the bridge since then. There comes a time when you must take responsibility for your own actions and your own career, with which I wish you good health to enjoy. Just stop using my name as click-bait. I have not ever attacked your solo work or your solo life, and I have openly applauded your genius during the days of ‘Louder than bombs’ and ‘Strangeways, here we come’, yet you have positioned yourself ever-ready as rent-a-quote whenever the press require an ugly slant on something I half-said during the last glacial period as the Colorado River began to carve out the Grand Canyon. Please stop. It is 2022, not 1982.

Morrissey. January 2022.

OPEN LETTER TO JOHNNY MARR. - MESSAGES FROM MORRISSEY - MORRISSEY CENTRAL - OPEN LETTER TO JOHNNY MARR.

MESSAGES FROM MORRISSEY on MORRISSEY CENTRAL

www.morrisseycentral.com

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Marr, January 26th:


Some related posts moved to this thread: Johnny Marr responds to Morrissey's open letter via Twitter (January 26, 2022)

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Related item:

• Express: "The Smiths split ‘bruised me emotionally, it turned to s*** with Morrissey’ – Johnny Marr" via Uncut Magazine - January 13, 2022

Media items:

• BBC: Morrissey calls on Johnny Marr to 'stop using my name as clickbait' - January 26, 2022
• Daily Mail: There is a fight that never goes out: Morrissey accuses Johnny Marr of 'using my name as click bait' and insists The Smiths bandmate 'knows nothing of my life' in scathing letter - January 26, 2022
• Far Out: Morrissey pens scathing open letter to Johnny Marr: "You don't know me" - January 25, 2022
• Fiona Dodwell: "From Morrissey to Marr: Why THAT Open Letter Was a Long Time Coming" (January 26, 2022)
• Guardian: ‘You don’t know me’: Morrissey accuses Johnny Marr of using him for clickbait - January 26, 2022
• Independent: ‘Move on’: Morrissey tells Johnny Marr to stop talking about him in interviews - January 26, 2022
• MEN: 'Move on. It's as if you can’t uncross your own legs without mentioning me': Morrissey tells Johnny Marr to stop talking about him - January 26, 2022
• NME: Morrissey asks Johnny Marr to stop mentioning him in interviews - January 25, 2022
• Rolling Stone: Still Ill: Morrissey Really Wants Johnny Marr to Stop Talking About Him - January 26, 2022
• Stereogum: Morrissey To Johnny Marr: Keep My Name Out Of Your Mouth - January 25, 2022
• The Telegraph: Why Morrissey and Johnny Marr hate each other (paywalll) - January 27, 2022 (transcript at Yahoo!)

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Just a guess - reunion's off
FWD.

 

[Barking]

Dear Sir,

A brief note to remind you: drinking daiquiris with dykes isn't recognized as an "intention". At least not internationally.

An example of an intention would be saving the planet, the soil, lemmings, etc.

Therefore, re: intentions, Johnny might argue you don't have one.
So you might want to work on that.

but hey Keep da faith,
Your lawyer,
Lulu Loskool

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

 

[Vegan Cro Spirit .444]

Dear Sir,

A brief note to remind you: drinking daiquiris with dykes isn't recognized as an "intention". At least not internationally.

An example of an intention would be saving the planet, the soil, lemmings, etc.

Therefore, re: intentions, Johnny might argue you don't have one.
So you might want to work on that.

but hey Keep da faith,
Your lawyer,
Lulu Loskool

of course one never intends to drink daiquiris with dykes just happens on its own, the wind brings everybody in

btw, who exactly are you posting this note too?

 

[Barking]

Dear Sir

Re: intentions/ bd

Do you plan on inviting a lot of people who can't spell your name next year? If so, may we suggest you rent our Happy Drunks for the night? We can provide enough to fill a stadium with joy, in your own age range, and they all come from India, which saves you the bother of pretending to like them.

All at a VERY affordable price.

Make your birthdays great again! Remember you might not have that many left...

Patty P. Hooper
Boom Boom Birthdays
The Krusty Suite @ the Sunset Viscount
L.A.

 

[Anonymous]

The folks here who keep asking ‘what has Johnny said?’ won’t find anything truly cruel or heinous – he certainly hasn’t depicted Morrissey an ‘eyesore monster’ – but there are lots of little digs and very petty things over the years, which M will have noticed. Here’s just a few:

• Split happened because he was ‘stuck with a load of ideas and nowhere to play them’ (2007)
• Wins an award and thanks Joe Moss, Kirsty, Matt Johnson, Bernard Sumner “and whoever else”, to sniggering (2007)
• Claims to be too busy to read Autobio (2014)
• (Unbelievably) says he & Moz weren’t friends by the end of the Smiths and that ‘what he does, says or sings doesn’t interest me.’ (2018)
• Thanks Matt Johnson and Bernard Sumner first before “all the guys in the Smiths” at an award ceremony (2018)
• Doesn’t defend M from the insinuation that he’s ruining the Smiths legacy and says ‘it has nothing to do with my world and my life’ (2019)
• Stupid Nigel Farage comment (2019)
• Answers a question about ‘assembling a supergroup’ – puts both Isaac Brock and Matt Johnson on lead vocals, then calls it the ‘I Told You I Was Right’ tour (2019)
• Kicks “one certain member of the group” for being obsessed with media notoriety (2021)
• Modest Mouse was “the best time of my life” (2021)
• Isaac Brock is the ‘best lyricist I’ve ever worked with’ (2021)
• As you can see from the Glasto video above, he sings "Now I know how Johnny Marr felt" in Bigmouth - obviously implying that he was long-suffering in the Smiths

I believe a lot of JM’s comments are cherry-picked and it’s true that, in amongst this petty stuff, he has been genuinely kind about Morrissey many times - notably at the Oxford Union talk. It’s still there though, and some of these comments were absolutely needless.

I’ve even seen it myself. The second time I saw Johnny live (2019), he said from the stage, after playing tons of Smiths songs, “Thank God the other one isn’t here" - and the room cheered. Just why? It’s not too hard to see why Moz would be hurt. Someone he loved and praised to the ends of the earth repeatedly thanks others before him, makes silly digs just to make strangers laugh, allows his son to make all manner of offensive 'shitposts' - it's not dignified.

Your list only proves Marr haven't said anything bad on Morrissey. Most of them are overinterpatation, and he's obiously doing what Morrissey asked to him which is not mentioning his old partner when not necessary. Also don't forget Morrissey blamed Marr for disbanding The Smiths several times in interviews. You really should discard your double standard.

 

[T. H. Auden]

Your list only proves Marr haven't said anything bad on Morrissey. Most of them are overinterpatation, and he's obiously doing what Morrissey asked to him which is not mentioning his old partner when not necessary. Also don't forget Morrissey blamed Marr for disbanding The Smiths several times in interviews. You really should discard your double standard.

You must be very autistic not to see the toxicity of the points listed, I think I must say. "Thank God the other one isn't here" is incredibly hurtful and it's obvious that this guitar player has become extremely bitter in old age, but he was always interested in pleasing the masses and determined to always display that he had no spine in his back. Predicable and boring

 

[Alabaster Crash]

You must be very autistic not to see the toxicity of the points listed, I think I must say. "Thank God the other one isn't here" is incredibly hurtful and it's obvious that this guitar player has become extremely bitter in old age, but he was always interested in pleasing the masses and determined to always display that he had no spine in his back. Predicable and boring

Considering that Johnny had to be in a band with a contemptible narcissist like Moz for 5 years, I'd say he was being kind.

 

[Amy]

Your list only proves Marr haven't said anything bad on Morrissey. Most of them are overinterpatation, and he's obiously doing what Morrissey asked to him which is not mentioning his old partner when not necessary. Also don't forget Morrissey blamed Marr for disbanding The Smiths several times in interviews. You really should discard your double standard.

You wanted to know why Moz thinks what he does, you've got your answer. He writes about the same thing in Autobio with older examples, and seems to have memorized every comment going back 30 years. I don't have a double standard, it's just the truth. Johnny says that stuff for the approval of other people - on Twitter, at an awards show, at a gig, it's all for others. It's for the crowd.

Your point about the letter doesn't stand up, either. Moz issued his "request" because he believes Johnny does nothing but slag him off. If the story was different and JM had been praising his old mate all these years, the letter would never exist.

 

[I Lie When I Drink]

Johnny says that stuff for the approval of other people - on Twitter, at an awards show, at a gig, it's all for others. It's for the crowd.

Well either you are psychic of that's just your opinion, how could you possibly know that Johnny never says any of these things for himself?

 

[BrokenFrame]

I wish Moz and Marr could be friends again

 

[Amy]

Well either you are psychic of that's just your opinion, how could you possibly know that Johnny never says any of these things for himself?

I'm not suggesting that he doesn't mean what he says. Just that it's obvious that having an 'audience' has an effect on him - like it does on lots of people. They get carried away by the moment, they want to be liked and to entertain, they exaggerate to make the crowd laugh, etc. And sometimes he goes for the cheap laughs, which he can always get by aiming a few barbs at The Singer because Morrissey's ghost follows him everywhere he goes. How did Moz put it - "....wanting anything at all but the disapproval of complete strangers."

If anyone in that room thought 'the other one' was Isaac Brock, the joke wouldn't have worked, would it? When Johnny is 1:1 he doesn't act like that, doesn't make the same digs. He was very affectionate about M in his memoir, at the Oxford Union talk, and many other occasions.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not suggesting that he doesn't mean what he says. Just that it's obvious that having an 'audience' has an effect on him - like it does on lots of people. They get carried away by the moment, they want to be liked and to entertain, they exaggerate to make the crowd laugh, etc. And sometimes he goes for the cheap laughs, which he can always get by aiming a few barbs at The Singer because Morrissey's ghost follows him everywhere he goes. How did Moz put it - "....wanting anything at all but the disapproval of complete strangers."

If anyone in that room thought 'the other one' was Isaac Brock, the joke wouldn't have worked, would it? When Johnny is 1:1 he doesn't act like that, doesn't make the same digs. He was very affectionate about M in his memoir, at the Oxford Union talk, and many other occasions.

Let's not forget it's not a one-way street. What about Morrissey's insults about Johnny - the ET casting, Bryan Ferry's slave boy, "I'd rather eat my own testicles", "We didn't like each other that much", etc etc

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Let's not forget it's not a one-way street. What about Morrissey's insults about Johnny - the ET casting, Bryan Ferry's slave boy, "I'd rather eat my own testicles", "We didn't like each other that much", etc etc

Wha? those are not insults, that’s comedy gold.

 

[BrokenFrame]

Depends how tasty Moz's balls are.

 

[Amy]

Let's not forget it's not a one-way street. What about Morrissey's insults about Johnny - the ET casting, Bryan Ferry's slave boy, "I'd rather eat my own testicles", "We didn't like each other that much", etc etc

I don't think they're comparable. The ET thing was just Moz being silly and he retracted it; the comment about being "minus a pair of slave's sandals" was a jibe at Ferry (for using & abusing Johnny), the testicles comments refers to a Smiths reunion in general and the Larry King one wasn't squarely aimed at Johnny either.

Even when Moz has been upset with JM and spoken of his "terrible decision" to leave the Smiths and blame him, he hasn't been nasty or personal. Ever. When he wrote, "I have not ever attacked your solo life, I have applauded you", that was absolutely true. Even in this 'letter' - the hardest he has ever kicked JM - he has done it whilst also calling him a genius and putting a signed Hand in Glove sleeve at the end. If you want to see Moz stick the boot in with no holds barred, read what he wrote about Geoff Travis!

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

I don't think they're comparable. The ET thing was just Moz being silly and he retracted it; the comment about being "minus a pair of slave's sandals" was a jibe at Ferry (for using & abusing Johnny), the testicles comments refers to a Smiths reunion in general and the Larry King one wasn't squarely aimed at Johnny either.

Even when Moz has been upset with JM and spoken of his "terrible decision" to leave the Smiths and blame him, he hasn't been nasty or personal. Ever. When he wrote, "I have not ever attacked your solo life, I have applauded you", that was absolutely true. Even in this 'letter' - the hardest he has ever kicked JM - he has done it whilst also calling him a genius and putting a signed Hand in Glove sleeve at the end. If you want to see Moz stick the boot in with no holds barred, read what he wrote about Geoff Travis!

well said.