Spectator article by Brendan O'Neill: "Morrissey is the rock'n'roll rebel we need" (October 10, 2022)

A new article by Brendan O'Neill in The Spectator, off the back of last night's Palladium show.

Full text:

There was a truly electric moment at the Morrissey gig at the Palladium in London last night. Moz was introducing his new song, ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’. It’s about the Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 people were killed. He looked out at the audience and asked us a question. How come you know the name Myra Hindley but many of you won’t know the name of the man who bombed the Manchester Arena? People looked stunned. I believe some looked a little ashamed. It is rare indeed for hush to fall at a Morrissey concert, but it did then.

It’s a question that demands an answer. Sounding a little emotional, Morrissey described the 2017 arena bombing as one of the worst things that has ever happened to Manchester, his hometown. It was an even more calamitous slaughter of Mancunian youths than that carried out by Hindley and Ian Brady. Those evil lovers murdered five. Salman Abedi – for that is his name, now strangely faded from many people’s minds – killed four times that number. The youngest was an eight-year-old girl, Saffie Roussos. Younger even than Hindley and Brady’s youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. Downey’s name is also better known than Roussos’s, of course.

Five years after the bombing, Morrissey is still furious about it. And about the culture of amnesia that surrounds it, to such an extent that the names of both the killer and his victims rarely trip off the tongue. The stark, disturbing title of his new song – ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’ – means it is likely to induce much Moz-bashing in the tabloids and maybe even the Guardian if it is ever released as a single. But it’s an incredibly haunting and moving song. Morrissey sings about society’s weirdly passive response to the barbarism in the arena: ‘And the silly people sing: “Don’t Look Back in Anger” / And the morons swing and say: “Don’t Look Back in Anger” / I can assure you I will look back in anger ’till the day I die.’

The song ends with a line that is repeated over and over and which brilliantly captures the odd moral cowardice behind our reluctance to speak frankly and openly about Islamist terrorism: ‘Go easy on the killer…’

Watching two thousand people sway along to this line, and to Morrissey’s reprimand of modern Britain for failing to keep the arena atrocity in its collective conscious, was strange and unsettling, but uplifting too. Finally, tribute was being paid to the dead of Manchester. Finally, anger was being expressed on their behalf.

It struck me that ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’ is a great protest song. It’s exactly the protest song we need right now. No doubt the fact that Moz has dared to sing about an act of Islamist-inspired mass murder will be held up by his haters as further proof that he’s now ‘hard right’. Apparently it’s right-wing, and possibly Islamophobic, to be concerned about radical Islam. Once, secularist leftists would have been at the forefront of condemning murderous acts of religious hysteria. Now, these same folk are more likely to tut-tut at those who talk too much about Islamic extremism. ‘Move on – don’t look back in anger.’ In putting his anger about the slaughter in the arena to music, Morrissey is not only standing up for the memory of that terrible day – he is also taking aim at the chilling, censorious climate that too often surrounds the issue of Islamist violence.

Don’t worry, though, if you have a ticket for any of the upcoming Morrissey shows. It’s a gig, not a lecture! It’s not all about Manchester Arena. Indeed, Morrissey has never sounded better. He played both Smiths and solo classics and the audience went wild. It feels as though the chattering classes’ bitter attempts to cancel Moz in recent years – for being pro-Brexit, for apparently being right-wing, for his comments about immigration – have given him a renewed sense of self-possession and vigour. Cancel culture has backfired in this case. It hasn’t tamed its target – it’s given him a shot of moral adrenaline, making him perform at his best since the days of The Smiths.

Morrissey is the rock’n’roll rebel we need today. Where too many pop and rock stars sing from the same, soul-zapping political script, Moz goes against the grain. He describes Brexit as ‘magnificent’, wears a vest that says ‘f*** the Guardian’, and loathes what is widely referred to as ‘wokeness’, especially for its intolerance of freedom of speech and alternative ways of thinking. ‘I’m a stern believer in free speech, but in my case I actually mean free speech for everyone, not just for those who agree with me’, Morrissey has said.

Good man. That’s the spirit of cultural liberty we need back in the world of pop. Glassy-eyed cancellers can hound Morrissey all they like but they won’t turn us against him. We know a national treasure when we see one.


Later shared by Morrissey Central:
 
But the point is to forget these murderers names, to not make them famous, to avoid glorifying their deeds for any future copycats. We should always remember the names of the victims, not the murderers.
 
Great article
 
yes, as an example, we’ve all forgotten Hitler. So that won’t happen again.
well, Hitler has a worthy copycat these days .
And it's happening now
Please be fair
You should tell the little kids they live in hell now !
For many years the European elite kept repeating (especially the German ones) "Go easy on the killer ..."
 
Extremist Islam atrocities!
 
Yes, I understand what you’re saying. Sadly, war is here to stay, as long as we have those that are willing to fight, or we have societies that put people into positions where they are forced by poverty or by law to fight unnecessary wars. But is any war a necessary war?
The solution is simple, Russian society must stop supporting the 21st century hitler. As for the will to fight ... if the Ukrainians stop fighting, they will cease to exist as a state and as a nation.
 
Strange that nobody seems to remember the 1996 IRA Manchester bombings with more than 200 ppl injured.
 
I already gave the solution… ‘as long as we have those that are willing to fight, or we have societies that put people into positions where they are forced by poverty or by law to fight unnecessary wars’ then there will be wars.

There would have been no invasion in the first place if there where no soldiers. That goes for all wars.
It's hard to understand you but we started from the point where you ironically criticize a user who disagreed with what Morrissey said. And maybe let's stick to it
 
This thread proves Moz’s point. We can’t just stay on Islamic terrorism and immediately deflect to Ukraine, Hitler, IRA etc
 
This thread proves Moz’s point. We can’t just stay on Islamic terrorism and immediately deflect to Ukraine, Hitler, IRA etc
Wait a minute, Islamic terrorism is just as bad as any other.
Don't get me wrong, I consider this song one of the most important songs in Morrissey's career. And I agree with every word of the lyrics of this song. I only replied to the post by Ketamine Sun about ... hmmm Hitler. :unsure:
 
This thread proves Moz’s point. We can’t just stay on Islamic terrorism and immediately deflect to Ukraine, Hitler, IRA etc
Well, i can only reply for myself, but certainly M's question before the song made me wonder who else we don't know or remember any longer when it comes to terrorist attacks (in Manchester).
How come you know the name Myra Hindley but many of you won’t know the name of the man who bombed the Manchester Arena?
I am not aware of any names of IRA terrorists as well when it comes to the 1996 bombings.

Often the perpetrators' names are not made public, to avoid motivating copycat killers who are looking for 5 minutes of notorious fame.
 
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This is more like it, Bredon is the dogs bollocks. If M would have been crappy he would have said so.
I have nothing against Fiona, she's just shit. That's all. I mean not as a human but as a thinker and writer and her opinions are paid for, so it doesn't matter if she says something is good, as she is told to say that. She is told to dislike Johnny M, so like a nice podgy piglet, she dislikes him. Like James Maker. You know he won't ever say anything against M, in public, and he says whatever M tells him.
Not attacking James, I'm just saying. Some people you can trust, some you can't
Brendon is one of the better modern thinkers and writers in the UK This is good stuff. More Bredon and the like fewer paid staff
By the way, a friend in NY played me Bonfire last night. It's f***ing awsome.
Edit , the song Bonfire, the studio version is powerful Sounds much better than the early live versions. Though I liked the singing and music on the live versions. Just not the words and some of the spirit (re fans)
 
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It always makes me laugh when anyone from any part of the political spectrum tries to claim Morrissey as they're own, for their own ideological purposes, in this case Brendan O'Neill, the man who calls himself a Marxist, yet constantly spouts right wing talking points. It's almost like they don't get Morrissey, and don't understand that you need to take almost of his political opinions with a pinch of salt. One minute he's praising Jeremy Corbyn, the next he's shagging For Britain. There's no point in trying to pinning Morrissey down to any particular part of the political spectrum or an ideology, as Brendan tries to do here.
 
This is more like it, Bredon is the dogs bollocks. If M would have been crappy he would have said so.
I have nothing against Fiona, she's just shit. That's all. I mean not as a human but as a thinker and writer and her opinions are paid for, so it doesn't matter if she says something is good, as she is told to say that. She is told to dislike Johnny M, so like a nice podgy piglet, she dislikes him. Like James Maker. You know he won't ever say anything against M and he says whatever M tells him.
Not attacking James
, I'm just saying. Some people you can trust, some you can't
Brendon is one of the better modern thinkers and writers in the UK This is good stuff. More Bredon and the like fewer paid staff
By the way, a friend in NY played me Bonfire last night. It's f***ing awsome.

Other than writing liner notes for one of his compilations, which I hope she was paid for.

What proof do you have that Morrissey pays her for the articles she writes, or that she writes what she is told to write?

What proof do you have that James Maker only says what Morrissey tells him to say?

But you are attacking James.
 
The solution is simple, Russian society must stop supporting the 21st century hitler. As for the will to fight ... if the Ukrainians stop fighting, they will cease to exist as a state and as a nation.
You believe Putin wants all of Ukraine back? I don't. That's not to say what he's doing right now is not abhorrent.
 
Spectator article shared by Central:
Added to OP.
FWD.
 
A new article by Brendan O'Neill in The Spectator, off the back of last night's Palladium show.

Full text:

There was a truly electric moment at the Morrissey gig at the Palladium in London last night. Moz was introducing his new song, ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’. It’s about the Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 people were killed. He looked out at the audience and asked us a question. How come you know the name Myra Hindley but many of you won’t know the name of the man who bombed the Manchester Arena? People looked stunned. I believe some looked a little ashamed. It is rare indeed for hush to fall at a Morrissey concert, but it did then.

It’s a question that demands an answer. Sounding a little emotional, Morrissey described the 2017 arena bombing as one of the worst things that has ever happened to Manchester, his hometown. It was an even more calamitous slaughter of Mancunian youths than that carried out by Hindley and Ian Brady. Those evil lovers murdered five. Salman Abedi – for that is his name, now strangely faded from many people’s minds – killed four times that number. The youngest was an eight-year-old girl, Saffie Roussos. Younger even than Hindley and Brady’s youngest victim, Lesley Ann Downey. Downey’s name is also better known than Roussos’s, of course.

Five years after the bombing, Morrissey is still furious about it. And about the culture of amnesia that surrounds it, to such an extent that the names of both the killer and his victims rarely trip off the tongue. The stark, disturbing title of his new song – ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’ – means it is likely to induce much Moz-bashing in the tabloids and maybe even the Guardian if it is ever released as a single. But it’s an incredibly haunting and moving song. Morrissey sings about society’s weirdly passive response to the barbarism in the arena: ‘And the silly people sing: “Don’t Look Back in Anger” / And the morons swing and say: “Don’t Look Back in Anger” / I can assure you I will look back in anger ’till the day I die.’

The song ends with a line that is repeated over and over and which brilliantly captures the odd moral cowardice behind our reluctance to speak frankly and openly about Islamist terrorism: ‘Go easy on the killer…’

Watching two thousand people sway along to this line, and to Morrissey’s reprimand of modern Britain for failing to keep the arena atrocity in its collective conscious, was strange and unsettling, but uplifting too. Finally, tribute was being paid to the dead of Manchester. Finally, anger was being expressed on their behalf.

It struck me that ‘Bonfire of the [sic] Teenagers’ is a great protest song. It’s exactly the protest song we need right now. No doubt the fact that Moz has dared to sing about an act of Islamist-inspired mass murder will be held up by his haters as further proof that he’s now ‘hard right’. Apparently it’s right-wing, and possibly Islamophobic, to be concerned about radical Islam. Once, secularist leftists would have been at the forefront of condemning murderous acts of religious hysteria. Now, these same folk are more likely to tut-tut at those who talk too much about Islamic extremism. ‘Move on – don’t look back in anger.’ In putting his anger about the slaughter in the arena to music, Morrissey is not only standing up for the memory of that terrible day – he is also taking aim at the chilling, censorious climate that too often surrounds the issue of Islamist violence.

Don’t worry, though, if you have a ticket for any of the upcoming Morrissey shows. It’s a gig, not a lecture! It’s not all about Manchester Arena. Indeed, Morrissey has never sounded better. He played both Smiths and solo classics and the audience went wild. It feels as though the chattering classes’ bitter attempts to cancel Moz in recent years – for being pro-Brexit, for apparently being right-wing, for his comments about immigration – have given him a renewed sense of self-possession and vigour. Cancel culture has backfired in this case. It hasn’t tamed its target – it’s given him a shot of moral adrenaline, making him perform at his best since the days of The Smiths.

Morrissey is the rock’n’roll rebel we need today. Where too many pop and rock stars sing from the same, soul-zapping political script, Moz goes against the grain. He describes Brexit as ‘magnificent’, wears a vest that says ‘f*** the Guardian’, and loathes what is widely referred to as ‘wokeness’, especially for its intolerance of freedom of speech and alternative ways of thinking. ‘I’m a stern believer in free speech, but in my case I actually mean free speech for everyone, not just for those who agree with me’, Morrissey has said.

Good man. That’s the spirit of cultural liberty we need back in the world of pop. Glassy-eyed cancellers can hound Morrissey all they like but they won’t turn us against him. We know a national treasure when we see one.


Later shared by Morrissey Central:
Morrissey might want to qualify his love of Brexit, given that the promise to impose ‘high’ animal welfare standards, in anticipated free trade agreements, has now been flatly dropped.
 

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