The Guardian: Stewart Lee's 'Honest Playlist' - 'can no longer listen to' Morrissey (September 5, 2022)

Like Reverend Richard Coles a few months ago, Stewart Lee has nominated Morrissey for the artist/song he can no longer listen to in a Guardian questionnaire, citing his 'drift to the far right'.
www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/05/stewart-lee-honest-playlist
It's a bit disappointing that someone as professionally obsessed with Morrissey as Lee was, doesn't mention Morrissey's clearly muddled/confused political outlook, and the (admittedly vague) support he's also given to non-right-wing figures in recent years. It's clearly the right-wing stuff that has stuck in people's minds.



Excerpt:

The song I can no longer listen to
Sadly, Morrissey. Loads of artists end up doing terrible things, but the Smiths meant such a lot to my generation, to have him drift to the far right doesn’t sit. I remember hearing How Soon Is Now when I went to see the Smiths at Birmingham Hippodrome and dancing to it at a disco in Tucson, Arizona in 1995. It’s hard to let go of my childhood attachment to the Smiths, but I don’t know how to square Morrissey’s solo stuff with what he’s become.


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LOL at the picture used of Stewart Lee is him in the black/yellow trim Fred Perry polo shirt co-opted by the far right Proud Boys.
 
It's sad. Stewart Lee is, at his best, a true genius of comedy and one of so many thousands of creative people in the UK who made it through the grimness of the 80s at least partly because bands like The Smiths existed to show there was a better world out there, somewhere.

It's the decades old strength of that emotional connection which makes (some) fans feel so let down by Morrissey's utterances in recent years.
 
I really hope Morrissey apologies at some point and expresses regret for his Far Britain support and his ill thought comments about Kevin Spacey and Weinstein.
 
This shit never goes away. That’s the real tragedy here.
 
God people are so f***ing dramatic. I can no longer listen to one of the greatest guitarists ever, Bob Brozman, because he turned out to be a horrible pedophile. But Morrissey just has a few differing political opinions to me. He's not actually done anything that bad, but the way people carry on about "oh I just can't listen to him anymore" is melodramatic bullshit.
 
God people are so f***ing dramatic. I can no longer listen to one of the greatest guitarists ever, Bob Brozman, because he turned out to be a horrible pedophile. But Morrissey just has a few differing political opinions to me. He's not actually done anything that bad, but the way people carry on about "oh I just can't listen to him anymore" is melodramatic bullshit.
In my experience it’s mostly just a way for Smiths exclusive fans to feel better about themselves. They weren’t really interested in his solo stuff in the first place.
 
How can you be so emotionally sensitive that you can’t appreciate an artists work because you have different political opinons. Is Morrissey Jack the Ripper or Bin Laden? Sometimes people need to hear people they disagree with, otherwise they just start to become mentally rigid and unexposed to alternative opinions. Isn’t the point of art to provoke thought and emotion?

There are lots of musicians that I listen to but don’t agree with them politically. It doesn’t matter. Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Morrissey, Noel Gallagher. Just listen. Listen and disagree. People feel the need to burn their ears off these days if they hear the most remote disagreement.
 
God people are so f***ing dramatic. I can no longer listen to one of the greatest guitarists ever, Bob Brozman, because he turned out to be a horrible pedophile. But Morrissey just has a few differing political opinions to me. He's not actually done anything that bad, but the way people carry on about "oh I just can't listen to him anymore" is melodramatic bullshit.
You've literally just contradicted yourself in the space of three sentences
 
Meanwhile, middle-class Stuart will never mention the reasons why London has turned into a complete cesspool or the daily occurrences of knife crime, assaults, muggins etc by certain demographics.
 
liked stewart a few years ago - but he has destroyed his own act with long drawn out smug fests these days - the snowflake thing was barely watchable - keep reaching in to the inside pocket for a reference- get a bit angry at the end etc etc
 
stewart lee is a genius as is morrissey and both enrich my life.

thanks, guys
 

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