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.

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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.

 

[HIMv20]

a while back, the guardian sub editors would have led with the morrissey bit.

seems his "racism" may be slipping down the agenda

(no need for this to be in bold, it's my phone taking over)

 

[🐈🐈🐈]

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.

Lee works a lot with the Guardian and other left-wing sources so naturally he stills needs an income and can’t afford a shift to the right and lose a career.

 

[Watson]

Logged in to see if anyone was making ad-hom comments, and was not disappointed

WeirdPeter still not mastered simple Latin, despite reading 'Latin jargon to make you look clever amongst people who think you are a moron' 25 times.

 

[Stephen Hofmann]

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.

Used to love Springsteen but his recent ticket prices make me despise his greed.

 

[Stephen Hofmann]

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

A clever, funny guy no doubt but very stereotypical.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Used to love Springsteen but his recent ticket prices make me despise his greed.

Springsteen himself sets the prices? No, it’s the promoter and the venue as well as the market. Look at any other major artist and you’ll find that’s the case. It has nothing to do with the artist being greedy.

 

[Lionsy]

This is what I've never understood. Morrissey is demonstrably a far right loony - but that hasn't changed his music, most of it is still good!

 

[Deleted member 28602]

Some people have the privilege to be able to listen to music for pleasure, others use it as a calling card to make a statement about themselves.

 

[ACTON]

The poor man! Maybe he should start a go fund me page for the stress of not wanting to listen to Moz because of his needy desire to love absolutely everything about the artist's non-music life. A go fu$k yourself page would probably be more apt.

 

[gordyboy9]

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.

im sitting here watching stewart lees programme from last night on bbc2 and it is staggeringly bad,the whole point of the show is i can slag off all comedians like john cleese,ricky gervais,noel feilding,gregg davies and i have a woke audience who will laugh at anything i say,theres a ten minute scene which has to be the worst peice of stand up ever.just my tuppence but im sure a large number of the public would agree.

 

[ACTON]

Some people have the privilege to be able to listen to music for pleasure, others use it as a calling card to make a statement about themselves.

You 100% nailed it. A perfect comment.

 

[ACTON]

Logged in to see if anyone was making ad-hom comments, and was not disappointed

Is that what you do for kicks?

 

[gordyboy9]

What I find abhorrent from these Morrissey fascists is their choice of poor judgement in terms of distinguishing ‘freedom of speech/belief from fact of violence’. If you look at someone like Tom was Kasabian who knocked ten bells out of his missus and still goes on with a career and nobody mentions jack shit about how diabolical of a human being is. Same goes for Lennon, knocked his wife about and was a horror of a father but he’s still praised and a blind eye is turned forever more.

Nobody with a mildly non-left view, and certainly Morrissey himself, is ever saying ‘Hitler had the right idea’, what he is saying is ‘I know what the past was and I remember it for all its warts an’ all but it was a safe time to live in society….’ And as a man who has a family and grew up in similar circumstances, hard and rough, I knew who my neighbours were and I didn’t have to worry about having to be evacuated because I was living next to bomb-making terrorists.

This is fact, it’s happened to me and others I know in and around Manchester so my beliefs, whether I’m black, white, brown, polka dot is this: society has turned into something gruesome and I don’t know if we’re ever coming back from it as a country unless we burn the radical left AND right out and create a balanced and safer society.

lennon was in bed with a woman while yoko and cat stevens were in the next room,woman was moaning that loud cat stevens had to turn the music up to eleven to spare poor yokos blushes,but hes a beatle this cant possibly be true,aye right.
theyr all angels except M,hes a right bad yin.

 

[ACTON]

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.

Why? Because you disagree with him? People owe you an apology? Moz doesn't give a tuppence what you or me or anyone thinks. And rightly so. He doesn't flop around in the wind like a soggy white flag.

 

[gordyboy9]

forgot to mention stewart lee is now huge,your not the one for me fatty.

 

[AtImber2022]

Everyone make mistakes. And Morrissey is one of them. Nobody is perfect. It can be quite empowering to apologise and own up to one's mistakes.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Everyone make mistakes. And Morrissey is one of them. Nobody is perfect. It can be quite empowering to apologise and own up to one's mistakes.

first he would need to believe that he made a mistake.

And anyway, an apology won’t change anything.

For an apology will just be twisted and used against him by those that didn’t like him in the first place, and he knows this.

 

[🐈🐈🐈]

lennon was in bed with a woman while yoko and cat stevens were in the next room,woman was moaning that loud cat stevens had to turn the music up to eleven to spare poor yokos blushes,but hes a beatle this cant possibly be true,aye right.
theyr all angels except M,hes a right bad yin.

 

[AtImber2022]

first he would need to believe that he made a mistake.

And anyway, an apology won’t change anything.

For an apology will just be twisted and used against him by those that didn’t like him in the first place, and he knows this.

Sadly you are right. It's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Anyway I will always enjoy his music no matter what. I accept that he is flawed, like everyone is. He is only human.

 

[🐈🐈🐈]

Everyone make mistakes. And Morrissey is one of them. Nobody is perfect. It can be quite empowering to apologise and own up to one's mistakes.

…. Nothingness