Topics not covered in the autobiography that you wanted to read about?

A

Anonymous

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For me, a few striking ommisions.

-Nothing on the bust up with David Bowie over the Outsiders Tour.(is he trying to get back in Bowie's good book?)
-Nothing on the 'postcard on the windscreen' sacking of Andy Rourke (which Moz has previously stated did not go down as others have said)
-Nothing about the split between Moz and Stephen Street (he talks only of Street in glowing terms).

Any other bits you were hoping for but didn't get?
 
No Vini, of course. Nothing about the songs or the songwriting really. Things like their first TOTP appearance come and go in a sentence. The Bowie Outsiders tour is the massive omission - did he leave it out to be more conciliatory toward Dame David? Or was he legally advised to, I wonder?
 
I'm part-way through the book and found the beginning parts really interesting about family life when he was very young and some of his teenage years. I became less interested in whole sections about this or that film or book where he seems to go into great detail, sometimes over several pages, about the characters and deeds, all of which made me think I'm supposed to be reading about Morrissey's life instead. The formation of The Smiths is almost criminally skipped-over, no mention of the very first song they wrote, where it was wrote, how it happened, their first demo, first rehearsal, what songs they did, meeting Andy and Mike, how and where they did things together, even the first gig isn't detailed in much of a way. I'd love to read about how Moz felt about hearing Johnny play something for the first time and how he wrote the words and what he was thinking and feeling at the time. It jumps almost straight to rehearsals at Joe Moss's spare room above his shop and moves very quickly on. a lot of it seems to be what was bad about The Smiths rather than the good, amazing things. Maybe he just doesn't think like a musician like Johnny does and finds it hard to convey his artistic approach to songwriting, despite his talent for writing.
 
What happened between the years that Mary arrived in the US and got married? Why did she move there in the first place?
 
Thinking about it, I'm not sure he mentions the Wolverhampton gig, does he?

He does not...

I would have liked to read more in depth accounts of the recording of albums and the writing of songs.
 
I suppose the Simon Goddard book is the one for the 'inside-track' on the songs and the early beginnings, and Johnny's vivid contribution is excellent in there and trounces Rogan's previous version of events, but it is truly missing Morrissey's thoughts and memories of the songs as they took shape and that would make that book almost complete. Johnny can remember in exact detail where, when and how he wrote almost every song, what riff on what guitar. And even despite the later court case business, Mike Joyce has a pretty good, detailed and interesting recollection of it all. I always though Andy was similar to Moz in the way he couldn't project his own view of their work from a music/songwriting and composition perspective. I've always found it gobsmacking that Andy composed the amazing technically brilliant and skilled basslines to Barbarism, Headmaster and TQID amongst all the others, yet I've never heard him say 'when Johnny played that Bigmouth riff I remember dropping in with this killer bassline and it was incredible'. How can you be so articulate in one sense and so inanimate in another on the same subject like that? There is still much missing about The Smiths that we'll never know for one reason or another.
 
Although the bits about him rescuing baby birds & pelicans are nice, I would want to hear more about his past & current pets.
I am not done reading yet so sorry if it is covered.
 
No mention of Gary Day or Matt Walker leaving the band it seems that the attention was reserved for those who leave and then send bitter emails. I wanted him to expand on his first meeting with Johnny Marr, we've heard it before but I wanted to hear it from the horses mouth so to speak. I also wanted to hear about the early days with his solo band Boz, Alain etc... I wanted more insight into particular songs and their meaning, also song writing process or even his book writing process 'and so I sit here and write this'... Too much on the tours, the bits that were well written were very good but we didn't need a concert by concert history. Not much at all if any thing on Southpaw Grammar. That passage where Linder announced her pregnancy confused me...
 
With all the in depth descriptions of the love of live shows, I was hoping for some counterbalance (and closure )on the 2009 Liverpool pintgate gig.
 
Yes, I would have loved a little more insight into the writing and recording of the solo era stuff, but this stage of the book seems to focus almost entirely on "we did a gig here, then we did a gig there". Morrissey obviously lives for the stage, rather than the records these days, which is a shame.
 
Morrissey is a strange one, he isn't a musician and so the band are just his platform, the medium he uses to get his point across, he's more like a poet writer with a band behind him. He doesn't seem critical about the music from a compositional point of view, yet Johnny has said Moz was his biggest fan because he apparently fell in love with everything Johnny played. Suffer Little Children is the stand-out recording on their debut album in my opinion, it's perfect in mood and sound, even Johnny said he liked the way it came out, and Moz doesn't even mention that song despite it being one of their first compositions and which was demoed very early on. The intro, that riff, the sound, the music is mesmerising when you listen to it, that's how a lot of listeners would describe that song. How could Moz fail to put into words how he felt hearing Johnny construct that as his backing track to his voice and lyric? He almost leapt from Strangeways to how many copies Suedehead sold.
 
No mention of Peter Hogg. Looks like I'm not the only one who's disappointed:


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No mention of Peter Hogg. Looks like I'm not the only one who's disappointed: [/IMG]

Disappointment? Looks to me like mild disbelief and then... shrugging it off.

It would appear life doesn't stop, even when you're not in a book. Mmm. Curiouser and curiouser... :D
 
Yeah I sort of felt like too much page space was given to in-depth descriptions of television shows and the New York Dolls... and a staggering forty seven pages are given to the court case (I ended up skipping over all those pages anyways though) I would've liked to hear more about his childhood and teenage years because I think that was the most interesting part of the whole book... but I mean oh well... it's his autobiography right? This is how he chose to write it...
 
Damn Peter Hogg was no Looker but he sure hasn't aged well.. Funny that he was so convinced he would be in book!
 
There are no criticisms of Street, or mention of the split post-Viva Hate in my copy. Do you have a different edition? Maybe a few pages are missing from my one?
 
Moz said Mikey left and then said terrible things about him, but they were all true. So what exactly did Mikey say?
 
i appear to be in the minority (at least so far in this thread) because i loved the sections about the records and writers and tv and film. i've always enjoyed whenever he's talked about the art that has touched him in some way. you can really feel the passion. i would happily read a songs that saved my life book featuring nothing but that.
 
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