As the lead singer for The Smiths, Morrissey was an unparalleled lyricist who helped create
several timeless classics like "Ask" and "How Soon Is Now?"
More recently, he's arguably become more famous for his wince-inducing soundbites than his
solo output.
Here are some messed-up details about Morrissey.
Pro tip, amateur writers!
The next time you find yourself plagued by self-doubt, take solace in the fact that your
work can't be any worse than Morrissey's debut novel.
List of the Lost was published in 2015, hot on the heels of Morrissey's autobiography.
The book was was widely panned and endlessly ridiculed for reasons that will soon become
all too apparent.
In its breathtakingly scathing review, The Quietus wrote that,
"What you’re actually looking at is some of the most heinously overblown prose printed
by a major publishing house in living memory."
Aside from its general awfulness, List of the Lost caught the world's attention thanks
to a particularly cringe-inducing scene, one that tried to convey a theoretically steamy
lovemaking session.
Don't believe us?
You should probably savor the passage for yourself.
How's this for purple prose?
"Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation,
screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and
clamorous rollercoaster coil of...violent rotation...and the pained frenzy of his bulbous
salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza's
body except for the otherwise central zone."
Oooh…is it getting hot in here?
No.
No, it's not.
There are plenty of people in the world who love nothing more than chowing down on a raw,
red, dripping steak, and Morrissey is absolutely not one of them.
There's a reason why "Meat is Murder" is the name of The Smiths' second studio album.
In 2009, Morrissey told Russell Brand why people shouldn't eat animals:
"They look to us for protection, and they look to us for love and understanding, and
what do people do, lead them into the abattoir and chop their heads off."
A lifelong vegetarian, Morrissey's concerts are almost as famous for their occasional
unscripted rants about meat consumption as they are for his music.
For example, there was that time he declared at Coachella:
"I can smell burning flesh, and I hope to God it's human."
But caring about animals is one thing, and caring about your fellow human beings is entirely
another.
In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Morrissey made a remark about the poor treatment of
animals in Chinese zoos and circuses, saying:
"Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare?
Absolutely horrific.
You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies."
There are many ways he could have finished that sentence without being culturally insensitive
and creating a media storm.
Instead, he decided to insult an entire nation.
Clearly Morrissey is a controversial figure on the very best of days.
Here he is waxing poetic on people who take their own life:
"It's taking control and saying, 'No more, no more of this silliness.'
And it's admirable."
But that's positively fluffy when compared to some of his other soundbites over the years,
like when he decided to use a tragedy in a truly tasteless way.
On July 22nd, 2011, a far-right terrorist killed 77 people in Norway with a combined
bomb and gun attack.
As news of the massacre traveled around the world, it left stunned silence and heartbreak
in its wake.
Meanwhile, Morrissey used the tragedy to champion his pet cause.
Onstage in Warsaw a few days later, he said of the massacre,
"We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown...Though that
is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald's and Kentucky Fried S--- every day."
To be fair, Morrissey later made a point of saying that he thought the massacre was horrific,
which should really go without saying.
The point is, it's totally inappropriate to compare McDonald's to an act of terrorism…especially
right on the heels of such a horrific tragedy.
Is Morrissey a difficult person?
Morrissey seems to think so.
"So you would be quite daunting company, I would have thought."
"Yes.
Extremely.
Which is why lots of people don't like me."
In fall 2017, a newspaper story was published about Harvey Weinstein and his alleged penchant
for assaulting women.
It quickly unleashed a tsunami of accusations against the movie mogul.
Dozens of women came forward and claimed that Weinstein had attacked them in one way or
another.
By late November, the Me Too movement had taken off, and the world was finally listening
to people who'd been allegedly harassed by him.
However, there was one glaring exception.
That same month, Morrissey basically defended Weinstein in an interview with Germany's Der
Spiegel, more of less accusing the accusers.
While discussing the reports of Weinstein inviting actresses to his hotel room, Morrissey
commented:
"People know exactly what's going on, and they play along.
Afterwards, they feel embarrassed or disliked.
And then they turn it around and say: 'I was attacked, I was surprised'.
But if everything went well, and if it had given them a great career, they would not
talk about it."
Margaret Thatcher was not a particularly popular Prime Minister, to put it gently.
Plenty of Brits are still incredibly divided on her premiership, to the extent that tens
of thousands of people celebrated her death by buying copies of the song "Ding Dong the
Witch is Dead!"
In fact, the song even wound up charting in 2013 in the wake of her death:
"Number Ten in the midweek charts yesterday.
Have looked, it's currently Number One on iTunes."
Let it suffice to say, Morrissey wasn't a fan of Thatcher.
In 1998, he released a song that all but pleaded for Thatcher to be beheaded.
The song in question, "Margaret on the Guillotine" closes out his debut solo album, Viva Hate.
And the song isn't exactly a study in nuance and subtlety.
It contains such lyrics as:
"The kind people have a wonderful dream / Margaret on the guillotine /...When will you die?"
It's also an entirely unveiled request for the masses to rise up and
"Make it real / Make the dream real"
The song got Morrissey into a fair spot of trouble.
In fact, Scotland Yard even took it upon themselves to question him over the lyrics, as he revealed
in his autobiography.
According to the Daily Mail,
"The ex-Smiths star was cross-examined by the force's Special Branch."
At the end of the day, it's a rather grim move on Morrissey's part, regardless of your
own personal political beliefs.
Just look at the situation through the lens of today's political climate.
What if a major pop star suddenly dropped a song called "Hillary on the Guillotine"
or, say, "Trump on the Chopping Block."
People would have a few thoughts about that.
In 1986, Morrissey was interviewed by Melody Maker and made a particularly outrageous claim.
For a bit of context here, the interview followed the release of The Smiths' single "Panic,"
a jangly pop confection that was nevertheless attached to lyrics like
"Burn down the disco / Hang the blessed DJ / Because the music that they constantly play
/ It says nothing to me about my life"
Those lyrics proved quite controversial, with Melody Maker claiming that
"[The song is] the most explicit denunciation yet of black pop."
Morrissey was asked if he believed there was some sort of, quote, "black pop conspiracy"
taking place in the music industry…and did he think this so-called conspiracy was keeping
The Smiths from becoming more successful?
Morrissey replied pointblank:
"Yes I really do."
In the same interview, he stated,
"Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days, one has to be, by law, black...I think,
as a result, that very aware younger groups that speak for now are being gagged.”
Along the same lines, Morrissey said,
"Ultimately, I don’t have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern
music which I detest.
I detest Stevie Wonder.
I think Diana Ross is awful.
I hate all those records in the Top 40, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston.
I think they’re vile in the extreme.
In essence this music doesn’t say anything whatsoever.”
Is Morrissey being ironic here?
When put in context, it certainly doesn't seem like it.
In 1992, he told Q magazine,
"I don't really think...black people and white people will ever really get on or like each
other."
And here he is talking about Barack Obama in 2015,
"So, Obama.
Is he white inside?
It's a very logical question.
But I think he probably is."
What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the name James Baldwin?
Is it the writer's powerful novels like Go Tell it on the Mountain?
Or perhaps it's his famous civil rights work alongside Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2017, Morrissey's solo tour was accompanied by a piece of merchandise that could charitably
be called questionable.
He put an image of James Baldwin's face on a T-shirt, alongside a lyric from the 1986
Smiths song "Unloveable".
"I wear black on the outside / 'cause black is how I feel on the inside"
So that didn't go over all that well.
Pitchfork wrote that,
"The new t-shirt can definitely be seen as...problematic."
Meanwhile, the independent publisher Melville House aptly wrote that,
"This particular shirt is a regrettable misfire of internet mash-up culture, in which the
curated mingling of disparate words and images devalue one another, rather than enrich one
another."
The For Britain Movement is a far-right party that was founded in October 2017.
And what is this particular party about?
In the words of The New Zealand Herald,
"For Britain's website calls for a reduction of immigration into the UK, the 'end of the
Islamisation of the UK' and the protection of British culture.
The party [is] led by far-right politician Anne Marie Waters, who has previously described
Islam as 'evil.'"
Well, Morrissey supports For Britain like its going out of style, rather than coming
into style.
In 2019, the singer even wore a For Britain pin while performing on The Tonight Show with
Jimmy Fallon.
Morrissey was roundly criticized for using his fame to promote the party, which reportedly
invites Holocaust deniers to speak at conferences.
Far from apologizing, Morrissey chose to effectively double down on his support in an interview
posted on his own website, Morrissey Central:
"The UK is a dangerously hateful place now, and I think we need someone to put a stop
to the lunacy and to speak for everyone.
I see [For Britain leader] Anne Marie Waters as this person."
He also shrugged off accusations of racism in the same interview, saying that,
“If you call someone racist in modern Britain you are telling them that you have run out
of words.
You are shutting the debate down and running off.
The word is meaningless now.
Everyone ultimately prefers their own race…does this make everyone racist?”
Plenty of public figures are worthy of scorn…but the Queen of England?
For the man who brought you such songs as "The Queen is Dead," the answer is unreservedly,
unequivocally yes.
Sure, her permanently peeved expression is endlessly amusing…but is she really as bad
as, say, Muammar Gaddafi?
Morrissey evidently thinks she's on the same level as the late dictator.
The year was 2011, and Queen Elizabeth II had just undertaken a state visit to Ireland.
In the magazine Hot Press, Morrissey took the opportunity to lament how, in his mind
if not in the real world, Queen Liz was supposedly running her own brutal dictatorship.
Here's how he put it:
"The very existence of the Queen...is entirely against any notion of democracy, and is against
freedom of speech.
For a broad historical view of what the Queen is and how she 'rules', examine Gaddafi...and
see if you can spot any difference."
This was far from a one-off comment.
In an interview with the Telegraph that same year, he said,
"The Queen [is] the ultimate dictator...And of course if the British people decided tomorrow
that the Queen must go, then the Queen wouldn't hesitate to turn her tanks on the British
people."
So yeah, it's safe to say that Morrissey isn't the biggest fan of the royal family.
"The arrogance of the British royals is staggering.
Absolutely staggering."
The irony of it all.
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