Hello Cruel World!
Morrissey interviewed by Stuart Maconie
Q, April, 1994
Goodbye, big-bloused flower-fondler; cheerio, depressed devotee of deathly doom; toodle-oo
teetotal football-fearing perma-hermit; we'll sithee, bespectacled Billy NoMates. At 34, Morrissey
is no longer the whey-faced, shrinking violet of legend. "I'm actually at the height of my powers,"
he tells Stuart Maconie, "... as a window-cleaner."
A few eyebrows are raised, a few glasses pause en route to mouths but no-one screams or flings themselves on the floor in
supplication. No-one clings to the hem of his extremely smart Crombie or ruffles his immaculate quiff. The barman pulls his
requested pint of Fosters with just the merest flicker of interest but otherwise things pass off very much without incident when
Morrissey pops out for a Friday night pint.
The very fact that the man himself suggested a boozer for our rendezvous should confirm that Morrissey at 34 is no longer the
whey-faced an delicate flower of legend. He looks terrific and is clearly in very good shape. In more ways than one, for his new
album, Vauxhall And I, is the best record he has made since the heyday of The Smiths. He would go even further. Good though
1992's Your Arsenal was, this is a substantial leap on from that. The songs (written by Morrissey and either Boz Boorer or
Alain Whyte) display a turning away from rockabilly to a gentler, autumnal, style that evokes some of his best work of the past.
That said, he clearly still holds great affection for things '50s and rockular. At one point in the interview, he bursts into an
excited eulogy on hearing the band in the other bar launch into Eddie Cochran's Nervous Breakdown.
Morrissey arrived this evening with a small, bedenimed skinhead personage who answers to the name of Jake. Affable and
barrer-boyish, Jake's role seems unclear: driver; gofer; mucker. Whatever, he busies himself with the pinball machine as
Morrissey indicates a dark corner of the tap-room where, seated incongruously at a video game table, we begin.
Q: Seeing as we're in a pub, let's start with some barroom questions. Do
you think Gillian Taylforth did it?
I think even if she did, it doesn't really matter. Do the staff of The Sun not do
it? Are they all angelic... upstarts? Does it matter? What's the expose? What
are they trying to reveal? It's very old-fashioned and very Victorian to me. I'd
like to think the world has moved on since then.
Q: Do you feel sympathy for her?
I feel nothing but sympathy for her. In an intelligent world, it wouldn't matter.
And I think it's very sad that there's the added sting of having to sell her
house. But it's common knowledge that The Sun is a vile publication. It's even
vile towards the people who are a part of its world.
Q: Did you watch the Graham Taylor documentary?
Of course I did. It was obvious he vetted it. The entire thing was designed to
create sympathy for him. I felt sympathetic towards him. The actual playing
was diabolical. Graham Taylor at no point went on the pitch, after all. Now
they've appointed Terry Venables chief washer upper and he has a very
comfortable relationship with the press so I'm sure he'll be backed to the hilt. It does seem that the current England squad is
bereft of real stars. I've never been convinced by Gascoigne. A staggering revelation I know. I went to see Chelsea recently
and certain players I was seeing for the first time - players who I read were very talented and I was so bored and shocked. I
thought seeing Dennis Wise and Ian Rush and Neil Ruddock, I'd be in awe and I wasn't at all. I thought I can play better than
this... which is true.
Q: So you play a bit, do you? That will shock a few people.
I do occasionally. In a sense I am delicate but in another sense I'm not and I've never been anxious to be seen as Kenneth
Williams's apprentice. Although that was daubed on my back door in heavy paint which I didn't like at all. I had an intellectual
fascination with him but I had no desire to wear his suit as it were. So, yes, I played football a few weeks ago on Sunday
morning and I scored four goals. I should add that the game was against Brondesbury Park Ladies.
No, there are certain massive misconceptions about me that have got out of all proportion and it really does irk me. I'm not the
fainting type, even though I have an unrelenting interest in certain art forms but it's sort of a tedious cliche to assume that anyone
faintly bookish is a soft touch. In truth, really, I wouldn't back away from any confrontation.
Q: Are you more physical than it's assumed?
I think it's very obvious that I am. If you've seen any of the concerts... well, it isn't exactly the Incredible String Band.
Q: Before moving off barroom topics, do you wish that Prince Charles's assailant had been using real bullets?
Well, if I can say in a very genteel refined voice, yes, and for it not to be assumed I'm pounding the table... but yes, I really do.
I think it would have really shaken British politics up. And Charles was suspiciously cool. I half suspected he was injected with
something. Yes, I wish that he'd been shot. I think it would have made the world a more interesting place. But one of them is
bound to get it soon. It's on the cards. Someone's going to get it. Could be me!
Q: The very title of your new album, Vauxhall And I, reflects an ongoing fixation with London. Is it a love hate thing?
It's a love love thing. At first, like all Northerners, I hated London by obligation. During childbirth you do sign a document. But
that gradually altered as I found small strands of happiness and a small social circle which I never really had up North. My life
has changed in many ways and London gives me very warm palpitations. The thought of flying back to London from another
country gives me rosy cheeks and starry eyes... until I get strip searched at customs of course.
Q: Does the album reflect this change of life?
Well, that brings to mind Germaine Greer... but yes it does. It's my feet firmly planted on new territory and a sense of moving
on... though I'm sure there are thousands of people who'd disagree.
Q: It's a much gentler record than Your Arsenal.
Yes it is but it's also the best record I've ever made.
Q: Several songs (Spring-Heeled Jim, Now My Heart Is Full) seem to continue a fascination with criminality and the
criminal classes. Would you care to elucidate?
Not particularly, because the songs say everything and when I try meekly to elucidate, I never do them justice. There's a side of
me that's shy and reticent about explaining the things that I do. But yes, you're absolutely right.
Q: But is Speedway as knotty and complicated a song as it appears. It seems to be about the gentlemen of my
profession.
It's even knottier than it appears to you! And I've never met any gentlemen of your profession.
Q: But are you saying that press rumours about your character and politics are
not just rumours?
Yes, partly, but if you're going to bring up the issue of racism, it simply gives too much
credence to the bitty, scattered humourless rumours that abound. But I'm well aware
that rumours are more important than the truth. I've been called many names in my time,
not all of them ill-fitting. Rather than defend myself I simply feel beyond it all.
Q: Do you think you've been a victim of political correctness?
Well, I get the impression that anything I say, however sensible and heartwarming,
doesn't hold much water these days because of a great barrage of people still wanting
to pick holes in anything I say, which is very tedious. There's no escape, I realise that.
It's a very English thing. In a sick way, it's a compliment. It doesn't apply to anybody
else. But rather than go through that, I'm actually feeling very positive these days. I
weather storms that other people would buckle beneath. I don't want a Grammy or a
BPI award because I am my own person and I don't need anybody, anywhere to tell
me that I'm good or bad. I know exactly what I am. And I know I've made a few quite
bad records in recent years.
Q: But weren't those things vilified because of the expectations on you? Isn't this vilification a twisted kind of love?
Oh, I absolutely feel that but I'd like all that vilification to end now and just the love to come through and feel, for 24 hours a
day, unbridled support from all quarters. It does get tiring and tiresome. Friends of mine sometimes scan these pieces and they
say, Why? Why do they bother? Why do they say all these things when they know they're not true? A few years ago it was
said of me that I'm good copy, that I'm always readable. Well, it's become very boring. I become irritated when people who
have been clearly influenced by me in some way sail by without being checked and slashed and dissected in the way that my
every step is. But let me repeat that I'm not enmeshed in bitterness at the moment. I'm feeling very happy about this record as I
was about Your Arsenal and Beethoven Is Deaf. These are good times for me.
Q: Do you mean good times on a personal level?
It's certainly professional and almost personal. Last year was difficult for me because three people very close to me died and I
had a few record company problems which no-one on the planet wants to hear about. But certainly professionally. If you
examine my existence from Hand In Glove to today, anybody with a rational mind and eyes that aren't crossed or lazy can see
that I'm actually at the height of my powers. (Pause.) Oh, alright, then, I meant as a window-cleaner.
Q: How much of a hedonist are you these days? You were seen as a monastic figure and here you are drinking lager in
a pub.
Everybody has the right to change. Do I not? Must I remain stuck in those brackets? Nothing infuriates me more than being
bracketed by people I've never met. It's limiting and it's dismissive and I've never made any effort to be anything other than
what I am. I've always been absurdly honest and it's been a downfall. To admit that I've suffered from depression for years and
years is socially unacceptable and no-one wants to hear about it. So I feel that if anything I've remained true to myself and
although I get criticised continually, it's all floss. No-one can ever point to anything truly damaging that I've ever done or
concretely suggest that I've simply been in it for the money, just as no-one could possibly give any truth to the racist arguments
of last year which I actually don't want to keep bringing up.
Q: Do you get drunk and have sex and take drugs?
In answer to the first part of the question, yes. I have a great interest in alcohol and as time goes by I find it more comforting,
although I'm not by any means an alcoholic so please don't blandish that in heavy upper case. Earlier, in The Smiths, I was
always so conscientious. It was important that I remembered all the words so perhaps I was over-cautious and over-delicate. I
felt throughout the whole time of The Smiths that I was sitting on an egg, a hen on an egg and it was very important to me that it
was looked after and nothing went wrong.
Q: And the other parts? Do you indulge sexually and pharmaceutically?
No, I don't. But just because I don't, I don't feel like a social casualty and I don't feel I need to prove anything to anybody.
Q: As a lyricist, are you peerless?
Well, the obvious answer is yes, but as people read these lines they would hate me for saying so, particularly those people who
make music and perhaps think they are peerless. But I say it with the maximum concern for the future of pop music and, let's
face it, it doesn't really have one. Although I will go home tonight and play music very loudly and get very excited, I rarely hear
lyrics sung by others which motivate me in any way. Even the people I quite like are quite silly, really, lyrically.
Q: Who would these records be by?
It would be The Angelic Upstarts, Echobelly, The Ramones, Gallon Drunk... and me. Me at a higher volume, of course.
Q: You are very successful in America and yet you have decried the influence of America on this country. How do you
reconcile that?
I find the audience who support me in America would agree with me. It just isn't the fact that people who live in America
support their country in everything and uphold their influence on our poor, pathetic isle. I don't feel I'm being anti-American, just
reasonably intelligent. Equally, of course, I could supply a list of horrendous, offensive, damaging mannerisms which have
engulfed this country, a country which by birth and intention I love. But it's very easy for English people to go to America and
focus on the wrong things and assume that the ugly despicable things symbolise the entire country. There are disgusting things in
England but you and I know what they are and we know they do not represent the country and we avoid them. Like Women's
Own, for instance.
Q: Are you getting less political as you get older?
Oh, don't we all? It's a fortunate trait of age. I'm still irked by the same old things but as you become older you become harder
to please. I think England politically is more depressing than anyone has the nerve to say. John Major is no-one's idea of a
Prime Minister and is a terrible human mistake. He cannot speak, he cannot make an address, the sound of his voice is so
unattractive and its so distressing that politically he represents us. If we focused on Clare Short or even Harriet Harman, here
are people with some personality, some nerve and some verve. John Smith, of course, would be better suited to selling bread
and no-one would buy it. It makes one long for Communism.
Q: You used to set great store by charm. Do you still?
It must be obvious to you as I sit here that I do.
Q: Do you flirt?
Sexually, not at all. Never. What would the point be? I would never waste my time or theirs. What sits before you is all that
there is. It isn't performance. I feel a sense of protection over whatever the hell it is I have which renders me slightly vulnerable.
I am sensitive. But equally, I would lead myself quite willingly into a fight if necessary.
Q: Would it have to be on a point of principle?
Oh, no it could be about anything really. Are you about to spill my pint?
Q: Are you moved to tears very easily?
Yes, very, very easily. As a very dull example... the film Jane Eyre I sat through by accident a couple of years ago and was
shocked that the floodgates opened. I'm extremely sensitive to art and I'm not ashamed to say that Jane Eyre or Wuthering
Heights of The Well Of Loneliness stir within me very powerful passions, but that doesn't mean that I'm an ineffectual six-stone
weakling and the suggestion irks me constantly. It's not true and it was perpetuated by the two things that have made me more
famous than anything else I've been connected with - the songs Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and This Charming Man
which were very flowery and poetic and a great sense of aesthetic abandon. But that was a long time ago and, despite how I
look, I'm not a teenager. This year, I'll be 35 and a lot has changed. I'm occasionally unhappy that those two songs and that
period is what's stuck in many people's minds. It made my fame but it isn't the rock on which I presently stand. Though I'm not
trying to kick it away and be Vinny Jones.
Q: How do you feel about getting older?
We're living in an age where you can be 34 and the oldest living teenager. Teenage can extend beyond your nineteenth year.
But I'm very comfortable with getting older. There is nothing in the past that I want to return to. Nothing at all. In heavy italics.
Each stage of my life, schools, houses, have all been demolished. Friendships have been demolished. Each year of my life I'm in
different situations with new people and I like that. Because once you stick with the old crowd, you are officially dead.
Q: To the world, you're still the pale, wan thing you were at
23.
It's a failing on their part and it's very convenient because it's
dismissive. Morrissey, he's thin, he's depressing, he's sad and
embittered. In 1994, that is not the truth at all. They know
nothing about my life. And I have to say that The Smiths' back
catalogue says nothing to me about my life.
Q: Did you feel a swell of pride when the records of your
former group were recently re-issued?
At no stage. I had no involvement at all in their re-packaging or
re-promotion. It has all sailed away from me. For me, it's like a
fish dying very slowly on the harbour wall (laughs). Write that
down please. I have it all absolutely in perspective. I know that
some things we did are not as good as they're remembered. The
Queen Is Dead is not our masterpiece. I should know. I was
there. I supplied the sandwiches.
Q: Johnny Marr said recently that Strangeways is.
Well, it is. We're in absolute accordance on that. We say it quite often. At the same time. In our sleep. But in different beds.
Q: When did you last speak to him?
We speak constantly, which is a great joy to me because after the great gulf of the horrendous breakdown, it was truly uplifting
for us to become friends again and to realise that he was still as funny and creative and uplifting to be around. He's enormously
underrated as a musician and, dare I say it, as a personality. He has an extraordinary mind and knowledge of music but I think
he's quite happy to not be at the forefront of anything these days. And the way I feel about The Smiths and the way Johnny
feels are in accordance. We both sit down and think about The Queen Is Dead and a giant question mark appears.
Strangeways Here We Come which, as you might know, was our last studio album, said everything eloquently, perfectly at the
right time and put the tin hat on it basically.
Rolling Stone cite the first album as the hidden gem. That baffles me. I thought it was so badly produced. And that matters if
you're stood behind a mike singing your heart out. A great glut of Smiths records were badly produced. I remember a drive
from Brixton to Derby where I listened on a Walkman to The Smiths' first album which we'd recorded for the second time and
I turned to Geoff Travis on my right and John Porter on my left and said, This is not good enough, and they both squashed me
in the seat and said that it cost f60,000, it has to be released, there's no going back. I had two very moist cheeks and there's an
anger there that has never subsided, because The Smiths' first album should have been so much better than it was. (Laughs)
Oh, how boring!
Q: Quite the opposite. But you get the feeling you're saying that you appreciate the worth of The Smiths but let's forget
about them now.
I wasn't saying that in the least! I'm terribly offended. I'd like to sit here for five hours and talk about The Smiths. (Pause)
Northern joke. No punchline.
Q: So, you and Johnny are friends again. Could you ever become partners again?
We may invest in an allotment together at some point but as far as six nights at the London Palladium goes, I do not think. And
why should we? Can you name one reunion that ever worked... apart from Pentangle?
Q: Are you still irrevocably Northern?
Of course, being born and raised there. It never goes away, that indelible working-classness. Even though by now, it must be
assumed of course that I am a millionaire...
Q: Are you?
Yes, and I've been in that situation for quite a few years but I never feel it. I'm incapable of being flash or ostentatious. Here we
are tonight at the (name of pub tantalisingly withheld) in Battersea. I move in the most discreet circles, the most humble, perhaps
too humble, of manner and manors. It irks so many people I know. They say, You're rich, you should do this and that. I back
away to where I am comfortable. It was never the intention for me to be a flamboyant rock star. I thought that I had
spearheaded a new mood for singers. I thought there'd be a rejection of all those old, stereotypical manoeuvres but there
hasn't. Everyone secretly still wants to be photographed with Yoko Ono... or Jimmy Pursey (laughs) whom I love.
Q: You're often accused of pining for a mythical Britain. Do you?
People ask me about the old England as if I were some character from The Mayor Of Casterbridge. It really annoys me. Yes,
unavoidably I'm English but it's not as if I go about with a cravat and a sports coat with leather elbows. I'm not Terry-Thomas. I
just happen to be English and sing in an English manner. It was never my desire to be Eddie Cochran. But being equally
interested in The Angelic Upstarts and Alan Bennett seems to cause chaos... or cause depressing misconceptions. But I am not
a part of some gigantic national Neighbourhood Watch trying to keep England stuck in 1971 because there is no point. If
England became 1971 I'd be the first to complain. I don't miss the Three Day Week.
Q: What do you read?
Nothing at all. I've given it up. It was giving me yellow jaundice. I've stopped. What's the point? I know everything.
Q: What do you watch?
Against my better judgement I'm affixed to EastEnders. I argue back at it. I despair of the writers. I'm one of those
horrendously disposable people who has Sky but only because I moved into a house that had it. That's my excuse. So I like
lots of those old things. Bravo, that thing.
Q: What do you do all day?
Isn't that a very Hello! question? Nothing that would interest you. Sit and
listen to The Angelic Upstarts. Whom I've now mentioned for the third
time.
Q: What is this with The Angelic Upstarts? Weren't The Smiths
supposed to be the reaction of beauty and charm after the snarling
negativity of punk?
Yes, they were beauty and charm but if you listen to songs like Sweet
And Tender Hooligan... well, I don't like The Smiths being categorised as
folk music. It wasn't like that. The appearances were extremely,
expressively violent. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. But if you
study modern groups, those who gain press coverage and chart action,
most of them aren't actually as good as The Angelic Upstarts, aren't as
exciting as Sham 69. None of them are as good as Siouxsie And The
Banshees at full pelt. That's not dusty nostalgia, that's fact. Most modern
groups as far as I can see are Creedence Clearwater Revival. I long for a
reactionary, political, almost racist group made up entirely of Asian musicians.
Q: Are you still as passionate about pop music?
I'm more critical but then I hear groups such as Echobelly and The Blaggers and I'm fuelled by excitement. I don't feel the need
to name-drop new groups. I don't feel the need to stay one step ahead. Ninety per cent of the groups you read about in the
weekly papers are nonsense and useless. But no other art form appeals to me. I don't want to be Kingsley Amis or Alan
Bennett.
Q: What about Tom Cruise?
I've considered it. I don't think I could get out of bed that early.
Q: Have you ever considered therapy?
I tried it several times and found it no use whatsoever. The problems that I've had are more ingrained than mere medication or
analysis can cure. It's just me, my personality. Not a curious medical imbalance. I felt I could take some magical pill and be
cured but it's not the case. The thing I've been fighting is this thing here before you.
Q: So when did you learn to love yourself?
I never said that. I just feel that actually when all's said and done I am not insane. You may smile but for me that's a massive
revelation. I never was normal. You agree? Thanks a lot! You realise that, in Battersea, when people say the wrong thing,
they're liable to get a glass smashed in their face. It won't happen tonight. Ask me a hard one.
Q: Do you love Johnny Marr?
Yes... that's not a hard one. I loved and love Johnny Marr, but I feel tremendous indifference to Bruce and Rick.
Q: Which pop stars do you think you could have in a fight?
I can't think of anyone I'd shy away from. I'm not frightened of anybody. If I met Vic Reeves, I'd have no desire other than to
smack him in the face.
Q: Maybe you think you're being attacked when really you're being loved?
A very nice theory but it won't hold up in court. I know because people are quite simple really. But I don't have a little list.
Those days have gone. My world is bigger. It now stretches as far as Wolverhampton.
Q: You know you are forever cursed with being good copy?
That may be, but wait until I finally announce that I am pregnant.
This interview was originally published in the April 1994 issue of Q magazine.
Reprinted without permission for personal use only.
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