I've honestly never been convinced by Morrissey. The Smiths were interviewed in Sounds before I'd heard anything, and I mainly recall the implication that we could all breathe a sigh of relief because it was okay to listen to proper music played on guitars once more - as distinct from all the gay synthesiser tunes which had apparently been ruining everything - and the Smiths, so their singer proclaimed, only wanted handsome fans in attendance at their shows. This Charming Man turned up on Top of the Pops. I thought it was weak and still do, with a guitar line that seems to crochet a doily for your nan's sideboard. What Difference Does It Make? obliged me to reassess my initial impression, at least of the music, and I was more or less on board from thereon despite his stupid fucking fans.
'What is he like!?' they gurgle indulgently, shiny-eyed and batting a hand as though to waft away the aura of his latest keraaazy yet nevertheless inspired antics. It works if you buy into the idea of Morrissey as a genius comparable to James Joyce or whoever, but is otherwise redolent of a cult; as it always has been, even back when you too thought he was the voice of a generation, you fucking plum.
I didn't mind the solo material, although for me it's always had a certain vaguely stewed quality and mostly, if not always, lacks the breezy spontaneity of the Smiths. It probably doesn't help that he's been making the same record over and over to the point of it almost sounding like parody, so lucky that it's decent record, at least by his own standards. My girlfriend had this album in the nineties and played it a lot, and it stood out as more convincing than Viva Hate, even containing a couple of numbers I'd rate among the best he's ever recorded - Now My Heart is Full, Billy Budd, Spring-Heeled Jim and Speedway, with only the wistful three-minute sigh of The Lazy Sunbathers letting the album down. It's anyone's guess what he's singing about and I suspect that's the point - the bittersweet melancholia with an occasional suggestion of something unpleasant. It's always been music for people who feel like outsiders, a sort of sonic blank slate onto which one projects oneself, but the unease seems particularly pronounced on this album because, maybe it doesn't have anything reassuring to tell you, and maybe it doesn't want to be your friend.
All of the rumours keeping me grounded,
I never said…
I never said that they were completely unfounded.
This could be a sneaky confession bordering on a challenge in reference to what you're probably hearing if you're unable to separate the art from the artist; which is why I enjoy it, because fuck 'em. The notion of Morrissey having suddenly swung to the right in recent years because he expresses opinions with which we disagree seems comical given that he's never been afraid to let fly with the worst sort of parochial bollocks. The only difference is that the legions of the gullible once thought his brain-farts cute, like a character on Coronation Street. His songs are parochial. His entire body of work is about the shunned, the outsiders, the losers, those scared to venture beyond the end of their own street - which is why the risible Bengali in Platforms is as it is, and why the idea of The National Front Disco being some kind of dog whistle is patently ridiculous to anyone with ears and a brain.
He's one of the very last people with whom I'd happily share an elevator stuck between floors, and he talks a lot of bollocks, but if the point of art was the ethics of the artist we'd be left with empty galleries and nothing to read or listen to; and there's a tremendous power in Morrissey's poetic melancholia, to which the more ambiguous and discomfiting themes are possibly integral. It's really up to you whether that's sufficient, but it works for me, at least on this record.
No comments:
Post a Comment