“Who was the last person who saw you naked?” the intrepid reporter from The Face asked Morrissey sometime back in the ’80s when he was still the lead singer of The Smiths.
Oscar Wilde could not have come back with a crisper reply: “Almost certainly,” Morrissey said, “the doctor who brought me into this cold, cruel world.”
The retort electrified me when I read it. It was that “almost” that slayed me. It elevated Morrissey to my pantheon of sly wits. (We see the singer here in his young, glory days.)
Morrissey, as many of you know, had the dubious honor of launching the entire emo-rock genre with his nakedly pathetic, love-lorn lyrics — most famously:
How can you say I go about things the wrong way!
I am human, and I need to be loved,
just like anybody else does!
It was no accident that he inspired a rock cult that faithfully turned up for his every performance: Steven Patrick Morrissey happens to be one of the modern masters of that tricky literary form — the celebrity interview.
Last month the singer summoned the legendary rock journalist Paul Morley for a sit-down. Granting interviews has become increasingly rare for Moz, as his fans call him, and so there was a great deal of buzz when the word got out.
The published article, which has just appeared, is one of those mind-boggling, delicious rarities in the world of vapid, publicist-vetted puff pieces:
The singer actually says something revealing — while seeming to say nothing at all.
For the full interview, you are directed to your nearest rock-mag newsstand to pick up the May 2006 issue of the British fanzine Uncut. But here’s a little taste — the intro to the piece, in which journalist Morley gives a concise character study of his subject that is a bit of a masterpiece all by itself:
His conversational style is funnier than it seems in print, and he laughs a lot, at/with/by himself, sometimes at the same time as seeming in terrible pain. He does not volunteer information easily. An interviewer has to dig for it, as if, in front of his eyes, and with his help, even if you are being gentle, or flattering, or innocuous, you are digging his grave, and asking him to lie down in it so you can bury him alive with his own utterances.
Consequently, after being almost buried in such a manner so many times over the past 23 years, he is understandably reluctant to supply the material that might completely cover his body and face. He hands out just a little soil that he can easily rinse away later.
Certain questions ‘is the new record your masterpiece, are you happy, do you find yourself repeating yourself, what were the last three things on your credit card statement what excites you these days, are you so desperate for our attention, is all of this an act of revenge on Marr’ receive one of the following replies, occasionally accompanied by a gloriously forced winning smile, a faraway look, a clenched pause and a subtle, sinister sneer: 1) What do you think? 2) I couldn’t possibly comment, 3) I don’t know/care/remember.
Occasionally, there’s no sound, just a look, brutal and artistic, to indicate that the question is monumentally stupid or too profound or unstable to adequately deal with, a look containing elements of a weary, oddly happy acceptance, a faint smirk as if he might indeed be swooning, a faraway, slightly old-fashioned look, a flash of boredom and/or bad temper, a glimmer of contempt and a subtle, radiant sneer. Occasionally there is a peeved but somehow polite sigh that seems to stretch from the beginning to the end of time. Also, for the record, I visit the bathroom three times during our time together ‘just to check my expression in the mirror’ and each time I return, Morrissey has moved to a different seat and is wearing a slightly guilty expression on his face that I can’t quite pin down.
I like to think that I earned my own place in the Celebrity Interviewer Hall of Fame with my 1991 interview for The Advocate with Madonna, in which I got Herself to answer such questions as “How big is Warren Beatty’s dick?” But Morley takes the Q&A form into hilariously strange poetic corners. Check out this passage:
One of the first things the listener will think on hearing the album [Ringleader of the Tormentors] is: Morrissey’s in love, and it’s not nosiness to want to ask about that — well, it is — but it’s also wanting to give the songs a wider framework — “So, are you in love?”
I’m in love with something. I often am.”
“Not someone.”
“Not a human being, no. And on these new songs, I’m in love with something. So, keep stabbing away.”
“You’ve moved to Rome?”
“I travel so much that I actually live nowhere. I live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I left Los Angeles last year after seven years. I became an Italianophile, yes.”
“You moved to Rome to be with someone.”
“Something.”
“Because of someone.”
“Something.”
I can’t help thinking that Morrissey is making a surpassingly indirect confession of his deep-seated, heartfelt Christianity. Really, think about all the references to God and Jesus in his songs. His last album, You Are the Quarry, has the amazing song, “I Have Forgiven You, Jesus.” That title alone is ten times more arrogant than John Lennon’s notorious remark about the Beatles being “more famous than Jesus Christ,” a quip which triggered Beatle-record bonfires across the country in 1966.
And Morrissey’s most recent album, Ringleader of the Tormentors, has the song “Dear God Please Help Me,” in which he confesses: “There are explosive kegs between my legs.” This could explain his curiously ambivalent attitude about discussing his sexuality.
Has anyone ever been more obviously queer — while studiously avoiding self-disclosure?
Discuss, please.
So how big is Warren Beatty’s dick?
A pertinent question, says I.
I don’t know much about Morrissey but I dated a guy last year who has a tattoo of him on his chest. When I asked him who it was he was surprised I didn’t recognize him and told me it was Morrissey. To deflect my ignorance I told him it was a bad likeness and that I hoped he didn’t pay the tattoist a lot of money for such shitty work.
No worries, he fucked me anyway.
My question too.
Morrissey is a supreme example of a sexual philosophy which I have accepted and rejected to various degrees throughout my life, namely that sexuality is far more fluid and opaque than simple prefixes can convey. He is his own man, and yes, it is clear from his art that he fancies certain other men. But the sheer basis of queerness is a rejection of labels and polarity between man/woman, gay/straight. To buy into these words is to be simply gay. To transcend them is to be queer. So in this sense, yes, he’s very queer. Does he love men exclusively? Women sometimes? Who cares? Are his music and wordplay endlessly compelling? Yes. Is he possibly the finest lyricist of this, or any, generation? Absolutely. Wilde smiles on this man, reluctant kegs and all.
Moz is like an art school requirement, like Gustav Klimpt posters on your walls your first year, but unlike the posters and tastes that change, Morrissey stays with you. I always love watching interviews with fans about how the music has touched them. Deeply. I’ve always felt that on some level he’s connecting with you lyrically while making absolute fun of you for how you feel. Cruel yet funny and endearing.
I waited two long, cold hours in the dead of winter to see him play 10 songs plus one encore (Shoplifters of the World) in Lawrence, Kansas. I’ll probably wait a little longer to purchase his newest album as the last time I rushed out to get his long awaited album on Attack Records, he came out with a bigger release of the album complete with excellent B sides and videos of performances on the Craig Kilborn show. To buy the new one and have that happen again…
Heaven knows I’m miserable now.
It won’t surprise you that I don’t know the guy. I do dislike his hair, I’ll give you that… but then; I like his low eyebrows…
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Drub, I know what you’re saying about Morrissey staying with you for life. He changed my world at a time that I most needed someone like him, like a big, wise older brother who knows all of your deepest chambers. I never felt mocked by him, though. He seems to know and understand the adulation his fans feel, because he’s felt it for others, and feels warmly for you for loving him. He does make it a point that he’s smarter than most, though. A sort of endearing (to some) intellectual arrogance.
As a small sidenote, Morrissey has gotten me laid more times than I can count. All the semi-closeted, ambisexual hotties seem to flock to him, and his name is almost a codeword. Talk with a guy alone about how much you both love Moz, and your dicks will be out quick–with his girlfriend in the next room!
I love Morrissey these days, he is growing old so gracefully. this is an exceptional CD, “Life Is a Pigsty” my god. my morrissey. I was at SXSW this year where he did an Interview panel and perfed live. there were all these rumors that he was Born Again Christian. To be honest, he is the only musician where i truly do not care about his personal life. I’d like the admission of his being in love, because its so obvious in his music these days, but he is a building built on mystery… and maybe he is onto something. Its more than admiration, I respect him, I cant say that about anyone else in pop.
i love tapping into Moz-love among gay guys…and i VERY much appreciate Danny’s comment, which crystallized the diff between gay and queer in a way i’ve never encountered before. thanks!
as for Warren Beatty’s dick size….you can read my entire “X-rated” Madonna interview on my website, at this (link).
Remarkable, really. I must admit I know rather little of this man, though his name of course is known also here (Austria) since long (funny he chose to stay [more often] in the southern neighboring country).
And he’s one of the persons whose lyrics and statements (and tunes & sounds) are worth dealing with. Even if you don’t agree - which seemingly won’t happen too often.
A place where I didn’t expect to stumble over him, but did (and over Bode Miller) is the website where I started my personal page. Morissey might be “understandably reluctant to supply the material that might completely cover his body and face” like explained above - stressing “understandably” -, but he isn’t absolutely out of reach, even for me and you: take my URL, replace “jodeitt” by “morissey”, and there you are (linked also from the bottom of his official site’s startpage, morisseymusic.com). Have to add: this, “understandably”, doesn’t grant an answer to each and every message, yet you’ll hardly find a celeb’s distance to everybody kept so short. For it ain’t any agent’s or promotion folks’ stuff, it is personally run by very him.