Autobiography

by Morrissey

  Pat Bellis speaks up at the meeting. ‘Look, if you don’t say this then we can’t appear on The Tube, and we won’t be played on radio and there’ll be no Top of the Pops.’ Around the table, everybody looks at me as if I’d just eaten a small child, and the Rough Trade faces seem newly traditionalist in the mid-afternoon light. Like a bull in a Spanish bullring, I look both left and right for clarity. ‘But the song IS about shoplifting!’ I wheeze out.

  ‘Ye-ee-ee-s, we KNOW that!’ came forty-eight voices, ‘but if you could just tweak the meaning then we’re in the clear ... just say something oblique.’

  Jo Slee has a face of granite, and Pat Bellis is now playing the near-to-tears card, whereas Geoff is the consummate fiddling parson wondering how he can possibly shift all that stock in the cellar.

  ‘This is a great single and if you don’t make this statement then we’re all in a mess and you’ll never be trusted on radio again,’ says Pat – her lipstick under no doubts whatsoever. I am already formulating semi-acceptable dribble in my head, wondering how I can squeeze in the term ‘conscious borrowing’ in an effort to ease the entire nation and rid the world forevermore of emphysema. I feel slightly queasy. I have been done over by an aggressive tribe from Palestine and I don’t know what to do. In the event, Paula Yates introduces me on The Tube as ‘some prat’, and Rough Trade sinks at the horror of it all, yet amazingly they manage to force her to apologize on the following week’s show. ‘So you get me to lie on a television programme that introduces me as “some prat” ...’ I lobby outside Collier Street, partly delighted that Rough Trade’s plan to commingle with The Tube went asswards because of Paula Yates. My smile stretches for miles.

  Despite lowbrow persuasions from people who should dress better, Shoplifters of the world unite is once again ignored by radio, and two weeks at the number 12 position does nothing to assuage DJs’ playlists. As we leave for Dublin to play the song on a television show called MegaMix, Nannie dies. At 71, the undignified months leading up to her death had been a form of torture for a woman so shy, and we all bear witness to the usual redundant words of hope. Nannie is the central idea and notion of family, and as she loses hold so too does the meaning of family unity. It is all over.

  Constantly on the watch and suspicious without reservation, Nannie’s life had modest happiness, but was largely one of struggle and self-punishment; tragic importance given to gas bills and bus fares and begging God’s pardon. Nannie pays a high price for virtue, and I always suspected that she sits in the dark of true reflection night after night at Milton Close, full of prayer that all will right itself, but not daring to make futile plans for days without hardship, yet hopeful that she might find someone to help wallpaper the hall for her. Of all of life’s luxuries, Nannie had only ever been allowed to watch. Her duties prevent her from thinking about her feelings, and the bed-like warmth of ironing and the tea caddy now used to collect spare change for her TV license make up her winter musings. The phone rings unanswered during Crossroads, and Thatcher is spat out as the name of madness. Nannie is an overly civilized entity, having mastered the art of minding her own business. Peace is reserved for the time beyond the moment of death. I have never kissed Nannie, and only on her deathbed do I hug her because our mutual hope is a heap of dirt. Death is alive in life. I cry at the fixity of Nannie lowered alone into her grave; her very first time alone. She needs us still. The soul is not everything. Her face, her arms, her hands, they need us still, and they are what we know of someone, and all of these have gone. The soul is said to be somewhere, but the soul has only ever been visible through the eyes. It is the body that we know of someone, yet the body is the husk lowered into the earth of tatty Southern Cemetery when we are told that the body is ‘not really’ or ‘no longer’ Nannie. But it is. In some ways Nannie had always remained a child. She never knew Paris and she never sat behind the steering wheel, although she laughed with friends and managed many sunlit jaunts to America. The Queen Mother dies with debts of six million pounds, whereas my own grandmother would not be allowed to run up a debt of six solitary pounds without the threat of public dishonor. Nannie only ever received when someone placed a child in her arms, and the drudgery of moral codes clouded Dublin like a thousand zeppelins. Nursing destroys the body, ends the freedom, and no one gives any thought to the tenth month beyond the impregnated ninth. But, what about the sixteenth month – or the maternal madness beyond? Nannie’s final request was that she be buried with her dentures in, but at the final open-coffin inspection, her request had not been followed through, and she looks in death as she had never looked in life.

  The righteous heckles of the Manchester Evening News are still, in 1987, unable to offer a line of support to the Smiths as they gleefully report how Shoplifters of the world unite has ‘been denounced’, but been denounced by whom or why is not mentioned. It is not until the years pass and until local success is redefined by Oasis that the Evening News finally understands that they must support local musicians or face the humiliation of antiquity.

  I pass away as The World Won’t Listen compilation is released, and the artwork of which I am most proud is repulsively reduced for the CD format to an absurd fraction of the larger photograph. The side view of a blow-fish face in black and white looks stingy and paltry – a cheapened impression of the album sleeve, and I storm the gates of Rough Trade in a now familiar maniacal furore. In a state of homicidal seizure I demand to know why the CD image does not repeat the LP image.

  ‘But we couldn’t fit the entire LP image on the CD because a CD is too small,’ says Richard Boon, unhelpfully.

  ‘But they managed quite well with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!’ I stomp, suddenly wondering why I continued to bother. I could, instead, be skiing in St Moritz. As the years go by, and The World Won’t Listen changes labels, the CD image remains heart-sinkingly abysmal compared to the majesty of the LP sleeve. These things count.

  Johnny and I conduct another of our despondent and demoralized business meetings at Johnny’s SW7 flat at Roland Gardens. We have been secretly approached by David Munns from EMI Records, who adopts a new tune:

  Look, enough is enough. You both should be enormous artists and you’re wasting your talents with Rough Trade, who don’t appreciate you and don’t even send you a Christmas hamper even though you’ve finally put them on the map. The Smiths belong at EMI. The Beatles, the Smiths. This is England. The Smiths are the new Beatles. Now, stop wasting time.

  It suddenly felt like a case of writing yourself a leading part in your own play, or else remaining in a spear-carrying role in the bearded background. It’s all very dignified to downplay popularity as an artistic goal, but if you love your songs as much as we did then there seemed to be no further point in avoiding accessibility. The aim was to keep listeners occupied for years and years and years, yet it was Johnny and I who struggled with the moral intent of Rough Trade even though the label themselves did nothing to celebrate the popularity of the band. Behind closed doors it was I alone who had been asked by Rough Trade to replace artistic intent with an all-round entertainer’s fez. Very accidentally, I had become the most famous face of the Rough Trade enterprise, and like a Rank Charm School starlet I had an arranged marriage with the press, whose NME was now known as the New Morrissey Express. As long as the arresting quotes took flight there was no need for Rough Trade to invest in advertising. The press had also tagged the Smiths ‘Mozzer’s men’, a docket that enraged Johnny and which hacked at our umbilical cord. In the complete pop context, a picture of my face would be printed with the Smiths name beneath it, and on the pictorial rundown for Top of the Pops, the single Bigmouth strikes again features my face only in the slot for the Smiths. Johnny fumes and makes steps to have the picture rectified by the following week, by which time the single has fallen off the chart anyway. This Blondie sphere rattled Johnny’s chains, yet it has never been the case that someone other than the lead singer becomes the publi
c face of a group (David Johansen was the last member to join the New York Dolls), yet the agitation can throw musicians into such a hissy fit that the group could weaken and snap. It must have been at this time that Johnny believed that ‘If ... well, ummm ... if I just step from stage left to, ummm, center stage, then I, too, could gather lilacs.’ This, I think, causes many lead guitarists to incline towards the berko and quit a successful band with the hope of being the camera’s desired one. Well, Johnny was not quite so addled, although the Smiths’ apocalypse in this year of 1987 would seem to nail the assumption that stage left to center stage is not a desperately giant leap, after all. It is, in fiddling fact, so very far that it might span all your born days. Johnny and I had signed to EMI Records as ‘the Smiths’ for an advance of £60,000 each. The signing took place in secret, since there would be one more contractual album for Rough Trade. The secret lasted approximately two days. Leaping into black-widowed cat-suit action, Geoff Travis elbowed his way into a Guardian newspaper blast that quoted him as saying, ‘The Smiths have signed to EMI for reasons of greed.’ Always ready to splice, I found Geoff had zero appreciation for the songs that had saved him from life’s lavatory, and he had no warmth for the songwriting duo whose allure would ensure his own success for the rest of his life.

  In the year that preceded the final album, the Smiths had become a quintet, for reasons that furrowed my brow. It was Johnny’s will, and that seemed good enough on face value, but the reality of Craig Gannon was a fascinating bungle. Ripe from a Salford two-up two-down, Craig had a sullen expression, and said nothing. He lumbered onto the payroll and the Smiths were no longer a foursome. I understood Johnny’s need to be released of basic rhythm parts and to then be free for more complicated lead riffs, but I struggled to notice any specific assistance to the sound. It seemed to me that Johnny was still playing everything. Craig undertook a lengthy US tour, and the continual difficulty was in trying to arouse him from bed. He would sleep for what seemed like fifteen hours a night and would pay no regard to call-times and departure times. Before going to bed Craig would feel duty-bound to either cause damage in the hotel or cause chaos in his hotel room – disorders for which the Smiths had no previous reputation. Suddenly there were bills for Craig’s madcap habit of upturning large potted plants in hotel foyers, or generally being the behavior crackpot. Having played in Atlanta we were then set to fly to Florida for the next show, but Craig refused to get out of bed and we were forced to fly without him. One night our security, Jim Connolly, is showering when Craig pounds wildly on the door of his hotel room shouting Jim’s name. Jim races into Craig’s room, where Craig has positioned all items of hotel furniture onto his bed in a teetering pile. Word quickly circulates that Craig is probably unhinged at this point and – worse – that he has little interest in being a Smith. Once the US tour has ended, Johnny suggests that we do not make contact with Craig, in order to test whether he would actually bother to contact any of us. Unsurprisingly, Craig does not contact anyone, and it becomes evident that nothing useful vibrates in Craig’s upper storey. The lift doesn’t quite reach the top floor. Johnny’s experiment sees Craig sealing his own fate as a Smith because Craig makes no effort to call either Johnny, Andy or Mike, and thus Craig silently fades away.

  ‘What does he want me to do? INSIST that he be a Smith?’ says Johnny reasonably. It is not announced that Craig has departed and this is largely because his name is never again mentioned, and the press make no comment on Craig’s disappearance. Like mist he evaporates, and it is confusing to think that he had ever been present.

  Instantly, Craig sues for ‘loss of earnings’ (how? where?), and also claims co-authorship with Johnny of certain Smiths songs (how? where?). Although Craig’s claims are whimsical frolic, the court leaps to his favor and the case is settled for almost whatever he wants.

  I have no tears left. The law is a ass.

  And. Yet.

  The only thing we can possibly control is ourselves. Under shocking circumstances the Smiths assemble in the city of Bath to record our final album for Rough Trade. Stephen Street is once again the link between our writing systems and technical language. Stern-faced, he detangles all parts. He is still very shy, but it is the Smiths that have made him grow, and he finds his confidence with each scholastic session. These days and these days alone will begin his extensive career as a recording producer, and will procure for him a stylish reputation that, to his credit, he will always measure up to. Every combination of chords has been done, but Johnny somehow manages the most imaginative bursts of sound on these final sessions, and the three other Smiths follow. I talk about the sad lilt in Johnny’s chord structures, but as usual everyone offers iffy squints my way, as if I am being far too sappy. Strangeways, Here We Come is the most joyful and relaxed Smiths studio session, with crates of beer wheeled in at the close of each day and no war in sight. Andy’s playing is exalted, and Mike registers St George’s explosion blissfully. I begin the vocal for Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before, when Stephen stops me, even though he hasn’t heard this one before.

  ‘Er, Morrissey, I think there’s a grammatical error here – “who said I lied because I never” ...’ he aids, helpfully.

  ‘Yesssssssssssssss,’ I hiss, like an adder on heat, ‘it’s meant to be there,’ and now I know how Joan of Arc felt.

  ‘Ooh,’ he sinks, and allows me to proceed. I am an instrument.

  A window-ledge in a forgotten corner of the Wool Hall Studios showcases a peculiar stringed instrument from 1777, which Johnny instantly grabs – ‘Oh, let’s see how this sounds’ – and, by second run-through, he can play the oddly stringed lyre that has no sound hole. The strings are possibly horsehair, and there is a barely usable tuning bar, but the sound Johnny finds is mesmerizing, and the song I won’t share you is alive. It is a fascinating moment when Johnny’s inner ear leads the way to somewhere unknown – somewhere mistrusted by all until the final depth of thought strikes. The technical term is bling.

  The vocal room houses an old Red Lion piano that I decide to bang during a run-through of Death of a disco dancer. More Lieutenant Pigeon than pianoforte, the Donnybrook punch-up pianner nonetheless remains in the track, and for the first (and last) time I am loosely listed as a musician.

  ‘Do you mind if I re-do it and make it better?’ asks Johnny.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ replies Mrs Mills.

  My leap into multi-instrumentalism equals Johnny’s sky-dive into song, as he tackles his first ever vocalism. His tremulous quaver on Death at one’s elbow is a honeyed flow, although he insists that he cannot sing.

  At the close of the Strangeways sessions there took place a glut of meetings with accountants and lawyers at the Wool Hall Studio, and in the context of such, the Smiths breathed a last exhausted sigh, and folded. It happened as quickly and as unemotionally as this sentence took to describe it. No high-octane squabbles, no screams at midnight, no flying furniture, no one dragged head first into the snake-pit, no animated yelps from unused outbuildings (these would, of course, come eight years later, eight years too late, at the Smiths High Court trial). In 1987, at Roland Gardens, Johnny and I stood – he smiling, I not master but servant. Sing me to sleep|I’m tired, and I|I want to go to bed.

  Strangeways, Here We Come was, we both knew, the Smiths’ masterpiece, with everything in its perfect place. The search for wisdom had ended, from womb to tomb, and here we are – wanting to live yet longing for sleep. Johnny and I were both drained beyond belief, and there was no one around us to suggest that we disappear somewhere to rest, and apart. We do not telephone each other for two weeks, and then suddenly the press is rife with Smiths split stories. To obviate doubt, we hold off with communications, and I sit, watching the situation as if behind glass. An unnamable insider tells all, and the press launches stories of bitter feuds during catty sessions for Strangeways, Here We Come. These, we are all assured, are the facts, and professional fusspot An
thony Wilson jumps in with ‘The Smiths have broken up because Johnny has had enough of Morrissey.’ Of unmerited renown, Wilson was never too busy to stick the boot in. His career had not lasted, yet he quite luckily managed a lengthy and slow decline which some thought was actually an ongoing career. The rumor is more important than the truth, and as soon as the rumor is half-uttered it gains strength. It is all too much, too sickening, and press reports tell us confidently that Johnny has left the country to work with Talking Heads; monogamous I, polygamous he. What erupts from such situations, when there are so many harmful and hurtful opinions darting about, is that we wind in on ourselves in a squalid effort to put up a defense against the noise, to save our reputations from the hoodoo chants who want you snuffed out; and no story is complete without blame, blame, fatal blame.

  Everyone suddenly has an expert eye, and you just might find yourself contemptibly savaged or disadvantaged by scientific studies of what went wrong, even though those who announce ‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’ cannot possibly have any way or means to account for their misinformation.

  ‘Well,’ smiles Geoff Travis ruefully, ‘the general opinion is that side 1 of Strangeways is terrific, and side 2 is very weak.’ By ‘general opinion’ Geoff means solely his own opinion. Geoff makes this statement knowing that side 2 tucks away Paint a vulgar picture, which vibrates negative electrons at someone in Geoff’s humanitarian position. ‘I’ve played Coma to the Jesus and Mary Chain and they think it’s very funny,’ he goes on, as if such a red seal might finally give me the will to pick up the pieces.

  As I stand up to leave Geoff calls to me, ‘I can get Roddy Frame to replace Johnny,’ and before I have time to burst into tears (for I don’t quite know what Roddy Frame’s name is expected to mean), Geoff is up and out and gone. As quick as lightning, Frame proudly issues a ‘Morrissey asked me to join the Smiths, but I refused’ badge of honor to the press – as if the mere request alone from Geoff had lit up his lunchtime.