Autobiography

by Morrissey

  On page 8, Weeks states that: ‘In July 1985 Arthur Young were replaced by Ross Bennet-Smith. The decision to change accountants was taken by Morrissey and Marr without reference to Joyce or Rourke, and their letter of appointment is signed by Morrissey and Marr alone.’ What I can’t understand, however, is that if all four were the indisputable partners that Weeks insisted they were, how could such an accountancy switch have ever taken place? It could not.

  Weeks does not consider how Joyce or Rourke responded to their not being consulted, and he does not ask them why they allowed such a switch ‘without their consultation’, and Weeks does not consider how possible it would have been for Joyce and Rourke to initiate the switch from Arthur Young to Ross Bennet-Smith without the compliance of Morrissey and Marr!

  It is evident here (as elsewhere) that Joyce and Rourke were not considered to be equal partners to Morrissey and Marr by either set of reputable accountancy firms. If Joyce and Rourke had been recognized as equal partners to Morrissey and Marr, then surely neither Arthur Young nor Ross Bennet-Smith would accept such a critical move without the approval of Joyce and Rourke. Weeks flagrantly says nothing about correspondence from Arthur Young to Rourke and Joyce reminding both that their 10 per cent royalty would not continue once the band had broken up.

  Joyce had said in court that he had never seen the original Rough Trade contract – yet his signature is on the contract as a witness to the signatures of both Morrissey and Marr! Could the lumpen lunacy possibly dive-bomb further?

  At this stage, and at all stages, all evidence of Joyce and Rourke’s junior position is dispelled by accusing Morrissey and Marr of secrecy. In doing so Weeks also calls into question the professionalism of both accountancy firms, and he also fails to ask Joyce and Rourke what on earth they were doing when such critical business transactions took place. Even more importantly, Weeks does not ask Joyce and Rourke what steps they took once they realized that ‘their’ accountant had been changed. Why won’t Weeks ask such questions? Could it be because he knows the answer won’t help Joyce?

  On page 9, Weeks states of Ross Bennet-Smith: ‘on behalf of their clients, the four partners’ and also states: ‘Unlike Arthur Young, they did not meet all four partners in person.’ Before one asks the rudimentary ‘why not?’ it is fascinating to see Weeks hammer and hammer the notion of ‘the four partners’, knowing that he is the only person historically to have ever done so. Certainly, Ross Bennet-Smith and Arthur Young have never once referred to ‘four partners’!

  Furthermore, why would any professional accountancy firm accept the business of four partners if two of those partners had never been seen or heard? What was to prove that the missing two ‘partners’ even existed? The Judicial Judgment now enters the realm of the hallucinatory.

  On page 10, Weeks states: ‘On 12th November 1985 Mr Bennet-Smith sent Mr Morrissey only a copy of the 1983/1984 accounts asking him to arrange for all four band members to sign where indicated.’ No one, including Weeks, asked why Mr Bennet-Smith would write to only Morrissey if all four were recognized as equal partners. What was preventing Mr Bennet-Smith from writing to Joyce? And why would Mr Bennet-Smith not write to Joyce if Joyce were indeed an equal partner? Weeks is adamant that the partnership was a four-way equal split, though there is no documentation throughout the history of the band to support this insistence. Weeks relies excitedly upon the fact that Arthur Young had ‘met all four members of the band’, but he does not mention that this took place only once, and at a meeting to which Arthur Young had not invited Joyce or Rourke!

  Overall, the point of interest is shifted in Weeks’s judgment to one group member (Morrissey), who, according to Weeks, gained the attentions of accountants so that Joyce could not. Yes, the judgment of John Weeks was that silly. Weeks apparently didn’t feel the need to ask why Andrew Bennet-Smith (and others) did NOT write to Joyce as well as – or even instead of – Morrissey. After all, why ask one person (Morrissey) to ‘arrange for all four members to sign where indicated’?

  Surely if all four were equal partners, and surely if all four were seen as sensible adults, it would be the duty of any accountant to themselves obtain signatures, and not to give one the responsibility of chasing the others down? Further, Weeks will not consider the fortune of Joyce in not being burdened with the responsibility of either hunting down the signatures of others, or personally answering any accountant or lawyer.

  If, as Weeks drummed and drummed in paradiddle echo, Rourke ‘was always’ an equal partner, why did Rourke eventually accept a financial settlement to drop the legal action that Joyce continued with? One might think that Rourke would only ever do such a thing if he knew deep down that he had never been appointed 25 per cent equality.

  When Craig Gannon became the fifth Smith, how could there continue to be an equal 25 per cent split between the ‘four partners’? It would be mathematically impossible. This fact does not serve Joyce and Weeks does not mention it in his final judgment – a judgment that lists no less than thirty devious, truculent and unreliable errors on behalf of its author. Weeks succeeded in depicting Morrissey and Marr as oil and water; Nigel Davis succeeded as the reason why all kings kept court jesters; Joyce succeeded as an adult impersonating a child; the tenure of the Smiths is desecrated into comic opera; Rourke succeeded as an overgrown houseplant – his brain battling with woodworm; the truth clashed with an outmoded law; I must account for everything I have ever done and everything I have not done, whilst Joyce need only cry tears of non-responsibility; Johnny’s crime is that he watched it all and said nothing, hoping to avoid the noose already tight around my own neck; the three tough Manchester lads sat like nervous girls, as the Weeks of great title and wealth buried How soon is now? in a sorefooted farce of bewildered sorrow. There is a light that now goes out, and Joyce bows his head as the agent of disaster.

  Nothing and no one can alter the artists’ position. ‘I do possess what none can take away,’ Oscar Wilde had said, but an appeal against the Weeks judgment will only succeed if fresh evidence is found. Hysterically, fresh evidence is provided by Joyce himself in January 1999 when he appears on a television documentary on the Smiths (principally the court case) where he addresses the camera with the statement:

  ‘We didn’t come to an agreement we were going to get 25 per cent.’

  There it is. Why didn’t he say that in court? And how exactly is perjury defined? Not that it would have made any difference, Weeks is so weighted in favor of Joyce that he expects me to prove the 10 per cent agreement, and allows Joyce to rely on the presumption.

  Nevertheless, I rush a VHS copy of the Joyce interview to my acting barrister Murray Rosen. Here is Joyce, on camera, admitting that 25 per cent equality had never been proposed during all of those years when he readily accepted his 10 per cent (a 10 per cent which, it’s worth adding, amounted to an enormous sum of money). I hear nothing from my barrister or my new solicitor as the appeal approaches. I am worried. I demanded acknowledgement of the VHS. It is not forthcoming. I demand that the VHS be presented at the appeal as new evidence. I warn my new solicitor that he must impose urgency upon Murray Rosen to utilize the VHS, and by reply, my solicitor resigns.

  At the appeal the VHS is not submitted. Instead the appeal rests on documentation from Ross Bennet-Smith that was sent to Joyce during his Smiths term which clearly outlines to Joyce his 10 per cent cut of Smiths royalties, which Joyce admitted that he received and accepted, but added that he did not understand the implication of the 10 per cent figure next to his own name. Surely this was proof that Joyce knew and had no issue with being a 10 per cent member? Of the three elderly appeal judges, Lord Waller fell asleep unashamedly throughout the entire hearing – his chin resting on his chest. He awakes briefly and his right index finger lodges in his right nostril, as he fiddles about with the unseen. It would be comical if not so grotesque, and we can only despair at how lives and reputations rely so urgently on the thoughts o
f such puppetry. The more alert Lord Thorpe dismisses the acceptance by Joyce of the 10 per cent documentation with the appalling ‘I accept that Mr Joyce received this documentation, but he put it away in a drawer and said he didn’t understand it, and if Mr Morrissey claims that he didn’t understand [aspects of accountancy] then I accept that Mr Joyce couldn’t either.’

  What Lord Thorpe is saying is that Joyce hadn’t the intelligence to detangle:

  M. Joyce 10 per cent

  and Lord Thorpe is also saying that Joyce can be forgiven for, instead, believing that he imagined he had read:

  M. Joyce 25 per cent

  With that, this crucial and indisputable piece of evidence is strangled, and Joyce once again has the luck of the Gods. Thus, my Appeal is thrown out on the basis that Joyce cannot possibly be expected to understand anything that I, the axis of all human endeavor, might not understand.

  What on earth have the private actions of Joyce to do with me?

  Plainly, my barrister, Murray Rosen, would not produce the VHS evidence of Joyce admitting that he was not an equal 25 per cent partner because Rosen wanted to protect John Weeks. Rosen was in line for judicial promotion, and in the halls of justice, solidarity amongst the adjudicators must never be jumbled by mere scruples.

  The very final words of the appeal belonged to Lord Waller who, now awake, said, in May 1999:

  The Judge was right to conclude that the basis on which the Smiths commenced their partnership both as a fact and as presumed by law was never varied, and I would dismiss the appeal.

  However, if the judge was as right as Lord Waller had no doubts that he was, why would Joyce announce on television in January 1999, ‘We didn’t come to an agreement we were going to get 25 per cent.’ In the circle of Joyce, Lord Waller and deputy Weeks, someone is trifling with truth like a trooper.

  The truth sleeps, and the moon above goes on and on saying nothing.

  I cannot be robbed of anything that matters, but the Smiths are dead, and it’s so lonely on a limb.

  I emerge bolder. Everything inside me has suddenly changed. I arrive at full growth as the press titter the success of Joyce in crushing monster Morrissey – yet Marr is never mentioned even though the case was officially Joyce versus Morrissey and Marr, and, whilst the press manage to report the Weeks verdict, they cannot penetrate it. As always, Johnny slips out the backdoor unnoticed.

  I am blessed with a lucrative deal from Mercury Records in New York and I begin recording the album Maladjusted, yet another collection of unpopular themes, and one which will largely pass unnoticed, although I swell with pride at Trouble loves me, Ambitious outsiders, Alma matters and Wide to receive. I suddenly find myself represented by Vicki Wickham, who had tripped up one night and found herself dancing with Marlon Brando (who probably mistakenly thought she was a woman), but Maladjusted slumps in at number 8 in the UK and number 60 in the US, with the usual barrage of vicious reviews.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ says Vicki, ‘it’s not as if anyone ELSE is doing anything interesting.’ No, but this doesn’t mean that I am, either. Although I love Maladjusted, the artwork is out of my hands and terrifies anyone who gazes upon it. Vicki is stumped and can’t drum up any ideas. I pay her £80,000 and say goodbye to her. She takes the money and runs – the first time I see her in action.

  For the single Alma matters, on-the-beam Willie Garcia takes me to Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles for a back-alley photo shoot where I lounge against a hep automobile that stands neglected and stranded in time. A sullen, idle posture is wasted as a seven-foot homeless blackface jumps in with: ‘You show up on these streets one more time and I will have you killed.’ I am impressed by my own composure, and by how at least some people have the nerve to get straight to the point.

  Having left the band for better things, Spencer sends a note:

  Listen luvvy, I have decided to go to drama school. I am going to Chicago as I have a couple of interviews out there. How’s your screenplay coming along?

  It would be great to see you again.

  Spencer

  This is a surprising communication from Spencer, because he had evidently left the band in a huff – he did most things in a huff – giving up the drums forever and cursing me for holding him back in his bid for stardom. I do not ever see Spencer again, but he joins the familiar cycle of musicians who walk away but somehow refuse to leave the building, and instead tag on with tatty tales as the years go by – unable to flap their own wings, after all. Morrissey is indeed the mother ship, from which every act of compassion must be followed by yet another act of compassion – or else.

  Maladjusted had been recorded once again at my spiritual home, Hook End Manor. Time at Hook End had always been a time to reflect on velvet lawns of dreaming spires where the quiet winds its way. The most bucolic spot of winsome British charm, the lithely blithe Hook End shelters specters dating back to the 1700s, and an underground tunnel from the 1200s. Unmarked by the injuries of time, the bosom of Hook End melted everybody’s heart with its greenest of greens against the bluest of skies; a paradise of deafening birdsong around the red- and mellow-bricked splendor of jutting chimneys and latticed windows – all leftovers from the Jacobean era of liturgical dramas. Silence always, except for the occasional 747 waved off at Heathrow, or the caws of crows as they chase off a bird of prey.

  There are lush lawns for games never played, and majestic trees blocking out the ugly outer world. To live this way forever, amid lavender and foxglove, cracked flagstones and fluted birdsong, jet-trails and giant snails, batty bats just missing your hats, show-off peacocks on outhouse sheds, where watching television seems like a sinful waste of life. The staff and their pets, the owners and vets, all change with time, yet I remain, a constant of three decades of waxed floors and soothing mid-day soup. The photographs for the original Kill Uncle are taken on the Hook End lawns; the smiling Greatest Hits cover taken in the White Room; the lounging Piccadilly palare cover taken in the same room; the Our Frank cover taken in the woods behind the house; the Ouija board video filmed in those same woods; the Sing your life photographs taken further into the same woods; an NME ad sees me emerging from the dining-room doors; the sleeve for Interesting drug taken in the Brown Room upstairs. Hardly a yard of Hook End stands without its Morrissey mark, a history full of sentiment for me, if no one else, with tears always gathering at the final umbilical slash.

  With Maladjusted, I attempt to get on with my life, but the seaweed of Joyce clings like a parasitic tagtail. Although John Weeks had allotted Joyce 25 per cent of all the Smiths’ past earnings, no provision had been made by Weeks for how such money would be found, or collected, or if such money even existed almost ten years after the demise of the band. Therefore Weeks kindly yet clumsily left it to Joyce to find the money for himself, and Joyce was allowed to add on any penalty fees and legal fees as Joyce might see fit during his time of recovering. In essence, Joyce was suddenly free to bleed both Morrissey and Marr forever. Immediately Joyce sent his lawyers to close down my London bank account, and empty it of every last penny. With the words of Weeks behind them, they had no trouble. Joyce then took legal action to seize my mother’s house – assuming it to be in my name. My mother steps into her garage one day to access her car, and is startled to notice one of Joyce’s legal lice trespassing at the back of the garage, half shadowed by darkness. My mother threatens to call the police and the solicitor runs off in a fit of guilt.

  The word TRUCULENT appears painted in six-foot-high letters across the wall at the front of my mother’s house. My mother’s cat crawls into the kitchen having been doused with deadly paint that almost kills her. Eggs are splattered across my mother’s front door. When Joyce discovers that my mother’s house is not in my name, he makes a further charge on the grounds that the ownership was switched to avoid paying the ‘it’s not about money’ drummer. When further legal scrambling proves that the house had not
been in my name for many years – long before the court action – Joyce withdraws his attack, leaving me with new legal bills of £200,000 for defending myself against his whims. Joyce then takes action to claim my sister’s home, where she lives with her two children. The process begins again, and once again Joyce is thwarted since that house, also, is not registered to me.

  Once again I must lay out up to £100,000 deflecting his harassment. Finally, he lays claim on all of my royalties from Smiths recordings, and as Warner comply with his wishes (although they quite interestingly do not contractually take him on as a recognized Smiths partner!) Joyce grabs all he can, and this continues unchecked and unmonitored for over a decade to come, thus I no longer have free possession of any royalties for Smiths sales. Insatiable, Joyce collects approximately £3 million – or thereabouts, since Warner don’t clarify the situation with me. It is a farce of unimaginable proportions, with the dominion of Joyce enjoying eternal command because John Weeks, deliberately or accidentally, laid down no boundaries for the smash ’n grab.

  In January 2001, Joyce utilized his own private website to disseminate defamatory statements by email that would foment contempt towards me. When asked (by ‘fans’ of the Smiths) about his latest musical venture, Joyce replied that both he and Rourke were part of a group called Aziz, but he said: ‘We are not a part of the record contract, which technically makes us session musicians.’ Here was Joyce tripping himself up yet again. If Joyce had considered himself to be ‘only’ a session musician in his new group, why was he not considered to be so during this time with the Smiths, given that the contractual standing of both positions was identical? Also, if he had honestly thought himself to have a rightful claim of equality in the Smiths, why would he not make similar demands in ensuing ventures? Further still, if the axle upon which the relationship between Morrissey and Marr as the Smiths swiveled had been the main bearing of the written songs, and Joyce had no rights to publishing, how could equality ever exist if two group members are naturally excluded from the central pivot that maintains the group’s success and existence? It couldn’t. Publishing was not a minor Smiths facet (the songs are why the Smiths are remembered), but was, in fact, the essential center of the Morrissey–Marr partnership, without which nothing else existed. How can any judge see an equal partnership in any business where one entity (Joyce) is unconnected to the central work of the relationship that, in itself, gives existence to that relationship – and without the aid of Joyce? It cannot be argued that Joyce is equal in all things except publishing, because publishing (or songwriting) is 100 per cent of why the Smiths became the Smiths, and if someone is not a part of the publishing then they could never be found to be equal partners under any circumstances.