“The fact that I’m on this stage is an incredible accomplishment in itself, because as you know the jealous bitches tried to get rid of me.” This was the cry of the once-Charming former Smiths frontman at his O2 Arena gig last month. That’s right people, Morrissey is back, despite your best efforts to destroy him! How do you like him now, eh? The answer, it seems, remains, “not very much.” The gig was met with two and three-star reviews and his new album, Make Up Is A Lie, was widely panned. The lead single peaked at number 54 in the charts.
Morrissey didn’t specify exactly who he meant by “jealous bitches”, but there are several contenders. Could it be his old band mates: Johnny Marr, who reportedly refused a reunion tour, or Andy Rourke (who died in 2023) and Mike Joyce who famously sued him for royalties? Or is it Morrissey’s former record labels: BMG, who dropped him in 2020, or Capitol/Harvest, who he noisily “parted ways” with in 2014?
Perhaps these “jealous bitches” are the music critics who over the years have slammed Morrissey as “bitter”, “bile-spewing” and (my personal favourite from Laura Snapes of The Guardian) an “old man [who] yells at cloud” referencing the viral Simpson meme. Or are they his legions of former fans: a generally left-leaning bunch who used Morrissey as an emotional oxygen mask through their teens before abandoning him over his defence of Tommy Robinson and wearing a “For Britain” badge associated with the far-right. Other alienating comments include describing Hitler as “left wing”, Chinese people as a “subspecies” (in relation to the country’s treatment of animals) and ex-Ukip candidate Anne Marie Waters as “a humane version of Thatcher.”
For anyone who, like me, fell in love with Morrissey for his gentle lyrics about yearning for connection, this was a total head-spin. Never a Smiths purist, I would listen to “First of the Gang to Die” with the same rapt solipsism as “How Soon Is Now”. Unquestioning devotion meant I managed to miss the rumbling nationalist undertones in songs like “Irish Blood, English Heart”, something that became impossible to do once Morrissey started mouthing off about non-white politicians. (He said Sadiq Khan “cannot speak properly” and “even Tesco wouldn’t employ Diane Abbott” during a 2018 interview with John Riggers.) And that’s possibly because, broadly speaking, the song was still a banger, making it easy to sing along without thinking too hard.
Sadly, Make Up Is A Lie is such a plodding, clumsy dirge, that the strange and sinister sentiments clearly shine through. The lyrics of the opening number, “You’re Right, It’s Time” sound like something your uncle would say ominously at Christmas: “I wanna move away from those who stare at screens all day / I want to speak up and not be trapped by censorship.” Here we go. Let’s just try to make it through the turkey.
The album’s most controversial track, “Notre-Dame”, flirts with the firmly disproved conspiracy theory that ISIS terrorists were behind starting the fire at the Paris Cathedral in 2019. “We know who tried to kill you”, “we will not be silent”, it chants. When Morrissey started performing the song back in 2023, it featured the line, “Before investigations / They said, ‘It’s not terrorism’”. On the record, this became “They said, ‘There’s nothing to see here.’”
The album isn’t always incendiary, often it’s just surprisingly pat. “Zoom Zoom the Little Boy”, features the lines, “He wants to save the cats and the dogs and the bats and the frogs / And the badgers and the hedgehogs.” It sounds like something written by a sleep-deprived parent for an unimpressed four-year-old. It couldn’t be further from the witty, surprising, self-aware warble that defined Morrissey’s Smiths career and some of his earlier solo work.
At his O2 gig, Morrissey declared he is “concerned about the safety of all communities, but the one that’s at risk now is my own”. It reminded me of the Ricky Gervais joke, but with none of the irony: “I’m a white heterosexual multi-millionaire… there’s less than 1 per cent of us. Do I whine? No.” But Morrissey has made this whine his entire schtick. Despite filling arena after arena, he’s still the boy who cried “cancelled”.
The irony is his controversial comments are the very thing keeping him in the limelight. Morrissey once radiated intrigue and mystery: now, as repugnant as they are, his dog-whistle views are becoming more noteworthy than his new music. Like so many former fans, the thing that keeps leading me back to him isn’t loyalty, it’s morbid curiosity. But sadly, all Morrissey will see is the green-eyed glare of another jealous bitch.
[Further reading: Harry Styles: the return of Mr Subtle]
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment