Big Mouth Strikes Again

For HND Journalism we had to write a profile of a celebrity.

Few icons manage to outlive the generation they’re born into let alone maintain a thriving fan-base two decades later. The road hasn’t always been easy, with lawsuits, fluctuating record sales, accusations of racism and all matter of controversy, but Steven Morrissey was never one to run with the crowd.

The roots of the Morrissey phenomenon lie in the Davyhulme suburb of Manchester where Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22nd May 1959. The second child of Irish Catholic parents, by the age of nine Steven was a problem child. His Father later admitted he thought his only son to be a “complete fruitcake”, but his Mother, a librarian, saw the artistic side of her young son and keenly introduced him to the works of Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde, the latter sparking an infatuation that persists to this day. Reserved and painfully shy, the young Morrissey was already a loner, a trait which would follow him into his teenage years and adulthood.

In the early 1970’s the barely teenage Morrissey had already discovered his interest in music, worshipping bands such as The New York Dolls and Sparks. His love was made public in June 1974 when NME published a letter from the 15-year-old Morrissey praising Sparks. Soon, he was bombarding the music press with early snippets of his piercing tongue and razor sharp opinions. In Manchester indie circles Morrissey was now a minor celebrity as fellow New York Dolls fan Phil Fletcher remembers, “I said, I’ve read letters by you in the press and seen you at the Free Trade Hall. He found it hilarious that somebody would notice him. I think he felt he was a star because somebody knew him.”

Conversations with other early Mancunian peers reveal that the young Morrissey had always wanted to be the star himself. What little money he earned from his first job as a clerical officer at the Inland Revenue was spent on records and attending gigs while he spent the majority of his time in his bedroom dreaming of stardom and penning scathing letters to the music press and his ever-growing collection of pen-pals. Morrissey was not prepared to go out and find stardom, it had to find him.

Now the early eighties, Morrissey had become what he later referred to as “something of a back bedroom casualty.” Spending long periods on the dole, he was what best friend and Ludus singer, Linder Sterling describes as “totally unemployable”. With very few social skills and intimidating eccentricity forming a band now seemed out of the question. He briefly changed direction and attempted to pursue a career as a music journalist, being taken on by the Record Mirror as a freelance local reviewer. A handful of record reviews and concert reports followed, but nothing more. In his early twenties Morrissey was already a has-been.

Eager to start a band, guitarist Johnny Marr approached local musician Rob Allman. Allman, a regular on the Manchester scene knew Morrissey and suggested they meet. Marr boarded the 263 bus to Stretford in search of the mythical Morrissey. By the end of the day, The Smiths was born. Marr called upon old friends Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce to complete the line-up and in a last attempt to consolidate himself as the next big thing, Steven Morrissey dropped his forename and became the Morrissey enigma. When asked about this Morrissey simply said, "I just felt this absolutely massive relief at not being called Steven anymore."

In the five years The Smiths were together they released five albums, toured relentlessly and became the band that epitomised the 1980’s. Morrissey’s eccentricities became a trademark and his decision to appear on Top of the Pops waving a bunch of daffodils and insistence on wearing a hearing aid even though there was nothing wrong with his hearing spurred the now legendary cult of Morrissey.

The demise of The Smiths in 1987 left Morrissey heartbroken. Despite admitting he always heard “great beauty in Marr’s rolling chords,” he was still driven by his ambition and wasted no time in releasing solo material. The cult of Morrissey was to leave The Smiths behind.

In the almost twenty years since the end of The Smiths, Morrissey has released six solo albums, toured the world, become a powerful animal rights campaigner, spoken his mind on everything from politics to British soap opera and in stark contrast to his previous Anglophilia, in 1998 set up home in Los Angeles, leaving England behind.

Worshipped by fans new and old and hailed as a genius by his peers, Morrissey is and always has been a true original and a bona-fide British icon. And as his nephew Sam attempts to shed some light on the real Steven Morrissey, the man himself is as elusive as he always has been. “At the end of the day, he lives in L.A., he drives a Jag, and he goes to the beach. I don’t think he’s living in a dark room dressed in black.”