My lovely friend Rich asked this week (jokingly) if he should go and see Morrissey when he comes to play New Zealand later this year. Rich has lived there for 12 years now. I miss going to gigs with him. I also enjoy annoying him about bands I can see he can't. So I appreciate that when major bands go to NZ, he goes. He's even seen Pearl Jam there (oh, the shame...).
But not Moz...I don't believe Morrissey is a racist, I really don't. But he has a baffling love of championing people with VERY suspect views...I don't believe it's right to ignore this. So I have stopped supporting him. Or as the right would say, I have cancelled him.
I know he is an outsider, but his belief in conspiracy theories is on a par with Ian Brown. Imagine, Morrissey is the intellectual peer of Ian Brown. I wonder if he's ever considered this...
Anyway, here’s my 26 point email to Rich on why not to go…
A) he’ll cancel - see this fantastic analysis of every gig Moz has cancelled
B) he has some very suspect views on Islam to say the least and the connection between Halal meat and Isis (see Guardian 2018). It's hard to see him as anything other than an Islamophobe
C) he loves Nigel Farage and Brexit
D) he is a twat
E) he has not made a truly good album since 2004 (You Are The Quarry is really good)
F) he supports Tommy Robinson (see Guardian 2018)
G) he supports For Britain, whose website calls for a reduction of immigration into the UK, the "end of the Islamisation of the UK" and the protection of British culture - it's a political party whose members were kicked out of UKIP for being “too right wing”. Really.
H) his tribute to Sinead O’Connor, like everything he does and says, was all about him and trying to position himself as an unappreciated outsider - he is not, he is an uneducated pompous arse who never learnt critical thinking or reflection
I) he has a new song called Notre Dame which suggests ND was burnt down by immigrants - it was a wiring problem, but he continues the right wing conspiracy it was immigrants
J) I think the last time you and I saw him was at RAH in 2002 and you complained about the £35 ticket price - imagine how much he will charge now! It was £70 in 2015 when I last saw him and it was shite
K) he’ll cancel. I know I already said this but it merits repeating
L) his cover version album is one of the most appalling things I have ever listened to
M) he has two unreleased albums - he thinks that is because he is challenging the mainstream - it hasn’t occurred to him it might be because the songs are rubbish
N) despite the fact the Queen has been dead for a year, he has not played The Queen Is Dead once since then. Spineless arsehole
O) Morrissey on Adolf Hitler: “The modern Loony Left seem to forget that Hitler was Left wing! But of course, we are all called racist now, and the word is actually meaningless.”
P) you know the night you go, he’ll drop the Smiths songs he has been playing and just do Cilla Black's Work Is A Four Letter Word - just because he can
Q) as a reformed Moz zealot, can you really face being in a room full of sad old gits with greying, flopping and thinning quiffs that are out protruded by their beer bellies
R) he blamed Beyoncé for the near extinction of rhinos - I mean, wow.
S) after losing his court case in 2006, he has defaulted on paying Mike Joyce who I think is still using legal means to get the money he is owed - what a shit way to treat someone
T) he’ll cancel. See K)
U) he has sullied the memory and enjoyment of listening to the greatest British band ever by being such an unrepentant, narcissistic prick
V) you are a DJ - he would hang you and thinks dance music is “a refuge for the mentally deficient”
W) he keeps reissuing albums with new track listings - reissue, repackage, repackage indeed…
X) you’ll buy a t-shirt with his miserable face (highly touched up and edited to cover up he is now an old fucker) and then the next day you will wear it, but be filled with regret.
Y) when you wear that t-shirt, other old white men wearing the same shirt will nod at you appreciatively but you won’t know is that because they love The Smiths or because they are a big racist and think you are too
Z) he’ll cancel!!!!
If you do go, please make an equivalent donation to a refugee charity so you “Morrissey Offset”. I have been #morrisseyneutral for over 8 years now.
Hope that is all clear, x