Talk:Morrissey/Archive 2

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Location of Stretford

Stretford is not in the county of Lancashire it is in the county of Greater Manchester: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretford —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tremello22 (talk • contribs)

Not in 1959, which is the time referred to in the introduction. --ajn (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Morrisseymusic.com

Why is Morrisseymusic.com listed as morrissey's official website? Didn't Morrissey say, "Thirdly, I have no connection at all with the site called Morrisseymusic.com. It is controlled by Sanctuary and I am neither consulted nor involved."--199.176.241.60 13:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It's controlled by Sanctuary but that was considered his official site. http://www.true-to-you.net/ is the site Morrissey uses communicate with fans, that's more like his offical site. Englishrose 14:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Should it be changed, thus?--24.15.165.14 23:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


Relationships

Does anyone know if Morrissey actually entered into any romantic relationships of any merit? There have been some speculations, both of a hetro and homosexual nature, but I was just wondering if there is any evidence to back up any of these claims?

No evidence exists either way. Morrissey is tight-lipped on the subject of his private life, and rightly so, I might add -- what he does is no one's business (this idea goes without saying), and whatever he did say would unquestionably be twisted, dissected, and ultimately corrupted by the media, and, I daresay, interpreted in various opposing ways by much of his longtime, über-devoted fanbase. Weavermoz 02:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Morrissey had a close companion called Jake Walters circa 1993-5. It was widely rumoured the pair were romantically involved, but once again never confirmed or denied (Jake's hands appear on the back of the Vauxhall and I album). Whether true or not, this is the closest to a "public relationship" Morrissey has ever had.

Morrissey was romantically linked to a certain Lee Farrant during the mid 1980s, and they were often seen arm in arm frequenting various south London boutiques.

Lee Farrant?? Never heard of that name, and I've heard a great deal of Moz-related gossip LOL In any case, a wonderfully androgynous name, 'Lee'. Could be male, could be female (what a perfect Moz gossip ;) ).Nightandday 12:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Jake Walters (who was also Morrissey's personal assistant circa 1994-1995) has denied that he was romantically involved with Morrissey. He was quoted in the infamous Dave Simpson 1998 Uncut article, and he claimed that Morrissey and he were friends and shared a flat for some time (until 1995), and that, even though they weren't that close anymore, they still heard from each other from time to time. (BTW, he also called Morrissey 'the most interesting and fascinating character I've ever met.) (http://motorcycleaupairboy.com/interviews/1998/uncut.htm) It's true that Morrissey didn't confirm or deny it, but then, he was never asked about it in an interview, to the best of my knowledge.

To make things clear: Morrissey has admitted to having been in love, having had relationships, or having had sexual encounters - he just never named anyone. It's certain that in his pre-Smiths days (as a teenager/early 20s) he had some failed relationships and sexual encounters that he described as mostly bad. He has said that he lost his virginity at the age of 12 or 13, and that a series of bad experiences made him decide to abstain from sex. In 1992 interview he mentioned matter-of-factly that he had slept with women and had a 'physical encounter' with a man 10 years before. (source: http://motorcycleaupairboy.com/interviews/1992/observer.htm) There's also Johnny Marr's explanation (Record Mirror, 1984): "Morrissey doesn't participate in sex and hasn't done so in a while, he's had a lot of girlfriends in the past and quite a few men friends." Morrissey also once made an off-remark once about a 'girl I once had a relationship with'... (quoted in the book "Morrissey In Quotes")

Finally, in a 1997 interview in The Guardian (source: http://motorcycleaupairboy.com/interviews/1997/affair.htm) he said that he had had a relationship with someone during the previous two years (that would mean around 1995-97), which had ended 'recently' (as the article said). He didn't say anything about who the person was. He has also said several times in recent years that he hasn't been celibate for years. Now, how many other 'relationships of merit' he has had, and who with - I don't know.

And yes, there are tons of rumours about men or women who were supposedly involved with Morrissey at some point. Some of these rumours have absolutely no foundation (e.g. the rumour about him and Michael Stipe, which Morrissey has strongly denied, only started because people misread an interview of his to mean that the song 'Found, Found, Found' was about Stipe, which he actually never said), in other cases there might be some truth to it, but there is no definite proof. The only exception, as far as I know, is a a remark in a letter to one of his pen-pals (1980-1981): "Will you send me some pornography? Do you have a girlfriend? Do you like girls? I have a girlfriend called Annalisa. We're both bisexual. Real hip, uh? I hate sex." source: http://www.torr.org/moz/letters.htm He was very probably referring to a certain Annalisa Jablonska, who contributed the vocals to 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' and 'Suffer Little Children' (described by Marr as 'Morrissey's friend Anna'). Also, in his book "Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance", Johnny Rogan mentions a black girl called Marcia that Morrissey "had a brief fling with" when he was 18, but I don't know if he has any proof that she was actually his girlfriend rather than just a friend.

There was also speculation about his relationship with (his life-long friend, artist and former Ludus singer) Linder Sterling, particularly about the time in early 80s when he supposedly shared the flat in Whalley Range with her and Ludus guitarist Ian Devine, or at least was a very regular visitor to the place (there are conflicting rumours on the matter). Nick Kent first made the assumption about Morrissey's and Linder's alleged previous relationship and speculated about the Smiths songs that might have been written about her, in his detailed 1985 article on The Smiths' past in The Face http://foreverill.com/interviews/1985/dreamer.htm (which angered Morrissey very much and resulted in Kent being banned from The Smiths camp). It is also discussed in a few entries in Simon Goddard's book "Songs That Saved Your Life". It's never been confirmed or denied; Morrissey has never been publicly asked about it, as far as I know; Linder has, in a recent interview (September 2006): "You've worked a lot with Morrissey, there's rumours you've been lovers..." - her only comment on this remark was "There's lots of gossip." http://www.gogoparis.com/gogogo/?q=taxonomy/term/348

Other people who have been rumoured to have been involved with Morrissey include his recent (male) manager, his (female) personal assistant around 2004, a male fan around the same time, an unnamed girlfriend circa 2002/2003 (could be the same one as the female PA, or not), his former press guy, a female fan called Wendy he used to be friends with...and so on. You get the idea. Basically, anyone who ever was seen in public with him or is known to have spent any significant time in his company is a suspect. :D I have absolutely no idea if any of those rumours were somehow founded, or if they were complete rubbish.

I hope this has answered your question in a satisfactory way... I can't help you any more than this. His life is largely still a mystery. I'm sorry if this post is too gossipy, I'm not usually like that. ;) I like the fact that he prefers to keep his private life private. I hate it when celebrities talk about their love affairs in gossip magazines etc. Nightandday 12:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


When we talk about Morrissey having publicly declared his celibacy, what exactly do we mean? That is, are we talking about sex or marriage?

Sex. He said he didn't have sexual relationships - however, that was in the Smiths days, a lot has changed since then. He has since made it clear several times that he is fed up with the 'celibacy' tag ("I used the word 'celibacy' once, in August 1984, and it has haunted me eversince"). As for marriage, he had always been generally against it.Nightandday 16:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

A full transcript of the interview where Johnny Marr claims that Morrissey had a bisexual past but at the time of the interview was asexual can be read online here: http://www.cemetrygates.com/vault/smiths/record.html --216.162.194.156 06:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


Opening sentence

The article for "The Smiths" reads '(...)rock group(...)' while this one reads '(...)pop band(...)'. I think it's advisable to mantain the same major music genre between these related articles... after all it's the very same encyclopedia.


Animal rights

Is there such a thing as an ethical vegetarian. Ifr so ios he one. SDources only please. I dispute strongly that his latest views have divided the country. That would imply a huge num ber of Brits supported his stance which is clearly false. Please don't insert POPV as fact. The reality is almost everyone thinks he is an extremist whose dangerous POV verges on the criminal, if it isn'tt criminal. Classical example of an uppity pop star who knows how to sing and uses that talent to try and promote political extremism, SqueakBox 16:17, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Also the justification of his use of the Union flag based on things that happened years later comes across as trying to disprove the fascist roots of Morrissey, and has been removed as such, SqueakBox 16:23, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

You don't like Morrissey, do you? I don't agree with everything you've said here, but I don't have any major problems with the edits you made. I just added an explanation of why Morrissey says he's a vegetarian and a source for some of the criticism he's been getting. - Maximusveritas 17:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't like his politics but I used to love The Smiths. But he seems from his actions and words to have become right-wing in the nasty, intolerant motivated by hate sense of the word, and I think about as much of violent animal extremists as I do of Islamic terrorists, ie they make the governemnt batten the hatch down, justifying all sorts of reactionary measures that take away from everyone's freedom because of the actions of a tiny, extremist minority, all very pseudo-radical and unhelpful towards the greater goal of a better, freer world for both humans and animals. I do feel there was some POV pushing in the article as it was, and indeed I haven't actually gone through the whole lot in the editing sense. Your further edits to my edits look great. Anyway I cam to the article reading this article on him, SqueakBox 18:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Animal rights are 'right-wing'?! You have no idea what 'right-wing' means, do you? Please abstain from making any further comments on politics, until you gain some knowledge on the subject. And BTW, Morrissey's views on animal rights, like them or not, have been the same when he was in the Smiths. Nightandday 17:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody wrote "Morrissey is currenly a vegan" but did not provide any source for that claim. Morrissey never said anything about being vegan, he never campaigned against the use of dairy or eggs for food, and in his recent interview on the Russell Brand show he said he doesn't consider himself a vegetarian, "I just don't eat meat". Therefore I've removed that piece of information which seems obviously wrong. 212.200.209.73


Racism

Was there anything that prompted the accusation of racism more than performing in the Union Flag? This objectively looks nationalistic, not racist! David.Monniaux 12:04, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm no expert but some read into Morrissey's lyrics that he was racist - "hang the DJ" in "Panic. Apparantly at the time most DJ's were black. A bit tenious i know but some apparantly really do believe it. His comments such as "black people and white people will never really get on or like each other" didnt help either. Hopefully someone with more knowledge can shed a bit of light on it.--195.188.152.14 01:12, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Where did you hear that most DJs were black?! I highly doubt that. Especially not BBC radio DJs such as Steve Wright. as for the "black people and white people will never really get on with each other" comment, he made it in an interview to a French magazine where he also said, in the same sentence, that the British and the French will never get along... Someone could have accused him of being anti-French. Just another example of typical Moz pessimism (you could accuse him of misanthropy based on many of his statements to the effect that relationships never work, people are born to live and die alone, etc.), but in the context of 1992, shortly after NME-fueled accusations, it only shows you Morrissey's stubborn refusal to defend himself and his habit of digging a deeper hole for himself instead... Nightandday 16:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Just by way of clarification here, the DJ Morrissey was referring to in the song Panic was the white Radio One's Steve Wright, who in-between launching a series of flop novelty records (eg. The Gay Cabrilerros) used his show to sneer at every other music act he did not like. Both The Smiths & Echo & The Bunnymen were regular targets for being "depressing" and "boring", but Wright went very quiet about The Smiths after Panic. He'd previously been debarred from future BBC run "awards" ceremonies after going on stage during one in January 1985 & uttering a series of caustic remarks about a number of acts Mark_Boyle 21:07, 31 Oct 2006 (UTC)


I think Morrissey's statements were more against genres of music rather than races of people. At the hight of this allegation, Morrissey was seen draped in the Union Flag - something at the time which was uncommon but now, since the Spice Girls' appearance a normality. Ironically, Morrissey also said that "reggae is vile" and his latest contract is with a vile record label. Kabads


Officially, "Panic" was written after a DJ named Steve Wright aired a "futile" Wham! music after a Chernobyl newscast. WolfenSilva
I think the accusations of racism stem from songs like "Bengali in Platforms" and "Asian Rut", and lyrics like "England for the English". I don't actually think Morrissey is being racist-- a lot of this "evidence", and most of his songs, consist of hyperbole, archetype and metaphor. MisterSheik
For Asian Rut and National Front Disco is simply the narrator. In fact, I feel that the song Asian Rut is anti-racist with lyrics such as "Oh, English boys, It must be wrong, Three against one?". I personally think Asian Rut is about desiring humanity based on lyrics such as "(I'm) On my way to somewhere civilised and maybe I'll even arrive". As for National Front Disco, yeah I can see why it is racist BUT Morrissey is describing the events of somebody losing their son to the NF. He does not endorse it. Thus to say that song is racist is absurd. "Bengali in Platforms" isn't racist either. It's more of a celebration of being different and not having to fit in. Morrissey writes this in third person and he is concerned that the subject might "hate" him; it shows affection rather than hatred. In a documentary Morrissey said, "why would I be racist? What would I be trying to achieve?" Don't forget Morrissey is also very positive about his Latino fan-base, which contradicts that he's racist. Englishrose 14:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it is absurd to call Asian Rut and National Front Disco racist - in fact, I would say that both are anti-racist songs. I won't even comment on the flag, and as for the skinheads, since this is Wikipedia, why don't people just read the Wiki article on the skinhead subculture! Anyone with even a slight knowledge about the matter should know that only some parts of skinhead subculure hold neo-nazi and racist views (however, they have most media exposure). Original skinheads weren't political, and even now many skinheads aren't political, and there is a significant number of left-wing oriented skinheads, and there are a lot of anti-racist skinheads, who have formed organizations such as SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) and Anti-Racist Action. For instance, oi-punk band Angelic Upstarts (a band Morrissey likes and plays their songs as warmup tracks for his gigs, BTW) are considered a part of the skinhead scene, and they are very ardently left-wing and anti-racist. Besides, if Morrissey was prejudiced against Asians, how come he was a supporter of the band Echobelly in the mid-90s and very good friend of its singer Sonya Aurora Madan (who is of Indian descent)? I read an article where sais she was overjoyed when Morrissey, her idol, was quoting to her her lyrics about being a Asian British woman - 'we are dreamers, a nightmare apart'. And Morrissey is also a fan of Maya Angelou. Hardly seems like a big old Nazi, does he?! Nightandday 16:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Initial racism accusations definitely date from the time of "Panic"'s release - they were based, as I recall, on the lyrics to "Panic" which go "Burn down the disco/Hang the blessed DJ/Because the music that they constantly play/It says nothing to me about my life" (an interpretation that implicitly assumes "disco" - the building and the musical form - must always correspond to "non-white music", which is an interpretation that appears to be at best arguable, at worst hopelessly simplistic - as indicated, for example, by Johnny Marr at the time, who pointed out in NME that New Order had no black members, and yet created great disco music); but the accusations were also based on a contemporaneous Morrissey quote that stated "all reggae is vile". I seem to recall (from memory only) that it was the NME of the 1985/86 period that primarily saw this professed musical taste (or lack thereof) as inherently racist. Dave12345 22:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it was not NME, it was Melody Maker that accused Morrissey of racism in that case) in 1985/86. NME was very pro-Morrissey at that time, Melody Maker was the opposite. Their conlucsion that "Panic" was anti-black must be one of the dumbest ever, even stupider than the NME 1992 campaign. Since when is disco an exclusively black genre, and more importantly, since when is disco genre identified with black culture in general?! If anyone was being racist, it was the Melody Maker writer who concluded that dislike of disco equals dislike of black people. (This would mean that disco and black people are the same?! excuse me??! Hasn't he ever heard of a number of other music genres that black artists have excelled in?!) Interestingly, nobody ever mentions that both Morrissey and Marr are huge fans of classic Tamla Motown (and Motown-sounding) soul artists, particularly girl groups (most of them all-black) like Martha & the Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Cookies, The Velvelettes, etc. In fact, Morrissey was talking about his love for Motown in the same Melody Maker interview where he dissed Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross (which, miraculously, served as a proof of his 'racism'). As for the infamous 'reggae is vile' comment, disliking reggae would still not make you racist, but I don't think Morrissey really dislikes it. He has said since that it was just a tongue-in-cheek remark intended to wind up the music writers. And ironically, one of his all time favourite records is "Young, Gifted and Black" by Bob & Marcia (two reggae artists from Jamaica who covered the Nina Simone song). Anyone with half a brain should have realized that 'Panic' was aimed mainly against the escapistic/hedonistic 80s bland pop (Wham!, Duran Duran, etc.) and other music (such as disco) that didn't address real life issues, and against BBC DJs like Wright who were constantly playing it, while ignoring bands such as The Smiths. Nightandday 16:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The writer appologizes for Moz' racism stating that Moz had a black friend. I do not believe that one makes up for the other: racism is racism, it is an absolute flaw of a person be it antipathy for one group or several groups of people. Diegueno 15:03, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the writer 'appologizes for Moz' racism', because there is nothing to appologize for. There was never any proof that Morrissey was racist, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. I can't believe this is still being debated, let alone that some people, like you, would matter-of-factly state 'Moz is racist'. The writer of the article is wrong though, the NME writers who accused Morrissey of racism (and who are now trying to excuse themselves by saying that they only wanted to 'put a question') didn't base it on Johnny Rogan's book (I doubt that they had even read it by that point), but entirely on the misinterpreted lyrics to 'Asian Rut', 'National Front Disco' and 'Bengali in Platforms' ('We'll Let You Know' was also mentioned, ironically as an example of nationalism... I say 'ironically' because we're talking about the NME!) and the Finsbury Park 'incident' (which doesn't even look like much of an incident to me, based on the video recording of the event). Furthermore, the article gives the wrong impression that Rogan accused Morrissey of racism, or made him look racist in his book, and that is not the case. In a paragraph about the development of Morrissey's liberal ideas, Rogan mentions his interest in the 'plight of black people' and his reading of books such as "Sex and Racism in America" and "The Diary of a Harlem Schoolteacher". He mentions the remark about the Pakistani - which is just something taken from Morrissey's teenage diary - as an incongruity, but remarks that Morrissey was even then aware that his only problem with Pakistanis was his lack of knowledge about their culture. Rogan also stated that Morrissey had progressed a lot since - naming 'Asian Rut' as an example (and quite rightly so)! If the only proof of Morrissey's 'racism' is a flippant remark he wrote in his diary as a teenager, well... I wonder how anybody else would fare, if people starting quoting silly things they wrote in their diaries or said in the schoolyard to their mate when they were 18!Nightandday 15:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Somebody needs to cite a lot of the quotes concerning this issue, such as the "thrilled that many of his new fans were skinheads," because I can't find a citation of that anywhere.


--- Actually Morrissey if not racist he was certainly a xenophobe in the late 80s and early 90s. A proof of that is the song "Bengali in Platform" The lyrics go like this: "No no no he does not want to depress you oh no no no no no he only wants to impress you Bengali in platform he only wants to embrace your culture and to be your friend forever Bengali, Bengali oh shelve your Western plans and understand that life is hard enough when you belong here" Also, consider "The National Front Disco" and "We'll Let You Know". Check this link - http://motorcycleaupairboy.com/interviews/1992/caucasian.htm it is an examination of his thoughts of race and nationality. I'm a fan of his and I believe earlier in his career he certainly had racists attitudes which has since disappeared. He signed the anti-fascist UAF statement and he rejected a request from Nancy Sinatra to issue a single with a cover version of "Bengali in Platforms". (This can be found on various articles around Wikipedia related to Morrissey) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.252.226.134 (talk) 17:38, August 27, 2007 (UTC)


Racism pt II

I removed the speculative and unfounded nonsense that he was a big supporter of various ant-racist organizations, because there is zero evidence that he was/is. Also since when was the Labour Party a "anti-racist movement"??. Also to the contrary "Mozza" has been more of a supporter of the racist British National Party than any other U.K. political party. Stop trying to sugar coat the guy FFS.

Sorry?!?! You are the one writing speculative and unfounded, and, furthermore, completely untrue nonsense. Morrissey a supporter of BNP?! What planet are you from?! (And yes, there is proof, The Smiths played anti-Apartheid gigs.) Nightandday 17:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no interest in claiming Morrissey as a Labourite, but The Smiths were part of Red Wedge in the 80's, which was very closely linked to Labour. They also played at least one 'Rock vs Racism' benefit gig.

"Where is the evidence that Moz supported the BNP? In iterviews he has stated his opposition to censorship and that includes the BNP. Morrissey has always supported left-leaning, liberal causes e.g John Kerry for president, and been anti-right leaning, establishment figures, e.g Margaret Thatcher and the Queen." Ask me 22:04, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Many people support liberal causes and are still racist.


Ok ok ok...From what i have gathered on this discussion board...there are some people who dislike morrissey the person and want to paint him in a negative light. They claim other people are suger coating morrissey which isn't true. the Racism allegations are false and have been explained by many why they are false. Morrissey himself said he is not a racist. The problem is he speaks his mind and isn't neccessary PC and careful to make sure journalists can't twist his words against him. For example, didn't he once state that there is a problem with immigration when you allow people to freely come in a country. Many people took this as racism. He then had to go back and point out that he simply meant that the resources are not there and both local communities and the immigrants themselves are screwed. Which is true. It makes sense and there is no racism. For those who do not like Morrissey and his politics, stop trying to paint him a a negative light on his wikipedia page. It's a difference of beliefs. His recent animal militia comments were also overblown. Yes morrissey supports them. but his value on animal lives is not understood by those who do not value animal lives. He sees the life of animals as equal to humans. Thus the humans are already murdering the animals. One being killing another being--both equal to each other. Get over it. It's for sure not right-wing. It's not radical in his eyes as well as too many. Both are violent acts as Morrissey stated. His point was to point out that both are violent acts. THAT's THE POINT!!! Should I repeat myself.

"I have no interest in claiming Morrissey as a Labourite, but The Smiths were part of Red Wedge in the 80's, which was very closely linked to Labour."

Yes but the point was made in the article that he can't be racist because he is a Labour supporter. That's what doesnt make sense. Again what has Labour got to do with fighting racism? One could say the same about the Tories or Lib Dem if that were the case.

"They also played at least one 'Rock vs Racism' benefit gig."

Couldnt find a single story on them playing any RAR gig.

I have removed the false, and indeed libellous allegations that Morrissey supported the NF/BNP at any point, and I am reinstating the fact of Morrissey's support for the Labour Party (an explicitly anti-racist organisation, please check its constitution, history etc), Anti-Apartheid, Amnesty International, Unite Against Fascism et al. Sources and references will follow.

For starters, here is proof of Morrissey's 2004 statement of support for Unite Against Fascism, a militantly anti-NF/BNP camapign.

http://www.uaf.org.uk/aboutUAF.asp?choice=4

And here's his support of the explicitly anti-racist Amnesty International

http://www.nndb.com/org/761/000051608/

And while they may not have played an actual RAR gig they did play an anti=apartheid benefit as mentioned here

http://www.visi.com/fall/gigography/gig86.html

here

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/12/21/do_as_i_say.php

and here

http://foreverill.com/interviews/1987/thorn.htm

Find someone else to smear Mr BNP supporter/Morrissey hater/both. FFS. 

-JG 23.41 29.3.06
      • Well done! a comprehensive set of links that will (hopefully) finally stop the accusations that Morrissey is in any way a racist. Ask me


I've added lyrics from "Irish Blood English Heart" which I think are more pertinent to this topic than those already posted from "You Are The Quarry".

Miscellaneous

The item that begins "In retaliation to the above-mentioned statement, a contradictory statement, purportedly made by Morrissey..." and continues to quote at length a statement from Morrissey taken off www.true-to-you.net is likely out of the bounds of "fair use" and likely copyright infringement. Even if it is not, I have no idea why such a long and barely newsworthy statement is on what's supposed to be an encyclopedia page.--MrFluff 05:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed the item on the Curse of Morrissey. Feel free to re-add if this can be proven to be a common term (hardly registers on google outside of this Wiki-page).

Should the quote from Moz about voting against GWB be removed? It's already on WikiQuote, and this page is getting out of control.--MrFluff 05:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The last couple of sentences in the 'Sexuality' section didn't read well. I've changed the punctuation a bit.


Moz

This is a name people use to refer to Steven Patrick Morrissey. He is more commonly known as Morrissey. He was the lead singer in The Smiths, and later went on to a solo career. why??????

Thank you very much for sharing these pearls of wisdom with us all, thank God we can sleep easy tonight.

It isn't just an alias, it's a symbol for those who will carry the sometimes painful wheight of the unshared pashion for his work, life and everlasting beauty. MOZZ4Ever


Feud with Robert Smith?

Can anybody elaborate about the 'lifelong' feud between Morrissey and The Cure's Robert Smith?

The whole thing started due to some fairly inocuous comments made by Robert Smith about the Smiths. While he professed an admiration for the Smiths, he added the comment "Morrissey’s so depressing, if he doesn’t kill himself soon, I probably will," which was probably meant in jest, after all, no-one is more aware of Morrissey's miserablist tendancies than Morrissey himself. However, Morrissey responded with typical vitriol, claiming the Cure were 'A new dimension to the word "crap"' Robert Smith then responded with probably the most memorable line of the feud, saying '"If Morrissey says not to eat meat, then I’m going to eat meat; that’s how much I hate Morrissey." This was probably the high point of the feud, most music hacks regard it as an irrelevance now, although Smith and Morrissey continue to lampoon each other in the press, despite the fact that no-one seems to care. Perhaps this is indicative of a genuine feud rather than just a sales-boosting one. SilhouetteSaloon
They actually stopped lampooning each other long ago. Morrissey even said (I think it was in 1997) that Smith was a 'nice person', and that Smith had invited him to his son's birthday. Morrissey also said in an interview this year that people wrongly assume he dislikes Smith, he has respect for anyone who cuts quite an original figure in music (or something to that effect). Nightandday 16:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
(Uh, Robert doesn't actually have a son, so it must have been something else. ;)) 136.186.1.199 05:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't really remember what it was, I only paid attention to the info that there was no feud anymore. Anyway, whatever Robert might have invited him too, I doubt that Morrisey actually went. ;) 212.200.209.73


Pistols concert

I don't think Morrissey was at the concert. He may have said he was there, jokingly, as it a known that more people claim to have been there than was actually present. - Kvaks 20:19, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

What on Earth made you think that?! Everyone agrees that Morrissey definitely was at the Pistols concert on June 4 1976, including Paul Morley and Dave Nolan, the author of the book about the gig, "I Swear I Was There" (both were present at the gig). He's actually one of the few people whose presence isn't a matter of controversy. Even Tony Wilson's presence has been called into question by Nolan, and Mick Hucknall, according to him, was definitely not there, contrary to the legend.Nightandday 17:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think Morrissey was not present...? Certainly the documented evidence is out there (search on http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=morrissey+%22free+trade+hall%22+pistols&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N for numerous references).

Update: The young Morrissey wrote the following letter to the NME, after attending the gig:

18 June 1976 - NME (UK) Review by Steven Morrissey of a Sex Pistols concert: "I pen this epistle after witnessing the infamous Sex Pistols in concert at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. The bumptious Pistols in jumble sale attire had those few that attended dancing in the aisles despite their discordant music and barely audible lyrics. The Pistols boast having no inspiration from the New York / Manhattan rock scene, yet their set includes, "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone", a number believed to be done almost to perfection by the Heartbreakers on any sleazy New York night and the Pistols' vocalist / exhibitionist Johnny Rotten's attitude and self-asserted 'love us or leave us' approach can be compared to both Iggy Pop and David JoHansen in their heyday. The Sex Pistols are very New York and it's nice to see that the British have produced a band capable of producing atmosphere created by The New York Dolls and their many imitators, even though it may be too late. I'd love to see the Pistols make it. Maybe they will be able to afford some clothes which don't look as though they've been slept in."

source: http://www.passionsjustlikemine.com/moz-mb.htm

In addition, he also wrote a letter to Melody Maker: "I think that their audacious lyrics and discordant music will not hold their heads above water when their followers tire of torn jumpers and safety pins." source: Johnny Rogan, "Morrissey and Marr: The Severed Alliance", 1993, p. 82Nightandday 17:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

including those touched by his music. Ask me


Anti Rock Star Image

Strange section this, and not entirely accurate. Morrissey certainly has had brushes with the law (police raiding his house following the Margaret on the Guillotine lyrics), dealing with alcohol and drug abuse (albeit band members habits rather than his own) for example.

I agree, the entire section is highly debatable and confusing. There are plenty of examples of reclusive rock stars and Morrissey's ongoing feuds with the media, other musicians, etc is very rock star-ish. Also, unflamboyant is not a word. Morrissey is often characterized as flamboyant anyway (google: "Morrissey flamboyant" and see for yourself). Basically, this whole section is bogus and should be removed.--MrFluff 04:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


Recent changes

An anon ip recently changed "He is 6' (1.83 m) tall." to "His height is between 5'6" and 6'.", and changed "The song Let Me Kiss You from Morrissey's latest album You Are the Quarry is dedicated to her." to "The song Let Me Kiss You was recorded by Nancy with Morrissey and Alain Whyte singing background vocals.". Does anyone know if these changes are valid? Arniep 00:07, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

"Between 5'6" and 6'"?! LOL Someone was in a joking mood, obviously. He is 6' (or, according to some, a little under 6'.) Nightandday 17:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"The song Let Me Kiss You was recorded by Nancy with Morrissey and Alain Whyte singing background vocals.". That certainly is true, Nancy release the same song on the same day Morrissey did. Englishrose 14:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)



-Source analysis=

Michael Stipe article doesn't contain the word admire, neither does the Doherty article. Indeed none of the 7 links contain the word admire so we stil need a source that for each one of these people admiring him, SqueakBox 14:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

  • I've changed the word to fan, but one of the ways to define the word fan is "3: an ardent follower and admirer", Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University. Englishrose 17:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the point is that the list just looks stupid because it's too long. We should limit it to a few people accompanied by whatever it is they said about him. Arniep 18:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
What about a seperate page, "List of notable Morrissey fans"?Englishrose 20:50, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
In that case why not make a separate page for fans of every band/musician to ever come into existence? It's a pointless section and doesn't deserve to be in there. Groups who point to Morrissey as a direct influence on their work is a different story, but does it really matter that Craig Kilborn or JK Rowling are fans of Morrissey's music? Spikethehawk 21:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
JK Rowling requested that Smiths/Morrissey references were placed on the set of the Harry Potter films. She get's a lot of inspiration from Morrissey. [1]. Englishrose 23:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I think with the change to fans it looks alright. I, for instance am a fan of his Smith vocals (all I have heard) but that doesn't mean I admire him as a person let alone make me an ardent follower of his political beliefs. The statement as it stands is accurate without trying to be sycophantic, SqueakBox 00:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Colin Meloy recorded a tribute album of Morrissey covers.

Jesse Lacey-

He is the lead singer of Brand New. In their song, "Mixed Tape" they sings, "I'm sick of your tattoos and the way you always criticize the Smiths and Morrisey."

Manic Street Preachers' attack on Moz

To the feud's section I added a bit about the comments made about Morrissey by Manic Street Preachers' Nicky Wire and Richey James Edwards. -Did you source it? To tell the truth, me and my sis always argue who is etter, Richey or Moz. I always win ;). But seriously, I didn't know they actually fought.-- ¢² Connor K.   18:36, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


Latino Fanbase

Excuse me if this has already been mentioned, but an in-depth exploration of Morrissey's Latino -- particularly Mexican -- fanbase is urgently necessary. The Latino/Morrissey phenomenon warrants a documentary (Is It Really So Strange?) but not a mention on Wikipedia? What would Esteban say?


Richard Edwards

I have removed the following sentence: "A few months later Richard Edwards disappeared. Many people have speculated that he commited suicide but no body has ever been found and officially he is recorded as being a missing person."

It's quite off topic, in this context it actually seems to suggest that Moz is responsible of Edwards' disappearance. cheers, ArchStanton

Removal of Smiths refrences

Why in the world is everyone doing this? This is a biography of Morrissey - so why is everyone removing parts that have to do with The Smiths? The entire Smiths biography shouldn't be in here, mind you, but his time with them should be summarised in a bit more detail, and things about him in other sections that happened while he was with the Smiths shouldn't be removed.

Also, there is an urgant need to expand the section about his solo career, which is dreadfully short. There is much much more to be said there.

  • I think you answered your own question. This article should focus on Morrissey's solo career. There is a separate article for The Smiths. Spylab 15:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


Singer/songwriter from Manchester

When you are born in a hospital in Davyhulme, partly raised in Hulme and Stretfort are you than a singer and songwriter from Stretford from Hulme or what ??? Is'nt he a singer songwriter from Manchester ???

The debate about Manchester v Trafford is one for the football fans; it shouldn't deflect people from serious research about Morrissey. For the serious students here are the facts: Harper Street and Queens Square were not in Hulme but Old Trafford, bordering Hulme. Morrisey actually refers to this on a link you can find on YouTube. I lived in that area and remember those places, being the same age as Morrissey. People around there think of themselves as being from Manchester; Trafford is a 1970s invention! I can understand Smiths fans not wanting his name associated with famous sporting venues but the idea that he was from Hulme is part of the legend rather than the truth. Anybody obsessive enough to want to check this out (like me!)should get the librarians at the Local History section of Manchester's Central library to dig out the old maps for you. That's what I did as I was sure I remembered those streets - Harper Street at least as I was, like Morrissey, only a nipper when Queens Square was demolished - being in Old Trafford rather than Hulme. Hulme has more hip credibility because it is within the boundaries of the city of Manchester, thereby accrditing Morrissey's Mancunianism; also it is associated, through the old crescents, with the rise of rave culture during the 1980s. Then again this is what we want icons to represent: a romantic idea rather than the dull reality. Morrissey was a myth-maker like Bob Dylan and this has become part of the myth. Or is this inaccuracy more the fault of writers like Johnny Rogan and Dave Haslam who have erroneously stated that he grew up in Hulme?

Mozzer99 18:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


reference to "the smiths" in some film

does anyone know the name of the film were the smiths are mentioned...

the film is about guys from some american university were they try to kill there roommate because they know that they will get an automatic high score in their final grade, because thats what you get when your room mate "dies". Thye put some articles in his room including a smiths album because they think it will make him come across as a depressed teen who commited suicide...name? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.219.92.232 (talk) 15:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

The 'misc' section

There's a lot of rubbish in there. It could do with being removed. Some of of the little facts are okay and could be incorporated into the main part of the article, while other bits would be most welcome in the bin. SaltyWater 19:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think we could probably create a new subsection under "Image and Politics" for all his admirers. I'm not sure if all that stuff is really needed in the article, but at least it would be a little more organized. - Maximusveritas 22:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


People that admire Morrissey

Can anybody verify that all these people have publicly admired him? Arniep 03:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Laura Bowen, J. K. Rowling, Bono, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Chino Moreno, Daryl Palumbo, Michael Stipe, Jeff Buckley, Noel Gallagher, David Byrne, Joel Madden, Martin L. Gore, Pete Doherty, Harry Hill, Craig Kilborn, Thom Yorke, Chris Martin, Jonathan Ross, Douglas Coupland, Liam Gallagher,Michael Ian Black Jesse Lacey, Ryan Adams, Peter Gabriel, Ricky Gervais, JT LeRoy, Pete Doherty, Jack Black, Davey Havok, Matt Skiba, Brandon Flowers, David Cameron, Colin Meloy, Peter Wentz and Kathy Burke have all publicly stated that they admire Morrissey's work.

Bono, Kathy Burke, J. K. Rowling, Noel Gallagher, Liam Gallagher, Harry Hill all priased Morrissey on the Morrissey documentry, "The Importance of Being Morrissey". of the Documentry

Michael Stipe [2] called Morrissey an "inpiration", and appeared in a photo in "Rolling Stone" in the early 90's with his arm draped around Morrissey and holding his hand (there was a rumour that the two were romantically linked - this was before Stipe came out of the closet).

Jonathan Ross said that Morrissey was one of his idols and also made a big fuss about him appearing on his talk show.

Pete Doherty- Morrissey was his hero and when Morrissey criticised him Doherty got very upset. [3]

David Cameron [4]

Brandon Flowers [www.arjanwrites.com/arjanwrites/ 2005/02/the_killers_mys.html] [5] [6].

Kurt Cobain- Mentioned in his biography.

  • I have removed this reference since it was more likely that Kurt was mocking Morrissey (the biography references a "Top of the Pops" performance by Nirvana in which Kurt sang in psuedo-goth baritone voice). Just because someone is aware of a personality does not make them a "fan". More specifically, Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana, has gone on record that the band "hated the Smiths".

Thom Yorke- Stopped eating meat because of Morrissey. [7]

These are just a few, nearly all of these are common knowledge. I've just picked out the ones that I personally know. Englishrose 09:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Note: It shouldn't be a shock because The Smiths were voted the most influential band by The Mirror beating the Beatles. They've influenced a lot of musicions, thus Morrissey is bound to have a large amount of famous public admiration. Englishrose 14:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

They have certainly not all said they admire him. Cameron, for instance, says he finds the music strangely uplifting. Everyone in that list must be sourced as saying that they greatly admiring Morrisey or the list cannot remain as it is as what it is is a falsification of the truth apparently planted by Morrisey fans which confuses our readers. As for the claim that this is common knowledge, doesn't look like it as 2 people are challenging this alleged common knowledge that is in fact a fantasy in somebody's head. Thisa is a serious encyclopedia and must be treatred as such, where necessary that means sourcing every word, which in this case has clealry not been done, SqueakBox 14:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok then. Common knowledge amongst the majority of Morrissey fans, which it is. Seems though your fussy about the word "admire", I've changed it to "fans of". Englishrose 17:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Cameron said that The Queen is Dead was his favourite album ever and waxed lyrical about the brilliance of it. If that's not admiring his work I don't know what is. Googling each name listed and "morrissey" is likely to bring up a source. These are just the most public of a large list. Sure, demand sources but don't immediately discount things due to the lack of it. Me677 17:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to make a list of all the people who have publicly stated their admiration of Morrissey? I can't find any other musician or group that has a similar section. It'd be much easier to just leave these out entirely; or, if you think it is necessary put a blanket statement that many entertainers and other notable people appreciate his work, maybe with a few select names dropped in. Spikethehawk 19:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Since Morrissey is a cult artist and out of the mainstream, it's relevant to show his influence on pop culture, particularly since the mainstream majority is unaware of his existence.

"the mainstream majority is unaware of his existence", where did you get such a silly idea from?

Other references:

  • Michael Stipe - appeared in a photo in "Rolling Stone" in the early 90's with his arm draped around Morrissey and holding his hand (there was a rumour that the two were romantically linked - this was before Stipe came out of the closet).
  • Hilary Duff - mentioned Morrissey as one of the artists she "loves" while she was on the podium at the MTV Music Video Awards before she introduced "The Killers" as the next performer. Also told Cosmopolitan magazine in the March 2006 issue that she loves "anything Morrissey" when they asked what were her favorite songs to sing.
  • Fred Durst - wore a "The Smiths" - "Hatful of Hollow" t-shirt twice in public. [8], [9]
  • Kristin Dunst - wore a Smiths t-shirt [10]
  • Iggy Pop - back in the late 80's when Iggy Pop was a guest VJ on MTV, he stated The Smiths were his favorite band and played the video for "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".
  • Gwen Stefani - wore a customized Smiths "Queen is Dead" t-shirt during an interview with MTV, and No Doubt has cited Morrissey as an influence. [11]
  • Pat Sajak - though famous as the host of "Wheel of Fortune", Sajak also hosted his own late-night talk show on CBS during the late 80's. On one episode, responding to a question from a guest, he said his favorite music was Morrissey, and in particular the "Viva Hate" album.
  • Anthrax - this premiere 80's metal band recorded The Smiths "London" as a b-side to one of their UK singles and which was also featured on the "Airheads" movie soundtrack.
about the unfounded rumour (described by Morrissey recently as 'absolute s**t, I don't know why anyone said that?' about the 'romantic involvement' between Stipe and Morrissey, see my comment in the 'Relationships' section above. Nightandday 17:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
* Noel Gallagher talked about his admiration for The Smiths numerous times. He also appeared in the documentary "The Importance of Being Morrissey" and in the NME Smiths special a few years ago.
  • Jeff Buckley was a big Smiths fan, he once said The Smiths were 'the only good thing about the 80s, and he also covered "The Boy With a Thorn In His Side" and "I Know It's Over" live numerous times.
  • Douglas Copeland wrote a novel called "Girlfriend in A Coma", inspired by the Smiths songs. He also wrote a (rather silly) article (which was supposed to be an 'interview'... it turned out to be anything but) about Morrissey in The Guardian this year.
  • David Bowie covered Morrissey's song "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" and used to tour with Morrissey in mid-90s. According to a quote from IMDB, he also said that Morrissey is thr greatest British lyricist besides Bryan Ferry.

some others:

  • Courtney Love is a fan of The Smiths, and she played "Girlfriend In A Coma" as one of her favourite music videos when she was a guest on VH1 (or MTV - sorry, my memory doesn't serve me that well - anyway, just google it and I'm sure you'll find the info)
  • Melissa Auf Der Maur named Morrissey as her pick for 'the world's sexiest man' or something like that when she was on some MTV show (again, I don't know when it was, just that it was soem MTV - I think - show, with several celebrities choosing 'sexiest men in the world' or something. (sorry I can't be of more help)
  • Chloe Sevigny is a huge Morrissey fan. She has talked about him in several interviews (just google Chloe Sevigny Morrissey and you'll find plenty of articles about her adoration of Moz).


Greta Garbo

I've never seen it mentioned that 'Morrissey used to live in an apartment owned by Garbo' outside of wikipedia. I think this needs to be deleted unless anyone cares to provide evidence.

In fact, he used to live in a house formerly owned by Clark Gable, not Greta Garbo.Nightandday 17:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


Sparks

A request for a peer review of the Sparks article has been made here Wikipedia:Peer review/Sparks (band)/archive2. Since Morrissey is such a fan maybe you would have a look and help it alongKaptKos 19:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


Too much focus on later years

Is it me or is there a disproportionate amount of text devoted to Quarry and specifically Tormentors? In the grand scheme of things (i.e. in two weeks when the press stop caring) ROTT is in no way more important, and probably a lot LESS important that Viva Hate. Encyclopaedically speaking.Karlusss 20:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Very true. Some of the stuff needs to be moved onto the page for ROTT, the other can just be deleted. SaltyWater 20:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Morrissey

I think Morrissey is a great guy and told it like it was back in the 80s, when our Brave Men died.

He should be forgiven and allowed to move on, and not held hostage in this Bush-created world terrorist scam. Brandubh Blathmac 00:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC) This can be seen in the infamous documentary The Impotence of Being Morrissey.

Tori Amos

Perhaps the Tori Amos feud should be moved from the trivia section to the 'feuds within the music industry' section.

Kat 01:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)


Trivia

Is the trivia section absolutely necessary? It's a horrible mess and makes the article seem a bit amateur-ish. maxcap 18:51, 12 May 2006 (UTC) On second thought, does anyone think it might be a good idea to split this article into one detailing the band, and another on Morrisey as a personality, and his politics etc? maxcap 22:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Where would you want to draw that line, though? There would be a decent amount of cross-over between the pieces. Xinit 00:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I feel that the section showing who are "ans" of "influenced" by Morrissey is quite good as it shows his reach accross the Racial/ Atlantic/ Class/ Genre divides respectivly. It shows how much of a pop culture figure Moz has become and I feel it should be reinstated. (maybe as a link from his main page?) Blu sonic 02:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I restored it, but, alot of that information could be directly in the article(s) if it was split. Some of it is unnecessary. For example, the stuff that relates more to the Smiths could be added to that page, if it isn't already. maxcap 11:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
This trivia section is full of unencyclopedic cruft. We don't need a listing of bands who were fans of The Smiths, or books / songs that were named after their songs. What's worse, the info is totally unorganized. If this information was at all relevant to Morrisey's life, it should be included in the body of the article somewhere. Mangojuicetalk 22:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Very much agreed. Some minor bits in the Misc section could be incorporated into the main article but the rest is complete bollocks. SaltyWater 23:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I thought the part with the bands/artists showed his reach as an artist seeing as the "fans" were so diverseBlu sonic 03:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I guess my point is, if that's interesting, it should be in the body of the article, not under "trivia", where it's just a collection of random statements. Mangojuicetalk 12:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
The whole existence of the trivia section bothers me... these are supposed to be points worthy of being included in an article, but they're not worthy of being called anything but trivia? Develop any points that can be developed, and move them into the body of the article... I'd move to just kill the trivia section completely. Xinit 00:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
What about after the document is split? shouldn't it be easier to incorporate the "trivia" into the main boby of text? Some of it is meaningless, Moz liked boxing, (no offence but so what?), Moz Supported Man U (and?) etc. Blu sonic 03:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot of rubbish in there. It could do with being removed. Some of of the little facts are okay and could be incorporated into the main part of the article, while other bits would be most welcome in the bin. SaltyWater 22:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Trivia cut

I've cut the trivia out. Before replacing anything, it needs to be properly cited and evaluated for being actually about Morrisey, instead of belonging to an article about a song, an article about a book, about The Smiths, etc. Jkelly 01:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


The bands that are named after Smiths/Morrissey stuff is obvious, it would be pointless citing them. Its like having to site the statment "the water is wet" IMO. the others are true but i agree citation on this article needs to be doneBlu sonic

References

There's a ton of references to external sites, some of which could be dead; please verify links and change to proper references rather than direct external links. There are quotes, specifically in the feuds section that aren't cited and need to be.

Also, the bibliography needs to be addressed... BY and ABOUT are two different things entirely; they should be split. Listing of the books properly with ISBN, etc would be nice as well. Xinit 00:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)


Critique in intro

"Detractors usually describe his work as depressing,"

I find my favorite artists "depressing". Can someone find a better reason as to why some people would look at his work negatively? --A Sunshade Lust 23:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


"Removal of information"

This morning's edit by Bearcat removed nothing, and improved the prose. Please read carefully before assuming that major alterations are for the worse. --ajn (talk) 19:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Influence in popular culture.

Morrissey appeared as himself under the moniker "The Consumer Monkey" on comedy show "Vic Reeves' Big Night Out". This is just not true. Morrissey was being referred to by Vic and Bob but never appeared as himself. The monkey was a childs toy, not easily confused with a man in his late 20s.

mos side

is he really from mos side. i cant picture him being from there.


Name

Isn't his first name spelled Stephen, not Steven? Outofstep77 00:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

No. MFlet1 21:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Anyone find that Morrissey's solo albums all sound quite similar?

Especially those from Southpaw Grammar onwards? I'm not using this as a forum; instead I'm wondering if such an opinion can be attributed to a music critic?--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

If Morrisey really have trained Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in his youth it probably wasn't under Renzo Gracie, because he was born in 67. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renzo_Gracie

Now i've never heard of him training Jiu Jitsu before, so could anyone please confirm this fact too? A googlesearch didnt return anything on this fact..

213.114.70.177 06:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)`

Where is the bit that links from It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. (Discuss) ?

I can't find it in here. Don't suppose someone could tell me which paragraph it is please?

Songs with homosexual themes

Presently the article cites "This Charming Man", "Handsome Devil", "Swallow On My Neck", "Hand in Glove", "Roy's Keen" and "Dear God Please Help Me" as songs with homosexual themes. In addition, "Shoplifters of the World Unite," "Pretty Girls Make Graves," and even "Alma Matters" have been interpretted with homosexual themes or indications while not being directly about homosexual longing. "Alma Matters"'s lyrics are pretty broad, but Morrissey has commented that it was about being in touch with one's sexuality (for example, your female side if you're a male). "Shoplifters of the World Unite" is well-known to be critical of the anti-homosexual ammendment, Section 28. "Pretty Girls Make Graves" is moreso about not being attracted to females, rather than about being homosexual ("I'm not the man you think I am"). I'm sure there are more songs that could be brought up, but at the moment none come to mind.



This is a new comment. (the fact you didn't sign yours might create some confusion).

Um, "homosexual themes"? Let m e see... "Hand In Glove"? I've heard that oen mentioned many times - could anyone please explain where is homosexuality mentioned in the lyrics?

"Pretty Girls Make Graves" is not about homosexuality, it's about male sexual inadequacy - if there is any reason stated, it's in "sorrow's native son, he will not smile for anyone"/"rise for anyone" - if I was to make a guess, I would say that this most probably refers to depression. The problem further identified: 'I could have been wild and I could have been free, but nature played this trick on me'... Why would homosexuality stop a man from being wild and free?!

"Alma Matters" - ? Are you referring to the famous line 'in part and in hole' (spelled like that in the lyric sheet)? I see how that might be seen as referring to bisexuality, but don't see how that can be interpreted as 'homosexual', especially considering the most common slang meaning of the word 'hole'??

"Roy's Keen" - meh. I won't even comment on that one.

"Swallow On My Neck" - debatable. 'I don't know why I held out so long for me and you... until he drew a swallow on my neck...' I've seen people go on and on about the 'swallow' thing - yes, it might be an actual (fake) tatoo (he did have a taoo of swallow on his hands) or a lovebite, or both. So he might be referring to a guy giving him a lovebite ('and more') - so what? It's not exactly a secret that Morrissey has had sexual experiences with both men and women, he's admitted that much, he's also said that he'd be with a person he loved and who loved him, no matter if they were male or female. So what is the big deal? (Surprisingly, nobody ever tried to really analyse this song - everybody seems to be speculating who 'he' is, while I would be even more interested to know who is 'you' that he is addressing in the song.)

"Dear God Please Help Me" - well, here's what Morrissey has said about it, when asked: "I don't think homosexuality is mentioned anywhere in the song." (NME intervew) He goes on to comment on the line 'he puts his hand on my knee' saying that 'it's matter of having an interest from someone who is a 'he', which is something you can't help and can't orhestrate...' Make of that what you will. From what I can hear, it's all very ambiguous, as always. there's a line 'he puts his hand on my knee'... and then there's an explicit reference to sex at the end, which may be with the same person or another - because he switches to 'you'... and the line 'Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between'... hm, well, I would hardly say that it sounds homosexual in itself, would you? I don't know about you, but if I heard someone say that, I wouldn't think: 'oh, oh, this must be about homosexual sex!'

"This Charming Man" describes what can be called a homoerotic situation that the narrator finds himself in - but I never thought that the narrator ('jumped-up pantry boy' is homosexual; I wouldn't be so sure that he even feels any desire, love or real attraction to the man himself - but this is all a matter for discussion, and the song is far too complicated and invites many possible interpretations. (I would point out the references to poverty, insecurity, enjoying someone's attention etc... not to mention the interesting connection to the movie 'Sleuth'.)

" "Shoplifters of the World Unite" is well-known to be critical of the anti-homosexual ammendment, Section 28." So what? Morrissey's views on the subject of alternative sexualities and sexual freedom are well-known (I presume). I don't see how being critical of a conservative amenedment which resticts human rights of people who are homosexual, bisexual, basically in any way sexually different, equates 'oh, the writer of this song must be gay!'

But... "Handsome Devil"?? This one I always found very funny. is it because of the deliberately ambiguous title? Do people assume that 'handsome' must refer to a man? Aren't you aware that it's also used for women (especially those whose beauty is statuesque and striking rather than sweet and tender), and that in 19th century English literature it was quite common to call a good-looking women 'a handsome woman' (example: Jane Austen's novels) - which is something Morrissey must have been aware of? (And moreover, he said once that he knew many women who can be described as handsome' and men who can be decribed as 'pretty'.) Funny how people always go 'oh, this is a gay song!' without thinking much, while in fact... it's far from that. OK, so there's the line 'who will swallow whom'... but with lyrics such as 'let me get my hands on your mammary glands' and 'a boy in the bush is worth two in the hand'? ;) "Homoerotic desire', indeed! LOL That's as 'heteroerotic' as it gets. Do I have to spell it out? You do know what 'mammary glands' are? And that the word bush, besides its literal meaning, also refers to a certain part of female anatomy. :) hint: some other words related to the same organ are 'hole', 'pussy'.

BTW 'flap' can also refer to a part of that organ - still, interestingly, none of the hunters of sexual double entendres in Morrissey's lyrics has ever suggested that "Alsatian Cousin" is heteroerotic, despite the line 'with your tent-flap open wide'. ;) I'm not saying he must have meant anything other than the actual tent-flap, but isn't it interesting that people are always ready to discover any possible 'homoerotic' meanings, but are always blind to the 'heteroerotic' ones (even when they're bloody obvious, as in the quoted lines of Handsome Devil)? I don't see people going on about "Wonderful Woman", "Half A Person", "Disappointed", or any song that explicitly defines the object of affection as female, a 'she' ("I Won't Share You" is one of them ('the note I wrote as she read, she said: Has the Perrier goen ot my head, or is life sick and cruel instead'), yet people seem determined to overlook it and keep insisting it's about... Johnny Marr?! I suppose we should also assume that a song that mentions a 'he' is about a woman?!) Where are the articles listing the shockingly 'heteroetoric' imagery in Morrissey's lyrics and artwork (Alexandra Bastedo on "Rank"?! Diana Dors on "Singles"?!), analysing the possible sordid sexual meanings of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, or calling The Public Image a 'coming out' song??? ;)


Yep... that's what I call a DOUBLE STANDARD.

But, if you imagine just for a moment that homosexuality were the norm and heterosexuality was 'alternative sexuality', you'd be doing exactly the above and going on about how 'obviously straight' Morrissey must be...and why doesn't he finally admit it? How long is he going to be in denial/tortured about his heterosexuality? ;)

Come on people...we supposedly live in a liberal society where homosexuality is considered no better or worse than heterosexuality...right? RIIIIIGHT??? :p

Nightandday 10:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The term Bona Drag is old gay slang for "nice outfite" 121.210.29.153 14:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sexuality section

While I'm not sure that such a large portion of the article needs to be devoted to discussing his sexuality, part of his appeal is probably in some way related to his sexual ambiguity, and that deserves some mention. maxcap 15:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

There's no "probably" about it. Sex, sexual ambiguity, and speculation about Morrissey's sexuality have been a big part of his image and mystique since the start. The homoerotic images on record covers, the camp icons, the lyrics - this isn't a case of someone who has kept his sexuality private. Morrissey has made a big deal of his sexuality without making explicit statements about it, and there has accordingly been a lot of speculation in the press about it. Much of his appeal in the early days was to people (straight or gay) who were uncomfortable with conventional notions of sexuality and masculinity. That absolutely needs to be mentioned in the article. --ajn (talk) 17:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I hate to read that gay or bisexual celebs mentioned in WIKIPEDIA are always being given "novels" about their sexual preference. Funny! I never read explicit, lengthy "stories" about the sexuality of straight celebrities. Sexual preference is of no importance at all. Who has sex with whom is totally irrelevant for an encyclopedia. --Fromgermany 20:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
It is quite clear that many people who have studied Morrissey's music consider that his sexuality has influenced it. As such, it is an encyclopaedic subject. David | Talk 20:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Morrisey himself places importance on it by being so coy about it. maxcap 20:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Encyclopedic subject? I wouldn't say so. If it were an encyclopedic subject with encyclopedic relevance then we would have to discuss the sexuality and sexual preference of ALL celebrities, the gay and the straight ones. Like I stated above I think it's rather unfair that gay sexuality is still considered as something which needs extra mentioning. This shows me that gays are still treated as "something alien and unnatural". We must stop regarding homosexualiy as something special. It's as normal and as uninteresting as heterosexuality. Therefore we do not need this extra mentioning at all!!!!! --Fromgermany 20:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I've every sympathy with wanting to change society, but it is not our purpose in writing an encyclopaedia. We have to report accurately on society, and in a society in which homosexuality is still largely viewed as unusual, it is still the case that people link homosexuality with other character traits. There are some serious academic studies of Morrissey's music and the effect of his (presumed) homosexuality on it. I don't accept that we should censor these opinions if we happen to disagree with basis on which they were formed. David | Talk 20:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
The point is that Morrissey has used his sexuality as part of his art. There's a common myth among fans that because he's never actually said "I'm gay/bisexual/straight", and has claimed to be celibate, that he's some sort of asexual figure, doesn't present any sort of sexual image, and discussion of the subject is out of bounds. It's not that people are interested in his (implied) homosexuality because it's seen as being odd, people are interested precisely because he's spent his entire career strongly implying it without being explicit, and that's what has caused the speculation and discussion. --ajn (talk) 21:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I think its encyclopedic in morrisseys case. He has made questions over his sexuality far too strong a part of his image for us not to mention it. horseboy 18:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It is an intrinsic part of his music and his public image. There are other cases where I don't feel that the artist's sexuality is encyclopedic, for example, Bob Mould. I can appreciate wanting to be completely neutral on the subject of sexuality, but there are times, such as with Morrisey, where the inclusion of it enriches the article rather than cheapening it. --GentlemanGhost 09:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'd even disagree that it's necessarily non-encylopedic in the case of Bob Mould; while it's true that his music rarely if ever touches on explicit themes of sexuality, I've seen music critics pointing out in some depth that the tension between Mould and Grant Hart toward the end of their sexual relationship significantly informed the creative dynamic of Hüsker Dü's later albums and hastened that band's demise. Bearcat 19:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
a bit off-topic -about Husker Du: Bearcat: Mould and Hart were never in any kind of sexual relationship, at least if you believe them. Bob Mould even laughed it off (at the time when he was already open about his homosexuality) and I don't see why he would need to lie about that. It's time for people to realize that the mere fact that one guy is homosexual, and the other one is bisexual (that's what I think Hart is, but it wouldn't make any difference if he was homosexual either) does NOT mean that they must have had a sexual/romantic relationship. (Just like a hetero man and a hetero woman can work together without getting into a sexual relationship.) To the disappointment of all the lovers of band slash, the tensions in Husker Du had probably more to do with Hart's heroin use... and Hart has also admitted that he was angry at Bob because he (Bob) had 'a wonderful person' who loved him and took care of him for years, yet he never felt grateful (according to Hart), while he (Grant Hart) had a series of relationships which ended because of his touring and not being at home. I don't think Hart would go so far to make up such a story.Nightandday 10:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
The admission by Morrissey that he is no longer celibate is meaningless unless the article also mentioned when he said he was. Could someone please add this? Dev920 18:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that even back in the day when Moz was proclaiming his celibacy, his lyrics never suggested a person who experienced no sexual feelings whatsoever, or one who was happy being celibate — they generally depict a person who has a strong sexual desire, but for a variety of reasons (shyness, difficulty connecting with people sexually and romantically, not being found attractive by potential sex partners, etc.) feels stymied and knocked down and unable to act on that desire, and who experiences profound loneliness because of these barriers. Which is, needless to say, a very different thing than being asexual or celibate-by-choice. FWIW, anyway. Bearcat 19:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

well, Bearcat, I can only say that I completely agree with this statement.
Nightandday 11:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

"It's not that people are interested in his (implied) homosexuality because it's seen as being odd, people are interested precisely because he's spent his entire career strongly implying it without being explicit, and that's what has caused the speculation and discussion. --ajn (talk) 21:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC) "

Sorry? "Strongly implying it without being explicit"?! Could you please provide examples when he implied, strongly or not, that he was homosexual?? I have read / seen pretty much all of his interviews, and I can only think of statements where he has strongly implied (even explicitly, you might say) that he is NOT homosexual. You might only say that he has implied that he is bisexual, or something between bisexual and asexual. But certainly not homosexual, if that still means (as I presume) that one is attracted to the same sex while not being attracted to the opposite one, or at least that one is more attracted to the same sex than the opposite one. And Morrissey has never said or implied that.
Nightandday10:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I interpret some of his lyrics as implying it. "Keats and Yeats are on your side / While Wilde is on mine," for example. But, of course, that's just my interpretation. It's OR that I wouldn't want put in the article. Regarding recent edits to this section, respectfully, I don't think we can speak for Morrissey. We can certainly quote him if we have a reliable source, but we shouldn't presume to speak for him. Also, we should be wary of putting unsourced rumors about living people into a Wikipedia article. --GentlemanGhost 00:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The second paragraph in the sexuality section is so beautifully written its almost unencyclopedic Leopold Stotch 07:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Links

That flash video of "Morrissey Dance" is not informative, and does not belong on Wikipedia. Please check the policies on links before adding one. Thanks. -- ¢² Connor K.   17:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


Far too POV orientated

The article is far too opinionated for an encyclopedia. The author claims Britain was obsessed with draping pop stars in the Union Flag and Morrissey came to the rescue to take the flag back? This is merely someones interpretation and has no factual basis. The racism accusations are also trivialised and the author even offers an explanation in case we think badly of Morrissey!.

"One song cited by the NME as proof of Morrissey's racism was "Asian Rut" from 1991, which vividly describes the murder of an Asian man by white racists. However, with lines such as "it must be wrong/three against one?" Morrissey appears to be quite obviously sympathising with the victim in the song, not the perpetrators.:"

Yes quite obviously.

This needs a re-write by someone impartial.

Like who...you, for instance?

So... you're trying to say that it's likely that 'it must be wrong/three against one" he it could be interpreted as if he was sympathizing with those who killed the Asian boy?! 212.200.209.73

Moz

There is zero mention of Morrissey's nickname ...WTF? There is some sound company MOZ on wiki that has no disambiguation and can't until it's mentioned that Morrissey's nickname is 'Moz.' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.116.149.9 (talk) 14:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a fan page (and shouldn't be)

This is not an encyclopedia entry -- it's a page written by some devoted fans who want to portry Morrissey in the best possible light. This is inappropriate, and I think the page needs a significant rewrite; in particular, the "trivia" section should be mostly or completely removed. This is my opinion, but as Bill Hicks said, it happens to be true. R 07:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

'Morrissey has told that he enjoys watching boxing'

Quotes such as this from the trivia really do need to be removed, unless the comment can be contextualized into saying something about the man's character.

That said, I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as 'fan page'; what bits do you think are overly sycophantic? Robdurbar 09:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I disagree that Morrissey's character needs to be established to the degree that a page of this size seems to attempt. The sheer length of the page gives me pause, and the "Miscellaneous" (formerly "Trivia") section is chock-full of completely irrelevant -- and unattributed -- pablum. "Morrissey is noted for using and liking the Southam Street work of photographer Roger Mayne" has little, if any, importance to an encyclopedic entry on the man. That said, I am impressed with the page's comprehensiveness, but wonder how much of this content is really significant at all. R 16:14, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
I think the trivia section is important in understanding Morrissey, his music and his fans an encyclopedia doesn't just have to offer dry facts surrounding someone's life, but can instead show a person's wealth of influences and personality, as well as

I believe Morrissey's cultural status and influence merits a very detailed page; there is a reason Wikipedia is superior as a resource, and it is not because it is a dry, concise 'overview' of its subjects. 84.69.105.133 (talk) 00:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Sales

If You Are The Quarry is his most successful album, having sold "more than a million" copies (i.e. about a million plus), how can he have sold 80 million total?

Yeah, anyone have a source for this? - Maximusveritas 15:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I figured for sure it was a typo and changed it to 8 million, then someone just changed it back. There is absolutely no possible way Moz has sold 80 million worldwide, see the note by maximusveritus above.

I take it back. If you include every Smiths album, plus every Smiths single, plus Moz albums and singles and compilations and include worldwide sales for going on 25 years, 80 million is probably about right. A major label like Warners likes to see back catalog items sell at least a couple of hundred thousand per year, less than that and they disappear from the catalog. so at 100 k per year over the last 20 years, you could add another 2 million per album to the original 1.5 million certified albums, it's not inconceivable that The Smiths have sold anywhere from 10 to 20 million albums in the U.S. alone. Only the accountants at Warner know for sure.

  • I was about to say that. Coldplay have made 25mill albums sales from 3 albums so 80mill for Moz doesn't suprise me. Englishrose 23:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Morrissey has DEFINITELY NOT sold 80 million albums worldwide. If you think otherwise, please produce a source. Please also do not confuse acclaim with sales; The Smiths may be one of the most influential English bands of the 80's, but they did not sell well outside the UK and Europe, at least not in a mainstream pop sense. If Morrissey had sold 80 million records, then no way would he have been without a record deal for 7 years. Even as of today, he is signed with the independent Sanctuary, whom are having major financial troubles and could be out of business this year. To put "80 million albums" in perspective, Nirvana IN TOTAL sold 50 million albums worldwide, just as an example. Morrissey definitely HAS NOT sold 80 million records.

Why should it be that surprising that Morrissey/The Smiths may have outsold Nirvana? The Smiths effectively had a 7 year headstart on Nirvana, and have would appear to have remained trendy (so that lots of people would buy up the back catalogue) for much longer. I've no idea which of Morrissey or Nirvana have sold more in, say, France or Argentina, but then probably nor does anyone else around here... --Danward 21:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Morrissey has never had a double platinum record (2 million units) solo or with the Smiths. You're trying to convince us he's sold 80 million records worldwide or even surpassed Nirvana? I would be surprised if he's sold 10 million records in his career, and that's a high estimate. People need to cite sources and not just speculate based on their emotions. We're an encylopedia, not a fanzine. Facts only, please.
Absolutely right. Please check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_music_artists - Morrissey or the Smiths are nowhere close to being on that list, not to mention not even being on the list for selling 50 million records. Whoever came up with this "80 million records" rubbish is clearly pulling the leg (and the tender guillable heartstrings of Morrissey fans) of Wikipedia users.

External links

I've run through the "Fan sites" to verify that they still exist, and the ones that contained obvious copyright violations (bootleg downloads, scanned photos from magazines, etc) have been removed. Anything that was a fan blog was removed on vanity grounds, and a couple of the better looking sites with a lot of information (and a nice layout) were kept as representative of the fan community. See WP:EL#What_should_be_linked_to...

"In general, any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes an example of brilliant prose." Xinit 00:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The Fan Sites that people are adding back are not useful for the context of this article. A site that features new photos that are copyright-infringing or a site that lists bootlegs for download, or a fanatic's blog about Morrissey, or a fan forum that has a small handful of posts; non of these add anything verifiable or useful to the article. I propose that They ALL be deleted, and will do so in 24 hours if there is no dispute.

I agree with your action. However, I think that the first three links should be restored, as they provide information that cannot be found elsewhere. Morrissey-solo is essentially an in-depth collection of recent news stories on Morrissey and worth linking to, while True To You is semi-official and Passions Just Like Mine has an excellent discography. The others should remain out though. Acegikmo1 22:42, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
I very much agree. SaltyWater 21:55, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Notable sites re-added. Please bring to talk page before action is taken to remove them. SaltyWater 23:46, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Why are morrissey-solo, true-to-you and passionsjustlikemine out again without any reference here? I agree with Acegikmo and SaltyWater, these links are very useful. I would like to add them again, if there are no good reasons why they shouldn't be mentioned. --Zommer 10:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Born in Davyhulme, lived in Hulme and later on in Stretford

Morrissey was born in the Park Hospital in Davyhulme (Trafford) on 22 May 1959. He lived in Harper Street, Hulme (Manchester) till 1965 when his family moved to Queens Square on the border of Hulme near Moss side. Finally moved to King's Road 384, Stretford (Trafford) in 1969.

Whoever wrote this has the order the wrong way round. Queen's Square was demolished first, in the early sixties, Harper Street wasn't demolished till the late sixties. I know that of which I speak as I grew up in the area and remember Harper Street well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.194.254 (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Mozzer99 17:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

OK - Check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onEFbTS002U In it Morrissey refers to the place he grew up in as both Old Trafford and Hulme. The person who deleted the previous entry about this doesn't want to have a proper discussion and would prefer legend to fact. The average Morrissey fan probably associates O/T with sport and almost wretches at the thought that 'the fey one' could have grown up in such an area. Why do you think he writes songs about the Munich Air Disaster? Go figure, fool! Also, ye pilgrimage makers, get an A-Z and and have a walk around O/T, not the sporting stadiums, the area itself - it actually includes a lot of the type of streets evoked by Morrissey in his lyrics and imagery. Hulme has nothing of the kind left but O/T and Moss Side do. So ner! Sucks to you! Ye re-writers of history!

Morrissey's purported veganism

Can anyone verify this?
A quick Google search for 'Morrissey' and 'vegan' brings up numerous articles where he is mentioned to be one, including articles from the The Times and The Indepedent. However, beside these few publications, I've never encountered any interview or article where he himself discusses veganism, going only as far as arguing solely against meat-eating. --Ferix 17:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I remember when I went to see him at G-Mex on 22nd December 2006, the "BETTER BURGER COMPANY" van there had stuck a crude sign over the word "BETTER", replacing it with "VEGI", making it the "VEGI BURGER COMPANY". I was informed that he won't perform anywhere that is selling meat at the time. Anyway, I don't know about him being vegan, but I know he doesn't eat meat. Of course using me as a source is original research, but there you go. --Deskana (request backup) 18:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Not everything you read in magazines is true. It's common knowledge that Morrissey doesn't eat meat and he is firmly against it, but he never said anything about being a vegan, and he never campaigned against the use of dairy or eggs. "Vegi" most likely stands for 'vegetarian', not 'vegan'. And in hsi recent interview on the Russell Brand Show, Morrissey said he doesn't consider himself a vegetarian, "I just don't eat meat." 212.200.209.73

Actually, he admits to wearing leather soled shoes, because there is "no decient alternative". So he can't be vegan. :] --24.15.165.14 05:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

maybe you should read this article "it was reported in the April 2006 issue of SPIN Magazine that Morrissey now wears fake leather shoes".

He is not a vegan. He's remarked numerous times that he eats various dairy products. He also has mentioned eating eggs. He's a vegetarian, not a vegan. He doesn't "eat flesh". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Blackeyedsioux (talk • contribs) 03:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Influence in popular culture

so, the old "trivia" section has found its way back again. it's a mess, it's mostly relatively irrelevant. purge again? Barbara Osgood 22:36, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

well, i've taken out most of it. is the rest even relevant now?. we can't list every single time morrissey is referenced anywhere in the cultural world, or every single cover a song (if the original song was significant enough, it should have its own page anyway. if not, the cover is hardly significant). As for Morrissey's influence in the current music scene, a simple sentence somewhere like "Morrissey has been a significant influence on bands such as Fall Out Boy, etc" will do. Barbara Osgood 22:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Socialist?

The List of socialists from Western Europe cites Morrissey as a Socialist. This could certainly be interpreted from many of his songs, foremost being, perhaps, Nobody Loves Us, for example, among others... but does anyone have any published evidence of this? And if so, would it be worthy for addition to this article?--24.15.165.14 05:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop changing the photo!

Every week someone changes the main photo, please stop doing that. Especially if you don't know how to do it properly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yamanbaia (talk • contribs) 11:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

Morrissey's peeps have been unhappy with the photo selections--198.172.207.86 07:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, well, Morrissey's "peeps" don't really have a say here (or at least no more than any other editor). Freshacconci 17:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The new photo is hideous and should be changed immediately. People might mistake him for a ginger. Ninmat (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Vegetarians and Animals Rights solo music

Has Morrisey, since going solo, produced any vegetarian songs or Animal Rights ones like "Meat is Murder"? Robert C Prenic 16:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

None as explicitly as Meat is Murder. Freshacconci 17:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Any that aren't as explicit? 86.148.131.145 13:24, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

the only one i can think of is Ouija board,Ouija board where he sings "Well, she has now gone From this Unhappy Planet with all the carnivores And the destructors.." Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages

There's also one called "Yes I am Blind" which goes: "Little lamb on a hill/Run fast as you can/Good Christians they want to kill you/And your life has not even begun".--88.111.125.13 20:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

in Every day is like sunday video the girl wears a "i dont eat my friends t-shirt" and the video for interesting drug has a lot to do with animal rights. in at last i am born he sings "vegetarians know i am born" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.255.123 (talk) 15:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Catholic?

An anonymous editor has twice added a Catholic category to this article. I don't believe we have evidence in the article that Morrissey is in any sense a Catholic; even if he was I think I would want reliable sources and some reason why such an inclusion would be encyclopedic. What do others think? --John 19:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

He was brought up a Catholic, but I would agree that he would really need to be a practicing Catholic now to merit inclusion in the category. --88.111.54.115 11:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This needs a source per WP:V; without one it should be agressively removed. -- Jza84 · (talk) 11:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I find this odd; all biographies of Morrissey state that he was brought up in a working class Irish Catholic family in Manchester (or thereabouts, see Places section below). This isn't a matter of what his relationship to the Catholic church is now; as the man himself might say, its in the blood, and an unexceptional and ineradicable facet of biography. So why should any such suggestion be "aggressively removed"? Its clearly not a slur. And the notion that one has to be a practicing catholic to actually be one (and thus "merit inclusion in the category") is an odd position. Few of my catholic friends, nor myself, practice or even believe particularly; but indeed catholic is what we are. Zafio (talk) 15:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

See for example the entry for James Joyce. Early in life, Joyce renounced the Catholic church, though it would be absurd to say he was not a Catholic writer. Zafio (talk) 15:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Zafio, so neither you nor your friends practice or "believe particularly" in Catholicism, and yet you consider yourselves Catholic? I don't see how that works, and in my experience its almost always the exact opposite. Most people I know and meet are very reluctant to describe themselves as anything specifically religious unless they practice and believe wholeheartedly. Isn't one of the central criteria for inclusion in the Catholic faith the receiving of communion? Aren't you by definition not a Catholic if you do not partake in this ritual on a regular basis?

While it's beyond debate that Morrissey was raised in an Irish Catholic family, I would imagine that he has spent the majority of his life not practicing or observing any of the tenets of the Catholic faith, and I doubt he would describe himself as a Catholic if asked. "This isn't a matter of what his relationship to the Catholic church is now," you say. So nothing he says now or in the future can change his supposed Catholicism? Many people are born into one faith or another but go on to renounce and criticize that faith later in life. Are you saying these people are actually still members of their religion, even if they themselves vehemently distance themselves from it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.122.77.17 (talk) 03:52, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Better picture

Will I be flogged for offering to once-again change the photo to something a bit more flattering? I saw moz for the first time a few days ago and can state with considerable (male-)heterosexual objectivity this is a pretty handsome man and the pic doesn't do him justice.

Let the floggings commence ... CeilingCrash 18:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have a copyright free picture, go ahead and change it (WP:UPIMG), if you don't, stop "offering" and start stalking so as to get one. Yamanbaiia 14:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I absolutely agree with you, CeilingCrash. If you have a better free picture, please change it. I would also prefer one of the older pictures (around January-March 2007 the main picture was a quite O.K. shot from the 90s) to this one, if there is no recent picture without copyright infringement. And by the hand - I also think you were right to ask first because of the discussion about changing the picture above and I don't understand Yamanbaiia beeing so harsh.--Zommer 08:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
i'm sorry, i didn't meant to be rude it's just that people either complains about the picture or uploads a copyrighted picture, it gets annoying, aynway, i agree with you, the 90s picture was better, thing is the people from morrissey-solo made loads of topics about this (http://forums.morrissey-solo.com/showthread.php?t=73706) and everyone seems to like this one , but, you know, anyone can edit wikipedia, if you want to change the picture go ahead, there are zillions of people in the world with pictures they took of morrissey, go knock some doors. :) Yamanbaiia 21:49, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, he looks like a stroke victim in this picture. jvitre

Henry Rollins criticism of Morrissey

Another person who may be included as criticising Morrissey is Henry Rollins. In a recent special on Rage (Aus music show) a clip was played of Henry Rollins absolutely ripping into Morrissey. He says something along the lines of "Morrissey embodies every bad trait a person can have". I will need to check the actual quote, but its something to that affect. 211.30.151.144 05:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

T. Rex at Belle Vue

According to a questionnaire, the first gig Morrissey attended was T.Rex at Belle Vue, Manchester in July 1972. However, other sources say T.Rex played there on June 16th, not July. Any other sources? Yes, I realise this is incredibly pedantic and 'in 1972' would probably do. SteveRamone 14:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/studio/4730/rockon.htm --82.69.202.14 15:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Joyce royalties

I removed an unsourced statement in the "Feuds within the music industry" section: "As of April 2006, it is understood that Morrissey has paid none of the outstanding royalties to Joyce." Looking for sources, it turns out the truth is more complex than that: according to this statement from Morrissey himself, some back royalties were paid in 1997, and the remainder are being retrieved through various means. I couldn't find anything contradicting this statement or questioning its accuracy, so I took the sentence out. Thomjakobsen 19:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

NNDB used as a source

Is there a better source that can be cited for Morrissey's involvement with Amnesty International? NNDB is probably inadequate for Wikipedia's purposes. Mike R (talk) 14:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds a lot like...

Yeah, I heard a few songs, and it seems like he sounds much like Jim Morrison. Even the first six letters of the Lizard Man's name match right up.

In effect... could anybody see if there was some sort of inspiration from Morrison? Or The Doors in general? From the context and sound of his music (at least what I have heard), he seems to pull a lot of inspiration from that. I may be wrong, but it's something to think about... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.37.80.173 (talk) 07:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

There's quite a lot of material documenting Morrissey's influences, and I don't believe that the Doors are among them. Morrison's grave gets a lot of Morrissey-related graffiti, though, since it's in the same cemet(e)ry as Oscar Wilde. --89.242.207.108 (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Racism

Might have expected some talk page action following the recent NME article. Just thought it worth noting. Perhaps Wikipedia has managed a reasonable level of neutrality on a contoversial issue, for a change. --89.242.207.108 (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it hasn't really been resolved, has it? Still, worth at least mentioning. 84.69.105.133 (talk) 00:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Places

Can we please get a source for all these places in the lead, biography and infobox?

We have Davyhulme, Hulme, Manchester, Stretford and Urmston all (seemingly) competing for the claim to fame with Morrissey. Intrestingly, there is no mention of Salford! This does need addressing asap. Furthermore, I would like to urge users that at the time of Morrissey's birth in 1959, all of these places were in Lancashire rather than Greater Manchester, and only Hulme was/is in Manchester, the rest are seperate places. -- Jza84 · (talk) 11:14, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

There's also "Hulme, near Moss Side" - do we really need this clarification? It looks a bit like the slightly awkward remains left behind by a dispute. --89.242.205.115 (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason there is debate about this is because Queen's Square, his first address, was literally on the border of Old Trafford and Hulme, right on the dotted line on the map.(Check Youtube for his recent appearance on The One Show if you need verification)He went to primary school in Hulme but his postcode was Old Trafford. Similarly, Harper Street, his next address, was in Old Trafford, slightly further in. Both places are now gone but for those who care you can look them up on local maps held in Central Library (should you be making a pilgrimage, which, own up, you probably will!). The only reason people in Manchester would care about any of this would be football-related, wanting to claim famous people for their tribe. Why anyone from outside Mancunia would give a monkey's is another question. Maybe the fact that he was born in such a transitional place confused even him! Plus, he grew up in England but his family was Irish. He chooses to not affiliate himself with any particular badge of identity or place, part of his appeal perhaps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.194.254 (talk) 16:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Meat is Murder

Worth mentioning in the Animal Rights section? Red Gown (talk) 04:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Leather shoes

leather, stating in 1986 that "there is simply no sensible alternative" to leather shoes. He has also said "I find shoes difficult to be ethical about - one just can't seem to avoid leather. One is trapped, ultimately."[52] However, it was reported in the April 2006 issue of SPIN Magazine that Morrissey now wears fake leather shoes.

I have read the above mentioned SPIN article, and Morrissey never states what his shoes are made of, the writer merely infers this because he is aware of Moz's vegetarianism.

I think this needs removing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.30.169 (talk) 13:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

After looking through the article it appears to have been heavily vandalized. Elsapo (talk) 20:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC) 14 May 2008

Morrissey as band

Maybe there should be some information included as to the band that have played with Morrissey - i know there's some biographical detail, but it seems to me that some mention should/could be made of his band. When his albums/live shows are billed as 'Morrissey', then that in effect includes his band, I suppose, and maybe that should be factored in? just a thought, if not feel free to ignore me. Andyroo g (talk) 12:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it's a good idea. Similar to Patti Smith's page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesuisbryony (talk • contribs) 12:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Associated acts?

I know that Morrisey can be linked to Sandie Shaw, Siouxsie Sioux, Nancy Sinatra and Kristeen Young but how are they associated acts?? I thought associated act had to be bands that an artist had to be in some way involved with ie, side projects, subsequent bands. I could be mistaken but I think this may be wrong... --Reballare (talk) 12:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Sandie Shaw recorded with the Smiths, Morrissey made one record with Siouxsie, Nancy Sinatra has recorded a Morrissey song (Let Me Kiss You) and Kristeen Young has gone on tour with Morrissey. So they are all associated with him, albeit rather tenuously in some cases. MFlet1 (talk) 12:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Reballare. Including in the infobox as "associated acts" all the artists who just once sang in duet with the person/band or did a cover of their song is not a sound idea. Neither is it common practice in other articles. Garik 11 (talk) 08:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Picture

Well done on creating the new picture. It looks pretty good, much better than the last one and oddly Morrissey looks younger in this one even though this one and the old one were taken in the same year. Anyway good pic, it makes him look like he has red hair though but I love the effect. Supposed (talk) 20:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It's been changed back again to the worst picture of him ever. Could this be classed as vandalism? --Jimthespring (talk) 10:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Song about James Dean

Im desperately trying to find out the name of the song that Morrissey/the smiths sang which was about James Dean? Igt is not the Charming Young Man? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.7.250.87 (talk) 20:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Without sounding like too much of a square, this isn't anything to do with his wikipedia page if you want an answer search on a fan site. Thanks. JeSuisBryony 13 September 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesuisbryony (talk • contribs) 20:15, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

its Suedehead by Morrissey.

19 pictures

This article seems way overloaded on pictures. Along with the 19 pictures and one or two other media items, the article appears over crowded. I would suggest culling around five of the pictures, in particular album covers (especially those from The Smiths records) as they are all present on the album articles. Any thoughts? --Lets Enjoy Life (talk) 06:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In any case, album covers normally must have a fair use rationale, and such images should illustrate the main subject of the article (i.e. they're OK on the article about the album, but not on the page of the artist who recorded it). See Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline. For example Image:MeatMurder.jpg and Image:The-Queen-is-Dead-cover.png do not provide fair use rationales for their use on the Morrissey article.
So yes, we should remove these from this page. --David Edgar (talk) 09:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
I removed the Smiths album covers.
The fair use rationales for the Morrissey solo covers should be checked / added. And probably some of these images should be removed from this page too. --David Edgar (talk) 15:11, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Discography

In the discography for this article, only Morrissey's solo albums are listed. Why are his albums as the vocalist for The Smiths not? The entry for John Lydon contains a list of Sex Pistols, PiL, and solo albums, so why not this article too? (Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:56, 28 October 2008 (UTC))

I think a suitably placed link to The Smiths discography is probably more appropriate than listing all The Smiths' albums here. It's easiest to maintain a list in only one place, and they're already well described on both that page and on The Smiths. --David Edgar (talk) 14:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
What about just the four studio albums ? It wouldn't take up much room. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC))
I still wouldn't do that. To be honest, the John Lydon article you give as an example just looks a bit unwieldy; I prefer the simple way it's done on John Lennon, for instance. --David Edgar (talk) 17:55, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:ThereIsALight.ogg

The image Image:ThereIsALight.ogg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
  • That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --12:16, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Main picture

Surely with all those pictures in the article, including the Alexander picture that was used in the past, and the new Years Of Refusal one, we have no need to start the page with that bad quality live picture, do we?Dollvalley (talk) 23:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Bisexual

It seems certain he is bi. Can anyone provide any evidence to the contrary? Werdnawerdna (talk) 19:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Surely it should be about providing proof positive rather than just assuming he is because there's no evidence to suggest otherwise. Morrissey never talks about this area of his life, and until this changes - which I'm guessing it never will - then I think any statements about his sexuality are always going to be nothing but conjecture. MFlet1 (talk) 22:59, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Edit war between TheColdDick, WesleyDodds and JD554

This now seems to have descended into an edit-summary argument about who should take it to the talk page, and is clearly damaging the article by eating up any intervening edits. Can these editors please summarise their reason for reverting the others' edits? --McGeddon (talk) 16:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

A somewhat comprehensive history of my edits

70% of the edits currently on the Morrissey article are mine. Hours were spent attaining information, finding reliable sources, scanning images, uploading images, organizing and editing the article. I personally feel my edit is superior to the one JD544 and WesleyDodds keep reverting to for various reasons. In fact, I can confidently say that had "Morrissey" not been the nominated article of the week in their WikiProject Alternative music group, they wouldn't have bothered with the article at all. This article has been created via the accumulated work and knowledge of the actual fans of Morrissey...people who actually know what they are talking about...Not people who simply HAVE to edit something just so they have something to show to their group. Not only is it unfair that two people come along and undo the masses work but it is unwarranted.

Even though editors may know what they are talking about, Wikipedia still has a verifiability policy which states that the threshold for inclusion is "verifiability not truth". The verifiability can be done by providing reliable sources for any information which may be challenged. There also appears to be a ownership issue here. The rest of my concerns are detailed below. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Also, you're assuming a lot about us, especially if you look at the edit history for this page and see that I've edited it a number of times before the collaboration. Also, JD554 wrote and cited Morrissey discography. WesleyDodds (talk) 09:11, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The following is a list of the problems I have with THEIR edits which lead to me reverting:

1. Their edit list Morrissey as "English" as opposed to "British". This article went through a similar debate at a previous time and it was universally decided that he would be labeled "British" because that is how Morrissey describes HIMSELF in interviews.

2. Their edit removes the years under contract while with The Smiths. This page serves as a biography, a solo career page and a Smiths page. There is no valid or conceivable reason to remove those years under contract when the article clearly discusses the subject of The Smiths in great detail.

The Smiths is the main article, so we only need to give a summary of it per Wikipedia summary style, and only list details pertinent to Morrissey. Most of the material was cut and pasted from The Smiths article, so I had to rewrite much of it (particularly the first sentence, which was written with the original intention that it was for an article about a group of people)
I agree with WesleyDodds here. There is no point in duplicating in depth information which is already present in The Smiths article. If people want to read about Morrissey's time with The Smiths in detail, that is where they should go. A link is provided at the beginning of this section for that purpose. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Morrissey is the founder and lead singer of The Smiths. How is anything about the group irrelevant to Morrissey? I also wrote the majority of The Smiths article so it stands to reason some of the same information and wording would carry over to this section. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
See above --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

3. Their edit removes the "occupation" section which lists Morrissey as a vocalist and lyricist in favor of a "instruments" section that solely lists vocalist. Britney Spears is JUST a vocalist because she doesn't write her own material. Morrissey writes his own material and has written his own material since he began his career. Removing this information serves no purpose.

Morrissey's job is a singer, of which writing lyrics factors into. His only instrument is his singing. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
I personally disagree with this and believe he should be simply listed as a singer-songwriter (not all singers write their own material). I agree that his only instrument should be singing as per Template:Infobox_musical_artist#Instrument. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
As referenced before, Britney Spears is a singer. She does not write her own lyrics. Being a singer does not mean you write your own music and lyrics. Maybe you should use Wikipedia to look up what a singer is? This section had no business being removed. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

4. Their edit removes mention of Morrissey recently being listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". Seeing as this is a major honor, there is no reason for it to be constantly removed by these users.

This does not belong in the lead. Work it into the body of the article. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
This WAS worked into the body of the article. Under the Years of Refusal section...of course, that was before you reverted everything. Do you even bother to read what you revert? Obviously not if you make statements like that. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I would be happy for that to go back in, but in the main body of the article. It's too fine a detail to be in the lead. But as I stated above, it needs to be backed up by a reliable source as per WP:V and WP:RS. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

5. Sections of the article have had their titles changed for no apparent reason. The original titled was "Solo career: 1988-1997". This title was chosen because after 1997 Morrissey went 7 years without a single, a record or a record contract. However, with these users edits they have changed the title to "Launching a solo career". I do not see the purpose of defining a near decade solo with the moniker "launching a solo career". 'Launching a career' would not encompass 10 years worth of albums and singles...after the initial album or two the career is no longer being "launched"...it is an established career.

Section titles should be consistent. Either all titles need dates, or they should all be removed. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Tell that to the people who did the same thing and got Bob Dylan featured article status. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The difference with this article and the Bob Dylan article is that the time frames used as section headers there are neat decade units, so they fit quite nicely. "Solo: 1988-1997", apart from the MOS:DASH error, isn't a neat timeframe. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
There are various ways to format a well-written article, particularly one that's of Featured status (I should know; I've written seven). With date ranges in section titles, you want to be consistent. Either use them all the time, or don't use them at all. WesleyDodds (talk) 09:08, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

6. A detailed (but not overly long) account of the Smiths career has been edited down for no good reason. Seeing as this is a Morrissey biography article and he is most known as the lead singer of The Smiths it makes no sense to edit the article down to minuscule proportions and leave out vital information about their formation, career and break-up.

As mentioned above, it was overly long and consisted of details copied and pasted from The Smiths, unaltered to suit this article.
The section could only be considered "overly long" if you have the attention span of an earthworm. Anything Smiths related is relevant to Morrissey. Do you know ANYTHING about Morrissey at all? It doesn't seem like it. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Rather that being insulting you could try to address the issue raised. This is meant to be a discussion about how to improve the article, please let's be adult about it. That said, although anything related to The Smiths is relevant to Morrissey is true, the information is already covered in The Smith article in that depth and can be read there. There is no need for unnecessary duplication. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

7. Details of The Smiths court case over royalties has been removed from the Smiths section and has instead been placed under the solo career section. Regardless of the court case occurring in 1996 (while Morrissey was solo) it does not belong under that section. It is about the Smiths, it SHOULD be under the Smiths article.

The biography should be chronological. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
If the biography is chronological then why do sections about his "music industry feuds" and "accusations of racism" appear in the article well after they chronologically happened? I'll tell you why, because they have been given their own section...and all information pertaining to this section goes UNDER THAT SECTION. Which is the very reason why the Smiths royalty court case goes under the Smiths section...NOT the solo section. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
This information belongs later in the article, because then when it happened in the Morrissey timeline. In the court case, Morrissey was defended as Morrissey not as The Smiths. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

8. The users edits are detrimental to the accuracy of the article. Many up to date changes have been made to the article which have been reverted with their changes such as: "The Sound of The Smiths" has been released since November 10 however on their edit it is still listed as an upcoming release, The release date for the reissue of "Southpaw Grammar" has changed however on their edit it lists an incorrect date, chart information for "The Sound of the Smiths" has been added to the article however their reverts remove this information...there are a few more incorrect and out of date statments in the article I can't think of right off the bat.

A lot of poor sources were removed, as well as much recentism. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
You prove my entire point with this one statement. You revert to YOUR edit because you like it better and in turn knowingly sacrifice accuracy. You know and have known there are out of date sections in the article but refuse to edit them. You have had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to correct this but fail to fulfill your obligation as an editor on Wikipedia. However, my edits are up to date and are removed by you and your lackey solely because you need to have something to show for your little group. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
There are over 2.5 million articles on Wikipedia of which there are nearly 1500 that fall within the scope of the Alternative WikiProject (that obviously doesn't include the ones that haven't been tagged, of which there will be hundreds, if not thousands, more). No one or two people can keep track of so many articles. Hence the project's "collaboration of the week" so that articles will be exposed to experienced editors who may not have otherwise come across the article. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

There are quite a few other examples of such poor editing on their part but I think you get the general idea.

All these users have really accomplished with their edits is removing the graphics, moving information to improper articles and leaving improper and outdated information on the page. I took these issues to JD544's talk page but was never "graced" with a reply. This was at least a week ago. When faced with these users refusal to come to some common ground, I reverted to the last proper edit of the article. Hopefully this properly answers your query. TheColdDick (talk) 19:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't respond to your comments on my talk page here because there was what I took to be a single rhetorical question at the end of what looked like a rant. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Just to note that I have removed the album covers used in the article they do not have a fair use rationale for this article and using album covers outside of the article related to the album is not normally allowed. My only interest is in the use of images on wikipedia I have no comment on the content issues. MilborneOne (talk) 20:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
One of the images removed was a live photo from the Tel Aviv concert. Since the photo is properly labeled and doesn't violate the rules, it has been added back. The album covers shall remain removed. TheColdDick (talk) 21:28, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Apology you are right it was my mistake to remove the Tel Aviv image. MilborneOne (talk) 22:19, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Most of our cleanup consisted of removing poor sources, condensing unnecessarily detailed prose, removing invalid fair use media, and tweaking the article to fit certain Wiki guidelines (such as formatting the website URL correctly in the infobox). Note that the version he is revert to is 70 kb, quite a bit of which is unsourced. In addition, we added sources that were removed by TheColdDick's wholesale revert. These included a New York Times article from 1991 and chart position refs that JD554 had added for all remaining uncited chart positions in the article. What I don't really understand is why TheColdDick began reverting in the first place, with no explanation, back when I was just removing uncited material. He reverted back to before the collaboration began without explanation. Having removed uncited material and having received no explanation for his actions, I reverted those initial edits. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Any fool can compare my edit to his edit. The fact of the matter is the proof is in the pudding. Very little has been edited and what HAS been edited has not been an improvement. All album and single chart positions have been properly and sufficiently referenced BY ME for a long time now. STILL these edits are reverted. Seldom is there a questionable statement that is not properly cited. With all of the edits this user has supposedly done to the article the only things he can offer as examples are a few inane edits here and there: removal of album covers, shortening a few sections, changing headers, adding a New York Times article. These edits are inconsequential. The only thing that has been accomplished with the edits and reverts of WesleyDodds and JD544 are they have butchered an article and wasted my and everyone else's time having to deal with these shenanigans. TheColdDick (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Proving myself to be a fool ;-) , other problems with the edits are:

  • Overlinking of common terms, such as England, United Kingdom, singer, author. People are aware of what these terms mean, linking them serves no purpose.
  • The change to the link for Slaughter & The Dogs which made it a link to a redirect page.
  • Incorrect formatting of the URL in the infobox as per Template:Infobox_musical_artist#URL.
  • The synthesis of why Morrissey wrote "Suffer the Children".
  • Capitalising the word "three" when it wasn't at the start of a sentence.
  • Removing the full name of the New York Doll documentary which was provided for context.
  • The removal of a useful (and well cited) section which described why Morrissey wanted to be in the music business.
  • Using (as an example) "#8" for a chart position in prose instead of "number eight".
  • The original research regarding the meaning of the song "Sorrow Will Come In The End".
  • Too much information his releases, such as You Are the Quarry, which have their own articles.
  • Duplication of the Joyce v Morrissey & Marr court case in the "Music industry feuds" section.
  • Removing the Commons category link.
  • The addition of an external link (Lucky Lisp) which adds nothing that this article being FA-class wouldn't add as per WP:ELNO.

I'm sure there must be more that I missed, but that's enough to be getting on with. --JD554 (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Both sides have a point, but I think it is important to note that it is The ColdDick who has added the pictures of younger Morrissey's and done a hell of a lot of work on this page, so I suggest we all give him some credit. I agree, some sections of this page were just too long and pointless, and still are (the "Greatest Hits" and "Years of Refusal" sections are simply a little too long). (Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC))
Yes, he has done a lot of work, but there's some problems. Many of the images have copyright issues. Very few of the references are properly formatting (no authors, no retrieval dates etc.). A lot of these issues need to be fixed. The problem is that TheColdDick would revert large amounts of progress we had performed to a point where the problems were highly present. WesleyDodds (talk) 23:16, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Infobox image

Now that all the copyvio images have been deleted, could a kind admin please move the image of Morrissey at the Alexander premier to the infobox along with it's caption. It's currently at the end of the 'Political leaders' section. Thanks, --JD554 (talk) 08:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Composer

Morrissey is described as a 'singer and lyricists'. He also created the melodies to which his lyrics are sung. Doesn't that make him a composer as well? Wysgeer (talk) 10:42, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

No. TheColdDick (talk) 09:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Why not? Wysgeer (talk) 11:40, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
My understanding is that Morrissey does indeed write all or part of all or some of his melodies. However, he is only ever credited on record sleeves etc as being responsible for "words". Perhaps he doesn't himself think his contributions to the music are significant enough. --78.144.209.245 (talk) 01:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
The credits on the record sleeves are not as clear as you suggest.
Up until recently that is. Apparently Morrissey is following this talk page on a day to day basis and he has decided to set things straight. The credits on his latest single, released in February 2009, read:
SIDE A: I'm throwing my arms around Paris
Composed by Morrissey/Boorer
And:
SIDE B: Death of a disco dancer
Composed by Morrissey/Marr.
Death of a disco dancer was written more than 20 years ago, so Morrissey didn't suddenly turn into a composer with the release of I'm throwing my arms around Paris. He always was.
I think he'd best be labelled a 'singer and songwriter', maybe adding 'especially known for his lyrics'. Wysgeer (talk) 15:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the way it works is that Morrissey's songwriting partner (e.g. Johnny Marr or Boz Boorer) writes a chord structure for which Morrissey then devises a melody and lyrics - I believe a lot of songwriting partnerships work like this. If you ask me the term 'composer' should be avoided in a pop music context anyway as it is often misused and/or misunderstood (i.e. people think composing includes writing the words). Just say 'songwriter'. MFlet1 (talk) 13:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Unlock the page, please

This lock of the page has solved nothing as far as what is considered a better edit for the page. If you're not going to unlock the page, at least properly update it instead of letting it and it's relevance fester. TheColdDick (talk) 09:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The place to request unprotection is at WP:RPP. But as you haven't attempted to enter a discussion with WesleyDodds or me above in an effort to reach a consensus, I would think it's unlikely to be approved. --JD554 (talk) 10:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd get much further holding a conversation with a chimp than I would trying to reach a "consensus" with either of you. TheColdDick (talk) 12:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Can I remind you about WP:CIVIL comments should be about content not other editors. Perhaps an attempt at conversation on the different topics should be attempted to gain consensus. You can get help from other editors but the points of conflict really need to be outlined clearly on this page first. MilborneOne (talk) 12:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Can I remind you the points of conflict were clearly outlined on this page already. You just didn't bother reading it, evidently. If you don't read the page, why bother replying to comments on it? TheColdDick (talk) 15:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
OK apology they are outlined. I dont need to read it as I have no interest in the subject I am only here to protect the encyclopedia from edit warring, copyright violations, uncivil behaviour and the like. So I dont need to read the page to warn others of uncivil behaviour for example. So remind me the first point was:

English/British

1. Their edit list Morrissey as "English" as opposed to "British". This article went through a similar debate at a previous time and it was universally decided that he would be labeled "British" because that is how Morrissey describes HIMSELF in interviews.

It currently says English singer which he clearly is as he was born in England cant find any previous discussion on this page so it either needs a new consensus to change or leave as English. Comment? MilborneOne (talk) 16:54, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with that. There seems to be some sort of campaign by some editors (not necessarily the ones who have edited this page) to remove all references to people being English. Being a constituent country of the United Kingdom means that being called English is perfectly valid, in exactly the same way as being called Scottish or Welsh is acceptable. --JD554 (talk) 11:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

There may "seem to be" because it doesn't "seem" to support your POV....go back to July and see the spirited review that was conducted on this subject...and concluded with editorial support for British.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.237.243.107 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 26 December 2008

As I have said above there is no previous discussion here on this subject in fact no entries in July at all on any subject. I will give it a few more days and if nobody can come up with a rationale argument to change it we leave the status quo and move to the next disagreement. MilborneOne (talk) 22:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

If nobody can come up with a rationale argument to "change it"? You few folks are the ones who have have come along and changed it from its long standing "status quo." And there most certainly was a discussion in July, you didn't do a thorough review...check the sockpuppetry notes of this similar POV pusher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Aviousours76 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.237.243.107 (talk) 19:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Morrissey disambiguation?

I just noticed that Morrissey leads directly to the dude. Should it not lead to Morrissey (disambiguation), per Madonna and Feist, etc? -M.Nelson (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It is correct that Morrissey is the name of theis article, and that entering that leads to the singer, with a disambiguation link at the top of the page, as it does now. It is correct as it is, because this man is known to the public as Morrissey, not Steven Morrissey. None of the other people on the page are known merely by their first name, but by their first and last name - e.g. David Morrissey is not known simply as Morrissey. Hence this article should not be changed to Steven Morrissey, or Morrissey (singer). Madonna is often used, in Christianity, to refer to Jesus' mother, hence why Madonna leads to the disambig page, and the title of the singer's page is Madonna (entertainer). F W Nietzsche (talk) 10:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Baritone?

It's misleading to refer to Morrissey as a baritone.

  1. He's not a classically trained singer.
  2. On Now my heart is full he can hardly reach as low as an A2. According to the baritone article the lowest note a typical baritone should be able to reach is two full notes lower: F2.

If any classical term applies to Morrissey's voice he's probably a 'limited tenor', but it would be best not to apply classical terminology to pop music at all. Wysgeer (talk) 12:10, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Think you are right, he is not a baritone. I am going to make the edit. --78.144.209.245 (talk) 00:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Anglo-Irish

Wouldn't it be best if the first sentence described him as an Anglo-Irish singer? a) He was born and raised in England; both parents were from Ireland. b) His 'dual identity' is obviously important to him, as he clearly expressed in his song Irish Blood, English Heart. F W Nietzsche (talk) 10:37, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

What citizenship(s) does he hold? I'm sure he would be entitled to British and Irish, but it would be useful to have that info on the article. F W Nietzsche (talk) 14:18, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Anglo-Irish wouldn't be appropriate as it applies when the cirsumstances are reversed (i.e. born in Ireland but of English (Brittish?) decent). Irish Briton would be more suitable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.106.229.124 (talk) 00:45, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Racism

"appeared on stage draped in the Union Flag, a symbol often associated with nationalism and hence with far right groups in Britain". This is a bit point of view is it not? Is there a consensus for branding people racists because they have had their national flag drapped around them? Perhaps someone should add a racism section to the Denise Lewis article http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/27/102427-004-BF36F4BC.jpg Stutley (talk) 10:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't brand anyone a racist for wearing the Union Flag. What it does do is report that many people, including the NME, made an association in this case between the flag and the far-right in Britain. It's not easily disputable, I think, that this is what happened. --78.150.233.143 (talk) 22:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Mother

It says in the article his mother was a 'librarian'. Did she have a Masters in this profession? Or was she unqualified and worked in a library i.e. a library assistant? If so this needs to be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.86.243.150 (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Influence

I just wrote a new section of the article on Morrissey's influence. I think it's of an adequate length now but it's by no means complete. Any other help would be greatly appreciated! Grunge6910 (talk) 22:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Liked it but just made one edit, which you can see in history. Only other thing I would say is that the influence of Morrissey/Smiths is such that listing artist influenced is, I think, a bit beside the point. Information (ideally sourced) about the seminal nature of his work should be included instead, with only a few particularly important bands/artists named. --FormerIP (talk) 00:15, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
I've added a couple new sources that do just that. Grunge6910 (talk) 01:08, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

References cleanup

I've begun the slow, arduous process of cleaning up these woefully inadequately-formatted references. Some are just a URL. Anyone want to help? Grunge6910 (talk) 02:24, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Singer/songwriter?

Is Morrissey really a singer/songwriter? He usually calls himself simply a singer. The title is a little misleading as it gives the impressions he writes the music to his songs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaimie06 (talk • contribs) 23:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Mexican/Latino fanbase

Morrissey has a ridiculously huge and loyal fanbase of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the SW US. There are reportedly excellent Morrissey/The Smiths Mexican cover bands. He's even been quoted as saying that he wishes he was born in Mexico. I'm not one of them, but I have heard of it and came here to learn more about it. Can someone who knows more about this include at least a mention about it if not a new section. I know at least one source is "Ask a Mexican" by Gustavo Arellano. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.14.208.122 (talk) 16:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Infobox image part 2

I agree with WesleyDodds in this edit where he says this image identifies the subject of the article clearer. The other image[12] doesn't clearly identify Morrissey to readers who may not already be aware of what he looks like. --JD554 (talk) 15:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. It'd be good to have a clear photo of him performing live, for the infobox, but this one isn't it. --McGeddon (talk) 15:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a demonstrable difference in clearness between the two, whereas the current photo seems anachronistic in its setting while the one that's been removed is more appropriate to the article subject. Grunge6910 (talk) 15:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

With the heavy shadow from the microphone, your suggested photo only shows Morrissey's face from the nose upwards. I'm not sure what you mean by "anachronistic" in this context, but the current photo does at least show the reader what Morrissey's face looks like. --McGeddon (talk) 16:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
The current picture, albeit a better lit one, doesn't identify Morrissey to readers correctly due to his weird facial expression, which many editors hated before. I suggest bringing back this other picture of Morrissey performing that I had inserted into the infobox earlier. Garik 11 (talk) 17:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I recall discussions in the past that infobox images of people should identify the subject as clearly as possible, and unobscured as much as possible. Thus if you have an image of someone who's turned to the side and one of a person facing front, go with the latter. I'm trying to find the guideline for this. WesleyDodds (talk) 04:47, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't he facing front in this photo then? Garik 11 (talk) 08:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I really don't like the Alexander one, partly because of the contorted jaw, but also because it shows Morrissey in an uncharacteristic setting (I bet it is the only premier of a Hollywood film he has attended). Here are some other alternatives (all CC licenced): [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]. Think this one is goddamn perfect, but there may be a need to verify that it is not a pro photo [21]. There are an awful lot more on flickr. --FormerIP (talk) 13:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately none of the pictures you've linked to are "free" to use because they either restrict commercial re-use or the making of derivative copies. Wikipedia:Upload/Flickr shows which creative commons licences are free to use. This link shows the free to use images currently on Flickr (careful there are a large number of obvious copyvios in there), none of which seem to show Morrissey as well as the current image. --JD554 (talk) 14:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I still think the SXSW image beats the Alexander one, though, and shows his face perfectly clearly. --FormerIP (talk) 15:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
This one looks ok to me, you can't see his face in full detail but it gets his profile i.e the quiff quite well. [22]

Influence

Regarding list of bands influenced by Morrissey: first, I think it's foolish to remove such a large amount of sourced material without talkpage discussion first. Second, I understand the concern over the indiscriminate nature of the list -- does anybody have a suggestion as to better order the list? Grunge6910 (talk) 16:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

We could quote some of the artists as to how Morrissey influenced their music. All the same, I think the present legacy section already succinctly conveys the fact that the singer is very influential in a variety genres. Mentioning every musician who is a fan, even with sources, makes for tedious writing. indopug (talk) 16:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you mentioned that. First, from what I can see the list isn't of artists who are "fans" but who have been noted as influenced by him -- quite a difference. Second, it's hardly an exhaustive list. But I'll try to rework it nonetheless. Grunge6910 (talk) 16:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
If the best we can say is that "xxx was influenced by..." then it isn't really worth noting. However, if it could be expanded so that it said how/why they were influenced and what they may have had to say about Morrissey, it would be more encyclopaedic and less tedious. I think point 7 at WP:NOTDIR is relevant here, just a mention of the main artists who have had something to say about being influenced by Morrissey is relevant. --JD554 (talk) 07:56, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Hospitalised, 25th October 2009

Get ready for incoming vandalism ;\ - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8324492.stm 87.194.76.247 (talk) 04:22, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Morrissey gets bonked on the head with a thrown plastic bottle

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1226147/Morrissey-storms-stage-bottle-thrown-concert-goer-hits-eye.html

I laughed so hard when I saw the video of this guy getting boinked on the head with a plastic bottle (of beer?).

And where exactly do you get beer in plastic bottles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.88.44 (talk) 14:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The present

Just wanted to ask (nicely!) why has somebody removed the words 'The Present' or at least rephrased it? (I mean, I slaved away writing it for TWO whole minutes). Surely he's moved on from the 'comeback' phrase of his career?

I also added the aformentioned 'Morrissey gets bonked on the head with thrown plastic bottle' but its since been deleted, can the person who did it please explain? Thanks appletaffy nov. 10 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Appletaffy (talk • contribs) 21:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The plastic bottle incident? Probably because it's of fuck all importance and has no place in an encyclopedia, dear...

Lede

I reinserted the following from the lede: "Morrissey's sardonic, literate lyrics tend to be 'dramatic...bleak, funny vignettes about doomed relationships, lonely nightclubs, the burden of the past and the prison of the home' (The Times). He is also noted for his unique vocal style (Rolling Stone)." These summaries of (1) his lyrical and (2) his vocal style are integral to providing an overview of the article subject, and inevitably these will be somebody or other's "assessment." No further rationale for their removal was given. Grunge6910 (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Found source re: Sparks single "Lighten up Morrissey"

I found a source regarding the song being about Morrissey -- LAist Interview: Russell Mael of Sparks -- but according to Russell the song isn't critical of Moz, so the mention of the single doesn't belong in the Music industry feuds section where it was.

Our song, "Lighten Up Morrissey" is a relationship song about a guy wishing out loud that Morrissey would relinquish some of his core values in order that the guy's girlfriend will better respect him rather than constantly wishing she were with her idol Morrissey. Morrissey only needs to lighten up in the eyes of our song's character.

So does this belong in the article, and if so, where? -- Foetusized (talk) 20:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Something like that would be better off in the "influence" section, but it's not very important compared to the other things listed there. So I would be inclined to leave it out. --JD554 (talk) 20:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
Au contraire! I'd say it is at least worth a passing mention, compared to some of the tedious info currently contained in that section. It is at least a direct clear reference, as opposed to band x was influenced by band y according to website z. --92.14.11.109 (talk) 02:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
A band writing a song about Morrissey doesn't compare with bands' complete styles (writing and/or music) being influenced by him. All of which, incidentally, is sourced. --JD554 (talk) 08:55, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Love Music Hate Racism concert donation

Was it 75000 or 28000 pounds he donated? Just wanted to notify on the inconsistency in the article.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.123.46 (talk) 20:07, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the concert had a 75,000 pounds deficit, and he then donated 28,000 pounds. But i'm not sure. Anyone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.123.46 (talk) 13:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Sexuality

The sexuality section of the article needs to be expanded, as it is a massive part of his persona. Sexual themes are evident in much of his work, and his 'campness', claims that he used to be celibate etc, leads to much interest and debate on the matter. It is strange that he references and alludes to his sexuality so much in his lyrics, CD covers, interviews etc, yet has never actually stated what orientation he is. If he really was celibate for years, that is very unusual for a man who is in such a fortunate and favourable position in society. Being a rich, famous rock singer gives him millions of potential sexual partners to chose from. He isn't ugly or out of shape - everything is in his favour. Any suggestion / claim that he is asexual is nonsense, as he frequently expresses his sexuality, be it ambiguously. He is known to have had sexual partners before and after his 'celibate years' - we just don't know the number of gender of each of them. Is he deliberately employing sexual ambiguity to gain attention / publicity - or is he just confused? He cannot have been involuntarily celibate all that time, and for him to choose to be celibate for that long is very strange, considering his opportunities. Was he actually celibate for years - and if so - was that merely to prevent kiss and tell stories? It would be good to get some insight on this from someone who actually knows him. How is he, in general, viewed by LGBT people? Do they (try to) 'claim' him as one of them, or do they dislike him for refusing to state his orientation? I've not heard of him being a gay icon, which for a singer who explores homosexual themes in some of his songs suggests there is some reason for his lack of popularity among LGBT people. Has he ever played at LGBT venues? Does he support LGBT causes, such as same-sex marriage? F W Nietzsche (talk) 11:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

How about not. TheColdDick (talk) 03:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I'd suggest you take a look at some of the thinking around the concept of being queer and read books by Judith Butler, who uses ideas from post-structuralism. Although not wanting to engage in discussion about the article's subject, I'd say that sexuality isn't a huge part of his persona, it's a huge part of other people's ideas and expectations about how his persona should be. Morrissey, like everyone else, has every right not to have to label himself or put himself in any sort of box. Totorotroll (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Moors Murders

The influence of the Moors Murders on Morrissey is possibly confirmed by the assertion made by Stuart Maconie in ''Pies and Prejudice'' that The Smiths were named for Myra Hindley's sister and brother-in-law, who reported Brady and Hindley to police. Maconie is usually a pretty reliable witness.--82.112.134.225 (talk) 20:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not the version of the story told by the band. It could be Maconie's theory and just a coincidence. Exok (talk) 20:50, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Nationality

I've provided a reliable source for his being Irish-English, yet this is being reverted. What is the problem with this statement? 79.97.144.17 (talk) 01:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If you would bother to read the interview that the ref points to, you would see this quote by Morrissey: Yes, unavoidably I'm English but it's not as if I go about with a cravat and a sports coat with leather elbows. I'm not Terry-Thomas. I just happen to be English and sing in an English manner.
Your ref is to a review of a book about 'second generation Irish musicians in England'; that is not the same as Morrissey calling himself English profusely. His Irish ancestry is discussed in the article body. Radiopathy •talk• 01:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Anyone born to Irish parents is automatically an Irish citizen though [23]. 79.97.144.17 (talk) 22:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

That says they can become an Irish citizen. He's entitled to. But he's not. --Τασουλα (Almira) (talk) 23:00, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
No. It states " a person who was born outside Ireland is automatically an Irish citizen by descent if one of that person's parents was an Irish citizen who was born in Ireland." 79.97.144.17 (talk) 23:43, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
Under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Acts, 1956 to 2004, a person who was born outside Ireland is automatically an Irish citizen by descent if one of that person's parents was an Irish citizen who was born in Ireland. right, but then it says - A person born abroad to a parent who, although not born in Ireland, was otherwise an Irish citizen at the time of the person’s birth, can become an Irish citizen by applying for Foreign Births Registration ??? --Τασουλα (Almira) (talk) 01:48, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
True, Morrissey is an Irish citizen by descent: both of his parents were born in Ireland. However, we have a ref in which he self-identifies as English and none in which he expresses his Irish citizenship, but that could be made made more explicit in the article body. Since he was born in England and refers to himself as English, WP:UKNATIONALS is the guideline that applies. Radiopathy •talk• 04:42, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is this article locked?

It's not as if there is some ongoing important dealings re: Morrissey or The Smiths. I just came here to read a bit and noticed that "fuelled" is spelled wrong (only one l). I tried to correct it. No dice.

My bad...I guess "fuelled" is legit. Man...you Brits.

What? Man, you Americans, spelling it with two L's. See what I did there? And if you want to make a change, put in an edit request, thank you! --Τασουλα (Almira) (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Morrissey article - repeated deletions of fan relations section

Hi could everyone please be a little less aggressive and trigger-happy? I am a new wikipedian and trying to improve Morrissey's page, which is somewhat lacking at present. It seems bizarre that an artist who is known primarily for his remarkable closeness to his fans has almost no mention of this on his biography, yet repeated mention of unfounded allegations and excessive discussion of his sexuality.

I may have tried to put a link back in inadvertently because I'm new and didn't realise a link I'd posted was deemed 'inappropriate' - I have just discovered the 'messages' page.

I wrote a very reasonable overview of 'relationship with fans' and a user called John shortly thereafter deleted it, labelling it 'rubbish' and simply removing all reference to Morrissey's relationship with his fans. I think this was unreasonable and uncompromising. This needs ot be discussed before consulting a higher authority if necessary.

Morrissey has recently devoted large amounts of time to a feud with fansite Morrissey-solo, issuing a cease and desist order, banning their owner for life and wearing a 'f*** morrissey-solo' t shirt. Nowhere is this even mentioned on the site. Not only this he has in 5 months written 3 times about a website, which again is not mentioned anywhere on the page. This is big news at the moment and has even received press coverage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Friendlyfan4 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide any reliable third party sources for any of this? If you can there is no reason some of it couldn't be in the article. The "rubbish" remark was not aimed at this questionable material but at the inclusion of the subject in Category:Asexual people, which flies in the face of WP:BLPCAT. --John (talk) 21:09, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi Friendlyfan4. You should have a read of some of the WP policy pages. In particular, WP:RS, WP:UNDUE and WP:BLOGS. Wikipedia is limited to covering stories that have already been covered in reliable sources such as books and newspapers. Although a large amount of text using various blogs and discussion forums as sources for things to do with those blogs and discussion forums might be fascinating to some people, other people may regard it as unwelcome trivia. And it is against Wikipedia policy. If you want to include material about Morrissey's relationship to his fans, then there is probably reliably sourced information about this out there that you could make use of, for example in one of his various biographies. That may be suitable for inclusion. --FormerIP (talk) 21:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the section entitled "Relationship with fans" should be put back in as fully acceptable by Wiki standards as is. It is sufficiently supplied with reliable sources. The noteworthiness is supported by the newspaper articles that specifically discuss his relationship with fans and the fact that the film cited (and mentioned in 8 Wiki articles), which has a certain noteworthiness in itself, also deals with his relations with fans. The section "Turbulent relations with online fanbase, feud with website, internet hoax" seems long and I'd trim it, if and when it got its reliable sources. (A number of the sources in the section are in fact reliable: two Guardian citations and the reference to CHARTattack. Fan sites and blogs aren't useful.) -- I.Hutchesson ► 03:05, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Vegan or vegetarian?

According to this article he is vegetarian, yet his name appears in the list of vegans. Can anyone check the facts and make the correction where necessary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.180.242.246 (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

External links

I've removed some of the external links in the article. Per WP:EL, links that should be avoided include "blogs, personal webpages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority". --FormerIP (talk) 19:42, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

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asexuality

Morrissey himself has said several times that he is asexual, could you please put him in the category `asexual people`? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.89.231.122 (talk) 14:42, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Religion

Does Morrissey hold any religious beleifs? Does he believe in God? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.234.156.139 (talk) 19:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

2011 and present

This is a dispute on this page regarding this section:

In an online interview in June 2012, Morrissey reaffirmed a previous statement he had made indicating he had no plans to continue his music career past the age of 55.[1] This has been seen by certain sections of the media as an indication of his imminent retirement.[2][3]

The statement made here by Morrissey in the original article (http://msn.juiceonline.com/morrissey-wordsmith/) I believe can be seen as a legitimate announcement of plans of exiting the music scene and I don't understand why the edit is being consistently reverted.

Moz1916 (talk) 15:30, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Junaini, Hidzir (1 June 2012). "Morrissey: Wordsmith". Juice Online. Retrieved 08 June 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ Gilchrist, Todd (6 June 2012). "Morrissey Announces 2014 Retirement Plans". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 07 June 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ "Morrissey eyes 2014 retirement". Toronto Sun. 5 June 2012. Retrieved 08 June 2012. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
I have no problem with the current wording. The previous wording made it look like Morrissey had made some announcement that he was retiring in 2014, which was not the case. This new version makes it clear what he did say (with a cite to the original source), and that others have taken it to mean that he has set a date for retirement.
The version I did not care for (and reverted a couple of times) looked like this:
In an online interview in June 2012, Morrissey announced plans to retire in 2014 after 'aging a lot recently'.[1]
-- Foetusized (talk) 16:26, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Gilchrist, Todd (6 June 2012). "Morrissey Announces 2014 Retirement Plans". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 07 June 2012. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

Gigantic Mexican following

He has a gigantic Mexican/Mexican-American following and the article only just barely touches on this. Why? --76.105.145.143 (talk) 03:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The Smiths

It looks like 1982 was the year he formed the Smiths. But other than the header date, there's no actual indication of when or how the name came into being. Anyone know? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gef05 (talk • contribs) 02:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


Pic

I don't know Morrissey. Is his face disfigured, or is the pic a very poor representation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.88.9.95 (talk) 18:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Morrissey

This article is a wretched example of the way Wikipedia is systematically misused to puff individuals featured in it. What the piece needs is (a)serious editing by someone unbiassed, (b) preferably to one quarter of its original length. 86.165.58.188 (talk) 22:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it is so bad. But I think the Public Feuds and Activism section is terribly POV. Lots of it mentions people who dislike him but is very vague about why. And the section on racism spends to much time apologising for him without sources. All opinions of him, positive or negative, must be attributed to a notable commentary. Giving "examples" of why he is not racist (or is), is considered WP:OR unless the source makes the claim. Ashmoo (talk) 19:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
As an example, the description of the Madstock event and NME's commentary of it contains 1 sentence about NME's criticism and then a whole paragraph in defense of Moz. What's worse, the "defense" seems to be of something that isn't even in the article. That is, Morrissey being taken of stage. What has happened here. Either the description of the event needs to be re-included, or the "defense" needs to be removed. As it is, it makes no sense. Ashmoo (talk) 19:21, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
I've trimmed some of that, some of it because it doesn't feature in the source, and some because I agree that we don't need to defend Morrissey from allegations which are immaterial. I also think the whole "music industry feuds" section can go. He been a pop star for 30 years and done hundreds of interviews where he's asked about things he liked and doesn't like. Making a big deal out of a few random examples is trivia. Formerip (talk) 19:45, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
The article is currently over 100K, so it needs some major trimming or splitting. I noticed that the "Biography" section contains a lot of minutiae about tour stops and press releases, especially since the 2000s, so this could be cut quite a bit. Also, the "Legacy and influence" is too much. Do we need a whole paragraph of quotes from Mark Simpson or a paragraph for Brandon Flowers and Colin Meloy? The "Public Feuds and Activism" section could possibly be split off if it can't be cut anymore. - Maximusveritas (talk) 15:34, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

New Source

New source where Morrissey compares eating meat to pedophillia. [24]--v/r - TP 16:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

With regard to the edit summary in this edit: "I'm not at this stage reverting the previous edit, but there is no reliable evidence whatsoever that Morrissey by 1984 "had a lot of girlfriends in the past and quite a few men friends"." The statement is taken from a sourced interview with Johnny Marr - at the bottom of the page it says "Taken from UK Pop Magazine 'Record Mirror', June 9th 1984, page 14" Is that not a reliable source? If not, why not? Chaheel Riens (talk) 10:20, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Piano

Other than the solo at the end of Death Of A Disco Dancer there hasn't been any recordings or live appearances where Morrissey has played the piano therefore I would hardly consider it a notable instrument. If there was any instrument other than his beautiful voice I'd say tamborine! So I think it's a wise idea it's removed from the page because he really isn't a pianist. JeSuisBryony 13 September 2008


He likes Farage quite a lot? What a shame to hear that from someone who I used to hold as a hero when I was a student. Time to chuck out the Smiths albums I think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.225.149.5 (talk) 15:30, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any reference to Morrissey supporting Ukip or Farange. Totorotroll (talk) 18:02, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Re: "English singer" as opposed to British singer of Irish descent

I have changed the opening sentence describing Morrissey as an English singer. Looking through the archives, I saw there was already a bit of discussion about this circa 2008 but no one made a cogent argument for why it is important to distinguish between English and British. My argument is three fold:

  1. England has not been a sovereign nation for several hundred years
  2. Morrissey is not, to my knowledge, ethnic English but rather an Irish Briton
  3. He now lives in Los Angeles

I think referring to Moz as "English" creates unnecessary confusion regarding his ethnic and national background. He's not ethnic English, England is not a country and he doesn't live there in any case. His nationality is British and he's an expatriate residing in the US. He's as English in any sense of the word as Lennox Lewis was when he resided in Canada.

Machine Man (talk) 22:59, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of policy, we don't normally mention ethnicity in the lead of an article, so the choices are "British" and "English". I'd personally be fine with either, but "Irish descent" doesn't get a look-in. Formerip (talk) 23:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Feuds within the music industry

The first sentence of the third paragraph reads: Morrissey have severely criticized fellow singers such as Madonna, David Bowie and George Michael.

This should either read "M. has severely..." or "M. has been severely..."

I don't know enough Morrissey trivia to know which.

Either way, there're no citations given for the severe criticism. Perhaps the sentence needs to go?

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicdafis (talk • contribs) 10:41, 19 November 2006‎ (UTC)

Wilde

It reads that Wilde was a homosexual. He was not. He had a wife and children. He believed in 'Greek Love'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.207.13.72 (talk) 00:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Greek, homosexual love. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.69.105.133 (talk) 00:06, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course Wilde was a homosexual you idiot, he was in Reading Jail for confessing to it; in court, someone asked 'Mr Wilde, put simply, did you make love to this man?' Wilde replied 'absolutely not, that is wholly disgusting; he is far too ugly' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.230.34 (talk) 19:50, 9 November 2009‎ (UTC)

Tony quote?

Can I get a source for the Tony Visconti Quote about the next Moz album? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Soonlaypale (talk • contribs) 19:28, 11 August 2007‎ (UTC)

TSA

I agree 100% with Mr. Morrissey regarding TSA. They put their hands on me like I was some kind of sex toy that they couldn't get enough of. I'm a man about Mr. Morrissey age and when another man does that, forget, I want something done to stop this. If they gotta put their hands on me like that, then I want a women doing the search. They threatened to not let me on the plane because I couldn't take this man groping me on every inch of my body. I least I should be allow to choose who does this outlandish search when all I did was forget to take my belt off. I was forced to allow this after stopping the man 3 times and then they said I would not be allowed on the plane. Get the F out of here with this BS. I wasn't even allowed the camera scan because the belt set off the metal detection line. Yes, I don't travel enough to remember the belt, but stop this action on the part of TSA. ⋅÷×− — Preceding unsigned comment added by ADKJACK (talk • contribs) 16:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

enable move option please

I suggest it is removed "Steven Patrick Morrissey" and "Morrissey" is moved to it, because Morrissey is a term that itself is generic and name of the article should respond to the legal name of the person not the "alias" and less if the alias can mean many things unrelated to this specific person --KSEltar (talk) 04:49, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I strongly disagree here. Morrissey is known internationally as "Morrissey", not as "Steven Patrick Morrissey". All of his solo music has been released under the name of "Morrissey", as have his published books. See also Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names, which guides us in these matters. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Associated Acts.

I admit to being woefully ignorant of Morrissey's career, but can I ask how David Bowie is an Associated Act? Apart from being a fan of his glam period and having the great Mick Ronson as a producer for an album, I fail to see the connection. However I must admit on seeing Bowie's name at the top, I neglected to read the article and just did a word search of the article for Bowie. Kempee (talk) 01:40, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the connection appears to be spurious. Morrissey was a Bowie fan and they did appear onstage once for a performance, but I don't believe that there is much deeper than that. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

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The first link here works - the second one does not. Knittea (talk) 06:53, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Sexuality

Wouldn't the discussion of Morrissey's sexuality improve if we acknowledged that asexuality is a thing? Look at the Asexual page and look up biromantic demisexual and Morrissey's statement about being a "humasexual" fits it perfectly. 24.20.45.251 (talk) 18:35, 1 August 2016 (UTC)eriol11

Wikipedia is based on what reliable sources state about the subject, so any statements in the article about Morrissey's sexuality can only be based on what such sources state. For editors to make their own analyses is original research and therefore counter to Wikipedia policy. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:28, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Morrissey stated in his autobiography that he "is humansexual" he "loves people but not that many". Only he knows what this means. Casey christie (talk) 06:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Genre

Morrissey has never been successfully pigeonholed. In his biography he criticises "alternative" as a moniker, and "indie" stopped being relevant when he signed to a big label. He's experimented with flamenco, harder rock, torch songs etc etc so why don't we do the right thing and put "Sui generis" as the first option for genre, and then put the others in brackets, if they must be there. Unfortunately, the entire reliability of the article is compromised at the moment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.73.193 (talk) 22:46, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

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New picture needed

The current photograph is from 2005. We could do with having a more contemporary photograph. Luckily there are lots around. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.52.53.129 (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

There aren't lots around that are available for use on Wikipedia - in fact that don't appear to be any others. Wikipedia can only use images with no copyright applied to them. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:21, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:PEACOCK issues

Some lines of the article stand out as being in conflict with WP:PEACOCK:

  • With Johnny Marr he established the Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their self-titled debut album.
    • The part after the comma breaches WP:PEACOCK - better would be to mention that said album debuted at number two in the UK charts - which the article on the album does.
  • As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his unconventional yet expressive baritone voice, witty and sardonic lyrics, and idiosyncratic appearance; deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the aesthetic of a social outsider who eschewed drugs and embraced celibacy.
    • Quite a few words: "unconventional", "witty" breach WP:PEACOCK, WP:NOTOPINION. Better would be to quote magazines or writers on him, citing WP:RS
  • Highly influential, Morrissey has been credited as a seminal figure in the emergence of indie rock and Britpop.

Autarch (talk) 19:31, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Archives for true-to-you sources

The fan website true-to-you.net, which previously enjoyed a relationship with Morrissey, is now offline and clicking any link to it redirects to an error page. About a dozen true-to-you.net sources are used in this article (based on my browser's search function for the keyword "true-to-you"), some of which are already archived, but the majority of which are not. I can try to help, but I think it could be beneficial if other people looked into that as well. (This is also a problem on other Morrissey-related articles, such as some of his solo albums like Years of Refusal, but that's not the focus here.) Bizarre BizarreTalk modern to me 15:50, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Steven Morrissey (footballer) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:18, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Supporter of Britain First and Tommy Robinson, thinks Hitler is left-wing

See this. Evidently he called Hitler left-wing. Doug Weller talk 11:56, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Meh, that's our Morrissey. Wanna look into context, or just crucify him? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:27, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

At AFD: Still Ill

WP:Articles for deletion/Still Ill. -- Softlavender (talk) 06:15, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Any space for the comments defending Spacey & Weinstein?

Would they go under the political opinions section or would a new one need to be made? There's certainly been enough coverage (& criticism) of the comments in the press, these to name a few, and some others already cited in the article such as The Guardian source.

At the moment, the article does read a little whitewashed, as there's no mention of his past comments on black music as covered in The Guardian, Dallas Observer, The i etc. or the "rape capital of Europe" comments from the Der Spiegel interview, which have been covered in multiple accepted outlets. Also no mention of his support for Israel and criticism of BDS in the political opinions section or the denouncing of halal & kosher in 'Animal rights advocacy' (which should be changed at least to 'Animal welfare views & advocacy' since much of it is seen more controversial than anything else, & is hardly good press for genuine animal rights advocates). Donkey Hot-day (talk) 17:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

and, not &, on Wikipedia, please & thank you. - Seasider53 (talk) 20:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
Indeed, I've been editing long enough to know the preference. I assume the response means I'm free to edit those things in? I'm not sure whether the Spacey/Weinstein stuff would count as 'political opinions'. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 00:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
The article should be balanced, so I don't have a problem with your pending edits. - Seasider53 (talk) 01:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
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