The Morrissey Paradox

*Please just say that in your head with his accent. Try not to laugh…

Friends,

As promised, I’m going to attempt to describe what Tyler and I call “The Morrissey Paradox.” Before we get too deep into it, I have to come completely clean with the loyal readers of The Hamstring. I am a completely unabashed Morrissey fanboy. I’ve seen him live 4 times, I own the entire catalog (both Smiths and solo), and would probably let him do things to me sexually that would make the Marquis De Sade blush.

I’m glad we got that out of the way…now we can begin.

Lets start with a small excerpt from one of his songs. I thought “Hated for Loving” off the Vauxhall & I album might be a good place to start.

I am hated for loving, I am hated for loving

Anonymous call, A poison pen 

A brick in the small of the back again 

I still don’t belong

To anyone – I am mine

Lets think about that for a second. The dude obviously has some serious longing going on. Always defined by his melodrama, these particular lyrics define him almost to a tee. He’s very ambiguous as to whom he “loves”, and to whom isn’t returning his “love.” His lyrics tend to stick to this formula, and frankly, that’s part of what makes him awesome. You can place your own relationship situations into most of his songs very easily. Musically and artistically speaking, Morrissey has dialed in for himself a unique niche that just about anyone with a beating heart can relate to (and a highly profitable niche at that…the guy has sold millions of albums worldwide and headlined places like the Hollywood Bowl, Glastonbury and the Coachella Festival for shit’s sake).

Here’s the funny thing about crafting an entire persona upon longing for love lost, love that never happened, self-loathing, etc… What would happen if he actually attained it? Herein lies the Paradox.

Obviously millions of fans (like squeaky little me) love the shit out of him. But we’re talking relationships here, people. Real ones. What happens if the often-rumoured asexual (did you like the British spelling of rumored? I totally did that on purpose) really isn’t that at all?

Lets say he’s chilling at a pub, crying into his 20oz imperial pint of Guinness, and some lovely lady (or man) pulls up a stool next to him. For some reason Morrissey doesn’t brush her off like he would to any other who might approach. A conversation sparks. There’s a twinkle in his eye. It’s reciprocated. You see where this is going… 5 years later the dude is happily married with 2 kids and a dog (who probably humps his favorite West Ham blanket…I just assume he supports West Ham because I’ve seen pictures of him in their shirt).

In this reality, Morrissey as we know him ceases to exist. The Paradox is this: Morrissey isn’t Morrissey if he actually found true love, or were able to. This means we never would have had such classic albums like The Queen Is Dead, Meat Is Murder, Viva Hate, or newer ones like Years of Refusal. All the songs that quite literally got me and droves of others through High School never existed. What would have filled the void?

I don’t know about you, but the image above scares the living shit out of me and burns my retinas. A world without a grouchy, self-involved, self-loathing Moz would be a frightening and bleak one indeed (if any punk rockers catch the hidden reference in that last sentence, 100 punk points will be awarded).

We would have had to depend on the Cure. Listen…I like the Cure. Robert Smith is quite the brooding introvert. But come on, man. They’re in a different league altogether. That’s like Lakers/Clippers, Yankees/Mets, or Angels/any other team. I mean, here in Los Angeles, who would our impressionable Hispanic youth have turned to for direction? And please don’t be a PC asshole and interpret that comment as being racist.

It’s a fact that the Hispanic population in LA has embraced the fuck out of old Mozzer. This is no debate. As a matter of fact, Chuck Klosterman dedicated an entire essay (no pun intended) to the topic in his phenomenal book, “Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas.”

Anywhoo (hehehe…ever since the article I posted the other day, I can’t write or say that without giggling to myself)…There’s really not a whole lot more to the Paradox, or to this article. I was really hoping to get more than 842 words out of this post…espescially since I hyped it up so fucking much. I hope I didn’t disappoint. As always, feedback is appreciated. I’d like to hear what you folks think about the Paradox, and what type of world you could see us living in if we never got to ache along to “Every Day Is Like Sunday.”

Hopefully my wife’s not in a coma,

For Tyler, Mike Apathy signing off.