Morrissey talks on racism controversy
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He’s only gone and done it – following yesterday’s announcement that Morrissey would slag off the NME today, he has.
You can find the full posting here, the context – if somehow you’re not aware of it – is an article, an interview between magazine and artist that was apparently doctored in some way by NME editor Conor McNicholas to make the former Smiths man appear racist.
Here are selected highlights from Morrissey’s lengthy rant:
Opening statement
“On Friday of last week I issued writs against the NME (New Musical Express) and its editor Conor McNicholas as I believe they have deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist in a recent interview I gave them in order to boost their dwindling circulation.”
On the accusations
“I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind… racism is beyond common sense and I believe it has no place in our society.”
On NME writer Tim Jonze
“I do not mean to be rude to Tim Jonze, but when I first caught sight of him I assumed that someone had brought their child along to the interview. The runny nose told the whole story. Conor had assured [me] that Tim was their best writer. Talking behind his hands in an endless fidget, Tim accepted every answer I gave him with a schoolgirl giggle, and repeatedly asked me if I was shocked at how little he actually knew about music. I told him that, yes, I was shocked. It was difficult for me to believe that the best writer from the "new" NME had never heard of the song 'Drive-in Saturday'; I explained that it was by David Bowie, and Tim replied "Oh, I don't know anything about David Bowie." I wondered how it could be so - how the quality of music journalism in England could have fallen so low that the prime "new" NME writer knew nothing of David Bowie, an artist to whom most relevant British artists are indebted, and one who single-handedly changed British culture - musically and otherwise.”
On the controversial dialogue
“Me: If you walk down Knightsbridge you'll be hard-pressed to hear anyone speaking English.
“Tim: I don't think that's true. You're beginning to sound like my parents.
“Me: Well, when did you last walk down Knightsbridge?
“Tim: Ummm.... Knightsbridge ....is that where Harrods is?
“So, Tim was prepared to attack and argue the point without even being clear about where Knightsbridge actually is! The "new" NME strikes again. Oh dear, I thought, not again.”
I can’t be a racist, a lot of my friends are black
“Conor would be repulsed by my vast collection of World Cinema films, by my adoration of James Baldwin, my love of Middle-Eastern tunings, Kazem al-Saher, Lior Ashkenazi, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and he would be repulsed to recall a quote as printed in his magazine in or around August of this year wherein I said that my ambition was to play concerts in Iran.”
On Conor McNicholas
“Uniquely deprived of wisdom…Conor doesn't understand how the relentless stream of "cheers mate, got pissed last night, ha ha" interviews that clutter every single issue of the "new" NME are simply not interesting to those of us who have no trouble standing upright.
On the “new” NME
“It is on the backs of writers such as Morley, Burchill, Kent and Shaar Murray that the "new" NME hitches its mule-cart, assuming equal relevance. But the stalled views of the "new" NME sag, and readers have been driven away by a magazine with no insides. The narrow cast of repeated subjects sets off the agony, a mesmerizing mess of very brief and dispassionate articles unable to make thought evolve; a marooned editor who holds the divine right to censor any views that clash with his own.”
Hold forth…
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made me lol
I don't like Morrissey at all
But this is gold. It's a very well thought out and well written retort.
Tim replied
"Oh, I don't know anything about David Bowie"
I do believe Jonze works for the Daily Mail, saw an article by a Tim Jonze in there the other day
(my dad buys it)
runny nose
lol
Lovely stuff.
"It is on the backs of writers such as Morley, Burchill, Kent and Shaar Murray that the "new" NME hitches its mule-cart, assuming equal relevance. But the stalled views of the "new" NME sag, and readers have been driven away by a magazine with no insides. The narrow cast of repeated subjects sets off the agony, a mesmerizing mess of very brief and dispassionate articles unable to make thought evolve; a marooned editor who holds the divine right to censor any views that clash with his own.”
Did I mention that I love Morrissey?
No Rock & Roll Fun blog
does a good job of dissecting Morrissey's article.
http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2007/12/morrissey-im-not-racist.html
bf
I think Morrissey/The Smiths suck very very badly, and I'd stand behind everything he's said about the NME with a pitchfork and burning torch.
The single best commentary that I have read on this matter:
you know i couldn't last said...
I think a lot of the coverage of this story is verging on the demented. Saying Britain is losing its identity and its gates are flooded is not a racist statement. It's a belief that Morrissey or anyone else is perfectly entitled to without the weight of criticism we're seeing now. Racism is the belief that enthic differences define one's superiority over others. Plain and simple. "Racism" is the 21st Century "Witchcraft" of The Crucible, and its wilful bandying as an accusation does its cause no favours at all.
Morrissey might well adhere to right of centre views on immigration, but that's not a crime. He's not advocating anyone be 'sent back to where they came from'. He might well believe that some of our national identity is being lost to multiculturalism, and perhaps he'd be right. The conjecture is surely over whether this is a positive or negative national evolution. Either belief is completely acceptable, according to the law, providing you're not inciting any kind of hatred. Lamenting the past is not necessarily throwing bricks through the window of the present.
Morrissey might not live here anymore but he remains as 'British' an artist as any we've produced, and the Britain he evokes in his work is a traditionalist view, the Britain of Charles Hawtrey and Suzie Burchill. It is this lost land that he romanticises, an ambiguity he'd perhaps have been wise to avoid given his "-ist and -ism" history with the NME, but vilifying a man for statements that frankly pale into insignificance behind daily scaremongering headlines in the Mail and the Express, is wrong. Ultimately, people tut-tutting at racist finger-pointing plays into the hands of the BNP and their ilk.
***One of the 3 responses to the above blog.
'a good job', Really?!
I think it misses the point about pretty much everything; the debate has switched now to the NME's dubious style of sneaky journalism, rather than the now ubiquitous gates flooded quote, probably as its slightly less strong than the average Conservative manifesto. Morrissey gives a context to the interview, which adds a lot of anecdotal weight to a widely held idea, that the NME appallingly attempted a doomed hatchet job.
I'm not sure that would be necessary,
but I'd come and take pictures if you did. :-)
upsetters
i think we should all upset morrisey, it seems to get him off his bum and on his fabulous soapbox. he shouldnt need to piss about with lowly trash like this, its beneath him [mind you, its beneath morrisette] but im glad he felt the need.
i used to buy melody maker in the nineties and considered it far superior to the nme in that it took 'artists' on their own merit and not within some wider lens, they seemed to like american bands when it was violently out of fashion, as an example, and they would occasionally do amazing things like interview swans or codeine. i picked up the nme about three months ago and felt that it was aiming at a much younger bunch of readers - i didnt like it one bit. mind you, im getting fucked off with uncut and mojo with their ever decreasing circles of interest.
does anyone recommend another uk mag? or even a non-uk mag?
I think I've just come:
"Lamenting the past is not necessarily throwing bricks through the window of the present."
Morrissey's comments - the ones which have actually cause this furore - were, to be fair, clumsily put. But it's true - he hasn't actually said anything "racist" at all. And people bandying around the term "racist" like it's a catch-all term for every "thought-crime", from xenophobia to cultural ignorance to pure nostalgia to just waving a fucking flag around onstage serves to stop anyone from saying what they think or debating any tricky issues with the fearless honesty they deserve.
In other news, kids today don't know they're born, when I were a lad this were all fields, and what this country needs is WAR. Bong.
Yes, but, it was a retort to the ludicrous
accusation of racism and a wider comment on the way that the very term has been hijacked by those who wish to discredit their ideological enemies, but, lack the requisite argument or intellect to do so through reasoned debate.
I liked the reference to '21st century witchcraft', the same thought occurred to me the other day.
This whole sorry event is something akin to the Salem witch trials.
brilliant
sums up my views of the NME completly. I'm so glas someone has finally taken that bunch of fools to task. Can't wait for the court case!
I hear Drownedinsound.com
is rather good.
Oooooooh,
actually, Stool Pigeon is brilliant, and free, and in all good record shops in the London area.
I remember the Madstock 'wars'
in 1992 and it was something which had been building up in NME for a few years as Moz had been constantly moaning that they'd caused The Smiths to split up - of course there were 'signs' ie Asian Rut etc and National Front Disco but they're just off-kilter lyrical imagery and not really enough to say 'God he's being racist' - its just soooo boring the way people get all LMHR in that student debate way the moment anyone says something 'out of line' - Morrissey isn't really Nick Griffin now is he? He's just a popstar saying silly things that could barely incite you to tut at the radio let alone go through Brixton with a giant flame thrower.
This is brilliant.
His comments on Conor McNicholas speak so much volume about popular 'alternative' music today.
beautifully written
and i love his comments on conor mcnicholas and tim jonze's schoolgirl giggles...
eh...
"I don't mean to be rude, BUT [is rude]"
"Me: When did you last walk down Knightsbridge?" Me: when did YOU last walk down Knightsbridge Moz! He doesn't NEED to have been there to know yr wrong!
"I love Asian stuff = I'm not racist" obv bullshit
clearly his latter comments on CmN and the new NME are spot-on, but Moz is also guilty of talking sheisse here. Lamenting the presence of foreign languages in the streets and using phrases like "the gates are flooded" is xenophobic, at the very least, and especially puzzling for someone who doesn't live here.
But frankly this is a whole big childish tit-for-tat nonsense from which EVERYONE is coming off poorly. Everyone should just go to bed and forget it ever happened, what a pallavah!
How could he possibly
be xenophobic when he lives in Italy??!?!?!
I'm glad someone pointed it out
His comments about Knightsbridge are just plain utterly wrong. And very much the sign of a horrible person making shit up.
And then to defend himself with "the NME reporter doesn't know where it is, therefore I must be right"
I'm with Moz on this
NME has truly turned into an enormous pile of shite in the past few years.
And I still don't think Moz said anything 'wrong' in his interview. At the absolute worst, it was misguided to expose it to some talentless hack.
But it's not racist.
Who the f***
Is Suzie Burchill?
Hmmm...
OK, let's gloss over the obvious point that Moz is a 2nd generation Irish immigrant.
We'll conveniently ignore the fact that he's fled Blighty for sunnier climes.
But citing *Knightsbridge* as the centre of English life? WTF?!
I've always thought he was a bit of knob and that Johnny Marr (nee Maher) was the real genius in The Smiths.
The fact that Daily Mail readers now agree with Mozzer seems to confirm this for me.
i said
a bit ago, the best that can come of this is if the NME is shut and down and Morrissey retires from public life once and for all.
two aging, dated, irrelevant so-called "institutions" slugging it out for the last crumbs of either credibility or popularity.
morrissey, fuck off, you're boring me.
nme, fuck off, you're horrible.
I fucking love morrissey
"I am writing this to apologize unreservedly for granting an interview to the NME. I had no reason whatsoever to assume that they could be anything other than devious, truculent and unreliable. In the event, they have proven to be all three."
Imagining him saying "take a letter" in his camp accent then dictating that whole statement makes my heart swell.
for the same reason as
enjoying Asian music & film doesn't definitively mean he's not racist... or having gay friends doesn't definitively mean someone isn't homophobic...or why supporting a football team of black players isn't proof that a fan isn't racist!...
because these kinds of generalising prejudices are poorly conceived and irrational.
Not a fan
But that was wonderful, good on him.
Great comeback from the Mozfather
...but proof that any attempt at a debate on sensitive national issues, such as immigration, soon descend into name-calling, no matter how well written it all is.
The NME is fast turning into Q for students...
Great stuff
Don't let the bastards grind you down.
yaaaaaaaawn
has Morrissey got any new material coming out per chance?
You're right!
When I release my album I'm just going to get a swastika tatooed to my forehead. Racism is the best way to self-promote.
But surely a fear of foreigners
would stop somebody living in a country full of them?
So in conclusion
1.) Everyone hates the NME (hardly a new idea)
2.) Does anyone actually know what Morrissey actually said? Surely that would clear up the racist or just a friendly common garden nationalist debate?
FUCKING BRILLIANT
this is like Ken Barlow vs Mike Baldwin. Ultimately Mozzer has bid his time and will no doubt have the last laugh. Until today i was of the 'nobody has come out of this well' school of thought, but now i'm not so sure. McKnickerless is a dead man walking.
i love
morrissey
Awesome stuff
So unsurprised to hear that Jonze is a weakling, no social skills indie loser child.
He ought to post round here!
ooh no you di'ant!
*Click*
*Click*
well
from where i see it the only person not coming out of this well is Conny McCunt. It felt like Tim Jonze was being as twisted in this debate as Moz woz, and his response also in the Grauniad points out that despite knowing little about Bowie - which considering the undoubted popularity of his writing doesn't count as much as Moz makes out - he is still the nme's best writer and although he admires morrissey he still simply wanted to confront him on the Knightsbridge statement that was, let's face it, bullshit from Stephen. Admirable, you could say, or the least that should be expected.
That siad Morrissey's comeback is mostly great, although he was doing so well until he started listing the international directors he admires as proof that he is not racist - although i doubt very much that he's racist, not only does it scream of protesting too much and scraping the barrel for evidence, but also by that reasoning nme's use of Mozzer's dislike for reggae as evidence of his alleged racism back in the Madstock days would have been much more valid than it was - i.e. it blatantly wasn't.
I don't think anyone comes out well
Morrissey comes across as someone who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions.
Jonze comes across as a freeloading know nothing who will say anything to anyone to get himself out of trouble and has simplistic knee jerk political views. He reminds me of me arguing with my dad when I was 14.
Conor comes across as just another Sun editor. Will stitch anyone up for a dollar.
What I will say about Morrissey is at least he comes out fighting with style. I can't imagine any popstar of today just relying on the written word to defend themselves. They'd be off to their PR to arrange a fake romance for the tabloids by now.
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