Autobiography (46 page)
Authors: Morrissey
I know it’s over
proves too much for flesh and blood – my flesh, my blood.
Scandinavia
is the stepping-back gasp, the new life saving the old. Mexico City has rendered me gasping for oxygen. The pollution trapped within the city has nowhere to go except into my lungs. I lie on the bed with two needles of steroids pumped into rump in order to get me through the next few days. Two nights at Guadalajara where everyone seems to be waiting, and everyone seems to be looking for me, and the crowds sing the songs in a way that tells me that these songs just might be all that they have.
Parents hold their small children up to the stage, as if possibly born as a result of something I had said. Greater love hath no man than this. I am held. An earthquake has us fleeing the Puebla venue. As I run outside I look down and I am barefoot. We all gather in a parking lot, like Polish refugees waiting for someone to tell us where to go to die. Puebla rumbles its never-turn-your-back-on-mother-earth warnings. Many of the world’s victims live in Mexico, their poverty created by wretchedly rich governments of the civilized world; a poverty deliberately structured to keep the poor poor, and to keep Mexico unable to reach the vital interests of their border-neighbors. Coldly, coldly, the human race slides along – even now, in an age where presidents and prime ministers are generally seen as a threat to their own people – or, at its most tolerant, just a waste of time. A bubble has burst all over the world. In Mexico, people are not able to live, yet they smile throughout as they walk their eight-day pilgrimage for Our Lady of Guadalupe, reduced to pulling beads, caught up in the fear of not believing. There is a certain Mexican movement of the head, telling we from elsewhere that they know very well how they are thought not to matter. Because of this, they have abnormal strength and love, with anchored hearts beyond the imaginations of royal dictatorships. There are more stolen goods in either Buckingham Palace or the British Museum than the Mexican poor could ever get their hands on. Yet, the people of Mexico are largely unable to move or to progress, and although their toil and labor has built most of America, modern America does its utmost to keep them from joining in.
When you arrive at American Immigration you are reminded of the desperately compulsive fears of American authority. An unnecessary rudeness from Immigration officers is required in order to justify the gaping hole in American justice, and it belies the truth of the American people, and it thus spoils America. A disloyal American is one who questions their own government, which, certainly through the Bush era, begged constant examination. The infantile panic with which American Immigration officials shout loudly and humiliate gleefully is designed to exert strength, yet it trumpets cowardice and it fouls notions of patriotism. The louder they shout, the less the world wants to be like them. The louder they shout, the more they believe the world will respect them. They dare not know another way. Throughout Europe, borders of strength lead you on your way with admirable calmness; there is no need to destroy the soul at security checkpoints, and there is no need to make travelers feel defiled simply because they have turned up with their passports. This trigger-happy vacuum, so terrified of human touch, feeds every high-school shooting – an unfortunate link that no American politician can understand. Fame, fame, fatal fame. The US government proudly boasted Zero Tolerance and implemented the scheme with zero intelligence. Oh, why am I even thinking about all of this now, as I leave Mexico – each hour having struck with such beauty and sunlit magnificence? I have lost all respect for myself as I deny myself the joy of Mexico; the boy of 16 with my face tattooed across his belly; the honcho of 30 with STILL ILL tattooed across his chest. If I deny this love then I lie to myself about the world I know. In ministering angel Jesse, in godbrother Solomon, in the Boz who always saves the day, and in our newly joined rescuer Gustavo Manzur, I, too, have blood-bubbas – clansmen long searched for. I shall be undressed, washed, laid out and buried by Jesse; Gustavo will catch me in any fall, bringing me back to the point I had started from – I had known him for a lifetime after our first five-minute meeting, and the dead are dead, and the heart warms. Whenever I meet Gustavo we both automatically laugh because we both know that sooner or later one or both of us will say something funny, and human energy rings a timeless hum. Loyal to the mugwump, the band prefer
mischief to limelight, and although no major label will sign us, these years are ours, locked together, and I stream out of you, not a matter of whether but of when. Take it as it is. I am no more unhappy than anyone else, and most humans are wretched creatures – cursed by the sadness of being. The world created me and I am here – never realizing that I am in love until it gets me into trouble.
For a year’s-end concert at the Congress Theater in Chicago, the audience heaves with responding kindness, and I am immobilized by singing voices of love.
All along, my private suffering felt like vision, urging me to die or go mad, yet it brings me here, to a wintry Chicago street-scene in December 2011 –
I, a small boy of 52,
clinging to the antiquated view that a song should mean something, and presenting himself everywhere by way of apology. It is quite true that I have never had anything in my life that I did not make for myself.
As I board the tour bus, a fired encore is still ringing in my ears, and then suddenly a separated female voice calls out to me – full of cracked now-or-never embarrassment above the still Illinois winter atmosphere of midnight, and it was dark, and I looked the other way.
Credits: Images
Grateful acknowledgement is given to the following for permission to reproduce copyrighted material.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The author and publisher would be glad to amend in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
Print p. 69: courtesy of Universal Music, photograph by Toshi;
Print p. 124: courtesy of James Maker;
Print p. 136: courtesy of Linder Sterling;
Print p. 198: courtesy of Warner, photograph by Jürgen Vollmer;
Print p. 246: courtesy of Parlophone, photograph by Linder Sterling;
Print p. 276: courtesy of Jake Walters;
Print p. 282: courtesy of Parlophone/
EMI,
photograph by Dean Freeman;
Print p. 369: courtesy of Nancy Sinatra;
Print p. 375: courtesy of Universal Music, photograph by Greg Gorman;
Print p. 419: courtesy of Universal Music, photograph by Fabio Lovino;
Print p. 445: courtesy of Universal Music, photograph by Jake Walters;
Print p. 454: courtesy of ‘really nothing’;
All other photographs are courtesy of the author and Margaret Dwyer.
Print page 1 shows Morrissey aged 4 at Lytham St Anne’s, 1963.
Credits: Words
Grateful acknowledgement is given to the following for permission to reproduce copyrighted material.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The author and publisher would be glad to amend in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
Lines from
Everything I am
by Plastic Penny © Plastic Penny c/o Larry Page Productions; lines from
Soldier blue
and
Moratorium
by Buffy Sainte-Marie © Buffy Sainte-Marie, c/o Paquin Entertainment;
Let it be me
, by Jill Corey with Jimmy
Carroll, published by Columbia Records (now Sony Music Entertainment), 1957, lyrics by Manny Curtis, courtesy of Universal Music Group; ‘The Pacifist’, ‘Fatigued’ and lines from ‘Henry King’ (‘The Chief Defect of Henry King|Was chewing little bits of String.|At last he swallowed some which tied|Itself in ugly Knots inside.|Physicians of the Utmost Fame|Were called at once; but when they came|They answered, as they took their Fees, “There is no Cure for this Disease.|Henry will very soon be dead.”|His parents stood about his Bed|Lamenting his Untimely Death,|When Henry, with his Latest Breath,|Cried “Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,|That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea|Are all the Human Frame require
s
...
”|With that, the Wretched Child expires.’) by Hilaire Belloc, from
Cautionary Tales for Children
© The Estate of Hilaire Belloc, through Peters Fraser and Dunlop Literary Agency; ‘Some Are Born’ by Stevie Smith
© The Estate of Stevie Smith; ‘Give Me a Doctor’ by W. H. Auden © The Estate of W. H. Auden c/o Curtis Brown Literary Agency; ‘The Last Laugh’ by John Betjeman © The Estate of John Betjeman; ‘If You Ever Go to Dublin Town’ by Patrick Kavanagh © The Trustees of the Estate of the late Katherine B. Kavanagh, through the Jonathan Williams Literary Agency; ‘‘Matey’ by Patrick MacGill © The Estate of Patrick MacGill (Mary Claire O’Donnell); lines from
Hasta manana monsieur
written by Ron Mael and Russell Mael ©1974 Imagem Music; lines from
Moon over Kentucky
written by Ron Mael and Jim Mankey ©1973 Imagem Music/Copyright Control; lines from
Frankenstein
written by David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain © New York Dolls c/o Gold Mountain Entertainment; lines by Victoria Wood © Victoria Wood.
For lyric usage, Morrissey is represented by Warner-Chappell, to whom grateful acknowledgement is expressed.
Acknowledgements
to Damon Anacreonte, for encouragement
to Julia Riley, for always being everywhere
to Helen Conford, a steady scrutineer
to Tina Dehghani, always level
whatever is sung is the case
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First published in Penguin Classics 2013
Copyright © Whores in Retirement, 2011
The moral right of the author has been
asserted
Cover photograph copyright © Paul Spencer
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ISBN: 978-0-141-97844-4