Morrissey: In His Own Words

In his book Morrissey - In His Own Words, Morrissey is a contradiction. The arch recluse who relishes the media spotlight. The depressive who prances joyously on Top of The Pops. The leader of the archetypal indie band, who signed with EMI. The pacifist who advocated the assassination of Margaret Thatcher. The traditionalist who adopted modern technology. The outsider who became the establishment... along the way, Morrissey has talked, creating friends and enemies among his pop contemporaries, scandalizing the gutter press with talk of violence, sex and hate, and explaining his art in a whirlwind of verbiage that obscures as much as it reveals. More than any star since John Lennon, in his relentless quest for honesty, stopped short of describing his sexual failings and social disasters. Yes just as Albert Goldman has seen Lennon's soul-baring as a smoke-screen, so there is the possibility that all Morrissey's self-examination and stripping of barriers has itself been a clever game, a conscious attempt to concoct an image which would sell. Here, in his own words on sex, politics, music, childhood, solitude and regret, Morrissey occasionally contradicts himself, like any decent man. But is his every word itself a contradiction? Make up your own minds.