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In 1992, Steven Patrick Morrissey, who had been the lead singer of the cutting edge 80s Brit band The Smiths, wrote a song called "We'll Let You Know." More than 30 years later, its sentiment has the singer blacklisted and its message catching fire.
Last month, Morrissey had two concerts canceled owing to credible death threats.
MORRISSEY CANCELS WEEKEND SHOWS AFTER RECEIVING 'CREDIBLE THREAT' ON HIS LIFE DURING WORLD TOUR
"We’ll Let You Know" is a lamentation. It opens with the words, "How sad are we, and how sad have we been?" And Morrissey is directly talking about the British.
What he was lamenting, so long ago, is the erasure of British culture, as the lyric, "and the songs we sing, they’re not supposed to mean a thing," makes clear. Even in 1992, he saw that his history and tradition were not just being lost, but being trashed.
MURCIA, SPAIN - MAY 01: Morrissey performs on stage on the 1st day of SOS4.8 on May 1, 2015 in Murcia, Spain. (Photo by Xavi Torrent/Redferns via Getty Images) (Xavi Torrent/Redferns via Getty Images)
Today, Morrissey fills houses all over the world. I know because I go. He rocked Radio City Music Hall just last month, so, why exactly, can’t his latest album get distribution?
The latest controversy surrounding Moz, as he is known, is that he has a song called "Bonfire of Teenagers," about the Islamic terror attack on a Manchester concert in 2017, in which he says he will not forgive or forget the atrocity.
After the bombing at an Ariana Grande concert, committed by Islamic extremists, Mancusians held a rally in which they sang the very cute Oasis song, "Don’t Look Back In Anger," as if to forgive the atrocity.
Morrissey, like a latter day Lynyrd Skynyrd responding to Neil Young’s attack on sweet home Alabama, wrote in his song, "And the silly people sing, don’t look back in anger…I can assure you, I will look back in anger until the day I die."
That’s not the kind of sentiment that garners record contracts these days.
But there is a central mistake that Morrissey’s detractors make. They think he is talking about race, when he is talking about culture. They think he is talking about biology when he is talking about books.
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 14: Morrissey performs at The SSE Arena, Wembley on March 14, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Jo Hale/Redferns) (Jo Hale/Redferns)
Morrissey can be spoken of as the greatest lyricist of his generation. His songs are littered with references to Joyce, Shakespeare and Wilde. He longs to be a writer of the English tongue at a feast with them, not a wake.
In an age in which every musician or celebrity just grasps the latest political trend, Morrissey won’t. It's not even clear he’s particularly conservative, he just wants freedom.
Many of Morrissey’s fans, and they exist all over the known world, including a contingent of Latinos that would make President Trump envious, want him to just release his new album on his own.
Emergency services personnel speak to people outside Manchester Arena after reports of the explosion at the venue during the Ariana Grande concert. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Bypass the system, and yes, a lot of people will buy it. But Morrissey isn’t a producer, he’s an artist.
The real question is if any record company will pick up a guy who sells out arenas around the world now that the spell of woke may have been broken.
Can Morrissey be brought back into the fold of normal, acceptable recording artists who get contracts? Like the pro gangbanger rap artists? I’m not holding my breath.
When I was 18, I heard Morrissey announce these words to me:
Sing your life
Walk right up to the microphone, and name
All the things you love
All the things that you loathe
And that changed me. Ever since, I’ve tried to do that. His message has always been that all of our voices matter.
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I love Mark Twain and Jack Kerouac just as much as Moz loves Yeats and Oscar Wilde, and for similar reasons. They write about what makes us us.
Morrissey, as another of his lyrics suggests, will not change, and he will not be nice. But will the record industry give the people what they want? Or will it remain a slave to wokeness?
Morrissey is the winner in all of this. Whether he gets a record contract or not, he is living the example of the great English writers he so admires.
It is a goal every writer should aspire to.
Morrissey ends ‘We’ll Let You Know," singing:
We may seem cold, or we may even be the most depressing people you've ever known
At heart, what's left, we sadly know that we are the last truly British people you've ever known.
Let’s hope that isn’t true.
