Autobiography by Morrissey: the tale of a charmless man

What is it about Stephen Patrick Morrissey that has us all still hooked? His long-awaited autobiography has finally landed and has elbowed that other famous moaner, Bridget Jones, off the bestseller spot, selling a record-breaking 34, 918 copies. In its first week the Manchester Miserablist’s life story has become the most popular music memoir of all time. Which is odd if you consider that over the past four decades he has successfully alienated his fellow Smiths, fans, large swathes of the press and countless celebrities. Prior to publication, rumours had abounded that the book was a hoax and Morrissey’s career was finally over. Amen said many. And yet, here it is – the first book to gain immediate Penguin Classic status. Once again, Morrissey has shown why he is as successful as he is reviled.

This is no ordinary music memoir. There is little rock and roll nostalgia of the kind peddled by Keith Richards in his popular tome Life (2010), instead it is steeped in the misery, melancholy and narcissism that we have come to expect from Moz. Turning his dislikeability to his advantage is an art that Morrissey perfected long ago, but there’s a certain voyeurism in our fascination with the depths of his despair. In trying to fathom the success of this 457-page ode to self, and the enduring popularity of this 1980s pop icon, it seems clear that Autobiography (as it is ironically titled), follows Morrissey’s pattern of chewing up the rulebook and spitting it out in his own lugubrious manner.

For a start, there is no dedication page. More than just a misanthropic Moz-style flourish, this appears to be due to the fact that he credits nobody, save maybe Johnny Marr, with playing a part in his success. He is no longer on speaking terms with Marr, his Smiths co-founder, who he blames for splitting the group up in 1987 after five tumultuous years (Marr is portrayed as the “master” of this rift, with Morrissey the “servant”). This lack of teary-eyed gratitude sets the tone for the score settling that follows. Most celebrated musicians indulge in a degree of bitchiness in order to shift copies of their books (gossip sells), but Morrissey in his inimitable manner takes it further than most would dare.

It starts so well - Morrissey’s poetic prose style and freestyle narrative structure (no paragraphs, a spattering of syntax and sprawling sentences) is initially beguiling, if sometimes tricky to comprehend. He opens with a suitably lofty lament; “My childhood is streets upon streets upon streets. Streets to define you and streets to confine you with no sign of motorway, freeway or highway.” The depiction of his northern working class upbringing fits with the “rags-to-riches-to-rehab” rhythm of the traditional music memoir. Morrissey paints a lyrical picture of an impoverished but tightly knit family life. “Birds abstain from song in post-war industrial Manchester, where the 1960s will not swing, and where the locals are the opposite of worldly… We are finely tailored flesh – good looking Irish trawling the slums of Moss Side and Hulme,” he writes. At times it read like one long, slightly pained, rendition of a Smiths’ song, a fact highlighted by comedian Peter Serafinowicz’s tongue-in-cheek musical tribute which has racked up over 100,000 views on YouTube. But, there is a distinctive, almost ethereal charm to Autobiography’s first 150 pages which elevates it above other more tawdry examples of this genre.

Sadly, this nostalgic lyricism fades and is replaced by Morrissey’s trademark bitterness as the book progresses. A notorious control freak, it seems unlikely that Moz consented to much, if any, editing of his words and it shows. The spiral begins when he is jobless and depressed after leaving school, the appearance of an 18-year-old Johnny Marr on his doorstep proves to be his salvation but there is little joy in the re-telling; “At the hour of the Smiths’ birth, I had felt at the physical and emotional end of life. I had lost the ability to communicate and had been claimed by emotional oblivion.” His gloom and doom makes some sense when you consider that in this pre-Smiths period he had endured the ignominy of having a script rejected by Coronation Street, worked in faceless office jobs and made a fleeting appearance in a Granada TV period drama.

Few are spared the scourge of his poison pen, not even John Peel, who Morrissey claims never attended a Smiths gig despite casting himself as their champion. Factory Records boss Tony Wilson has several bullets of unbridled contempt fired at his memory, his contribution to Manchester’s music scene forever tainted in Moz’s eyes due to his refusal to sign the young Smiths. Wilson, who is depicted as “war general plastered with rows of ribbons but who had never actually seen battle”  dismissed Marr’s distinctive guitar playing at an early gig, with the now infamous words; “All this Byrds stuff has been done and done." The New Musial Express also takes a battering with our anti-hero claiming they were at one stage on a “mission to get Morrissey”. But, the biggest amount of bile is reserved for the judge who presided over the lengthy late-90s legal battle between Morrissey and his former bandmate, drummer Mike Joyce. “The pride of pipsqueakery” is one of many insults Morrissey doles out to Judge Weeks, who he is convinced has a personal grudge against him. All this nursing of cantankerous emotional sores is hard to take, and leaves you feeling as bleak as The Smiths’ back catalogue sounds.

Breaking with the kiss-and-tell tradition of most such memoirs there is barely any sex, although there is the reveal of a long-term seemingly romantic relationship with the mysterious Jake Walters that began in 1994 and lasted two years. "For the first time in my life the eternal 'I' becomes 'we', as, finally, I can get on with someone," he writes. The closest he comes to describing hanky panky is a reference to placing his head on Walter’s stomach. Just as it seems clear that he is indeed homosexual, as most of us suspected all along, he drops in a passing claim that he considered having a baby or, as he puts it, a "mewling miniature monster" - with his close friend Tina Dehgani. So vague are the insinuations in the book, that Morrissey put out a clarification after publication describing himself as “humasexual.” “I am attracted to humans, but, of course ... not many,” he explained in his doggedly obtuse manner.

Substance abuse barely features either in the life of this militant vegan (Meat is Murder, remember), aside from one memorable exchange with David Bowie over breakfast at a hotel: “David quietly tells me, ‘You know, I’ve had so much sex and drugs that I can’t believe I’m still alive,’ and I loudly tell him, ‘You know, I’ve had so little sex and drugs that I can’t believe I’m still alive.’” One element the book isn’t lacking though is enough Smiths trivia to keep hardcore fans happy. Among the entertaining morsels he throws out are his refusal of a guest slot on Friends (they asked him to duet with Phoebe in a “depressing voice”), the offer of a part on Eastenders – that of Dot Cotton’s son Nasty Nick, and an apologetic fondness for 80s Norwegian pop wonders A-ha.

The sheer creative force that is Stephen Patrick Morrissey powers the pages of this off-kilter autobiography, just as it energised the Smiths and his solo career. He hasn’t, as some critics feared, copied Bob Dylan and rambled himself into incoherence as the American icon did in his 2004 memoir Chronicles. The occasional flash of humility, such as admitting he nearly vetoed the release of Smiths classic There is A Light That Never Goes out, helps sustain the reader’s sympathy. And while it’s clear that Morrissey is indeed a charmless man, the awareness of his flaws and the sorrow he expresses, ultimately redeems him. "Whenever I'd overhear how people found me to be 'a bit much' (which is the gentle way of saying the word 'unbearable'), I understood why,” he writes. “To myself I would say: Well, yes of course I'm a bit much — if I weren't, I would not be lit up by so many lights."