Morris - the light that went out

Once upon a time, his songs about loneliness and shyness made him a hero for all those outsiders who don't fit into society. During the 80s, he knew how to go on stage with a bouquet of gladioli in hand, countering the macho cliché of rock and roll and offering solidarity with the marginalized. But Morrissey has been disappointing fans with his behavior for years, and these days his performances are somewhat different.

During a recent guest appearance on the "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", as well as at several concerts he had in New York, it was noticed that the singer was wearing a "For Britain" badge. For the uninitiated, it is the name of an ultra-right British political party, which even Nigel Farage, who is characterized as a right-winger, believes is made up of "Nazis and racists".

Seeing Morrissey embrace that political option was shocking to fans. But was it surprising? Since the beginning of the 90s, the musician has flirted with right-wing politics and fascist symbols - by wrapping himself in the British flag at concerts, writing the song "The National Front Disco" and making statements about immigrants that provoked public anger and criticism.

If until recently there was a dilemma, over the past year his political views have become quite clear. He said about Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to become the mayor of London, that he cannot speak and that even the "Tesco" supermarket chain would not employ Diane Abbott, the first black woman to become a member of parliament in Great Britain. He criticized the attitude of the local media towards Tony Robinson, a well-known anti-Islamist activist and right-winger, while he explicitly promoted the For Britain party on his website, and the leader of that party, Anne Marie Waters, thanked him in a video message published online.

Last year, he received a barrage of criticism when he said of Anthony Rapp, the guy who accused Kevin Spacey of sexually abusing him when he was 14, that he couldn't have been unaware of what was going on and agreed to it. When Hollywood began to shake the scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein, he had a comment for that too.

"They play that game, nothing is a problem for them, and then they feel embarrassed," he said ironically.

In today's culture war, Morrissey chose a side and the consequences followed. Posters for his new album "California Son" were taken down from the Merseyrail network, while singer Arielle Engle, who was his guest at the release, said he was extremely unpleasant to her. A music store in Cardiff decided to withdraw the album from sale, explaining that "customers say that because of his political views they do not want to buy Morrissey's music, even at the expense of old times".

Many whose teenage years were marked by Morrissey as the frontman of The Smiths, who then saw him as a dear friend who understood them, now feel betrayed by his behavior.

“That's bullshit. They were the biggest band of my generation, with the best guitarist and the best songwriter. I think Johnny Marr (guitarist) held him back then. But now Morrissey is betraying all those fans, betraying his legacy and empowering people who Smiths fans see as the total opposite of himself. He became the Oswald Mosley (leader of British fascists in the 30s) of pop," said English musician Billy Bragg.

How did he get here? Morrissey's political views during the 80s seemed leftist. He was an opponent of Margaret Thatcher's regime, as well as the monarchy, and expressed these views in his songs. He was also an uncompromising fighter for animal rights. But even then, other aspects of his personality began to be revealed little by little. In a 1986 interview with Melody Maker, he claimed that a "black pop conspiracy" was holding his band back, describing reggae as "the most racist music in the world" and adding that he despised "modern black music".

At a performance in London in 1992, he waved the British flag in front of an audience that included many enthusiastic fascists and skinheads. When the only black among the journalists of "NME" magazine then decided to write about it, the singer stopped giving interviews for that newspaper and that lasted for the next 12 years.

Tjinder Singh, a Briton of Indian origin from the group Cornershop, said that they all worshiped the Smiths, but in the late 80s they became disillusioned with Morrissey because of his songs such as "Bengali in Platforms" in which he subtly criticized immigrants. In the early 90s, Sing was so annoyed by the singer's behavior that he and his group burned his effigy in front of the London headquarters of EMI, Morrissey's record label.

"We took action because we had to. We were expecting more people to join us, but that never happened,” recalls Singh.

In an interview with "NME" in 2007, Morrissey described Britain as "a terribly negative place that he doesn't want to live in". Among other things, immigrants were to blame.

"I have nothing against people from other countries, but the more they come, the more the British identity disappears. If you travel in Germany, you will see that it is still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity. But if you travel in England, you won't know where you are," he replied, and journalist Tim Jones who interviewed him admitted that he was shocked by this statement.

“When the interview came out, everything went to hell. Morrissey sued 'NME' and the editor-in-chief at the time, and then published his account of the interview, which was full of incorrect information. But he succeeded in making many of my colleagues doubt my version of the story," the journalist recalls.

The story did not receive a court epilogue, however, because Morrissey accepted a lukewarm apology from the magazine, which stated that "they do not consider the musician to be racist and apologize to him if anyone understood the controversial interview in that way."

Should his new album “California Son” be boycotted? It would have been a bigger challenge if that release hadn't received a ton of negative reviews. Guardian journalist and Smiths fan Sukdev Sandu believes that regardless of Morrissey's behavior, the musical gems he left behind will not suffer the consequences.

“I don't think it will have a negative impact on the Smiths' discography. I just wonder if he remembers his lines from the song 'I Know It's Over,' where he says, 'It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes courage to be gentle and kind,'” the journalist added.

But many fans took Morrissey's fall into right-wing waters hard. Among them is Billy Bragg, who summed everything up best in his tweet about the singer, where he paraphrased a line from one of the Smiths' most famous songs, "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" (translated from English - there is a light that never goes out ): "Once upon a time there was light, but now it has gone out".