Re: What has Morrissey inspired you to do ?
This is an extract from an interview titled WILDE CHILD with Paul Morley in Blitz, 1988
- Was it easy?
Success is never easy. It could have gone hopelessly wrong for me. It never really gelled until the fourth single.
If it hadn’t worked, would you be dead now?
I would certainly be in intensive care.
Do you feel the power of a group leader, at the head of these gentle, hateful people?
Yes, I do... I don’t feel the need to go out and shake everyone’s hands, and get everyone together, but I do know what you mean. I like to think that one can make records and be intensely successful, yet still remain essentially private. That would be very pleasant. Perhaps I do have influence. A lot of young people are very lonely and maybe hearing my records will make them feel less lonely. And there may be many people who are like I was, desperate, incapable, but needing so much to do something. I would like to think a record of mine will make them feel if he can do it, etcetera, then so can I.
That you only appeal to a rash of confused adolescents is just a dried up cliche?
Oh yes. It has expanded way beyond that. I was initially very confused when people wrote that my songs were adolescent. I was 24, 25, so they weren’t adolescent, they were something totally new, something that had never been expressed before. It was not adolescent. It was not that easy.
What does your music do to your fans?
Well, they wear heavy overcoats and stare at broken lightbulbs. That’s the way it’s always been for me! –
It does appear that a lot of musicians, writers, comedians and other artists, credit Morrissey for inspiring them into setting off on the risky road of creative enterprise and self-belief. It’s interesting that he was aware, and hoped, that this might be the result of his own persistence, and in that sense, it indicates that this provided some motivation for himself. The grounds for his attraction and remote mentoring ability seem to reside in the uncompromising force of his personality and principles; his endurance even while fielding adversities; his daredevil style and wit; his seductively expressive voice and his consuming passion for musical standards; all based in lived reality. Would that spur people on ‘to do something’; to change in private or public ways? He leads without trying if so.