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You're forgetting though that they aren't just Alain's songs. They're also Morrissey's songs
Right. They only played 2 songs. Maybe those were the 2 Morrissey was most eager to play and just happened to be Jesse's co-writes?You're forgetting though that they aren't just Alain's songs. They're also Morrissey's songs
I guess that would be one way of seeing it, but it could also be a gesture of good will or an olive branch, if he did.
In Autobio, the impression I got was that Tobias arrived at a time when Morrissey privately felt that the line-up had gotten stale - Maladjusted had been criticised, they'd gone a long time without a label, he'd had pressure from labels to drop band members, he was getting sick of internal rivalries, etc. Maybe he never said this openly so the idea of things 'curdling' seemed to come out of the blue, but I think issues had been building for a long time. He writes about the media perception of the band as being "they weren't as good as the Smiths or even worth much in their own right" and you get the sense that he absorbed that view in the 1990s and almost blamed them for the situation he was in. Then suddenly, he had a shiny and new colleague who seemed to be pandering to him a lot more, who had a different 'sound'... I think Jesse exploited a moment in time, he picked up on that weariness and wedged himself in there. Then - if the Anons are to be believed - he played the long game, moving the chess pieces bit by bit, waiting.
You make some good points. I have never been a Jesse basher and a lot of his songs are some of my favourites. I Am Not A Dog On A Chain is one of the best albums Morrissey has ever done in my opinion and Jesse wrote most of the tracks.
Well, I don't know where you see a possible contradiction in what I said. Boz's entries from 2004 are subjective and Boz struck me more as is a diplomat who doesn't actually throw oil on the fire. In his autobiography, as you also mention, Morrissey lists the disputes between the two songwriters and Alain's desire to appear on the cover alongside Morrissey as things that bothered him.
Of course he was, he couldn't even hide his glee. "Mess with the bull, get the horns" etc. He loved it. Morrissey should have known better, and he should have spoken to Johnny privately rather than being goaded into that. He paid a price for it in more ways than one - not just ending any hopes of reconciliation with Johnny but bringing a huge backlash down on himself online, looking like a petulant fool. A good friend would not have encouraged that.
I think WMTWD is actually a Manzur co-write but anyway, and that Morrissey was keen to pass that message. The setlist is indeed based on songs that Morrissey feels like singing at a given point, reflecting his mood and his favorite punchlines of the moment.
And in that very same vein, he didn’t play Notre Dame in Paris: a song about Paris and an AW co- write.
Even the most ardent appreciator of Morrissey knows that he is an unreliable narrator. I question that the anecdote of Alain desiring to be a cover co-star has any basis in reality. It stretches credulity.
Ok. Sometimes I think I've dealt with a lot since the 90s, but there are still more than enough people who are closer to it. I really misunderstood about Boz n Moz. Sorry.
It had, but the open letter didn't help. It just meant that as well as being depicted as an angry, out of touch, bigoted loudmouth ruining his own legacy, Moz got to be all that and a horrible git antagonising the other Smith, the nice Smith that everyone likes. It made everything worse. And the reason it felt 'egged on' was that even though Moz has long held gripes like that, all his reference points in that letter were years out of date. He couldn't come up with anything of substance that Johnny had actually said - just banged on about Golden Lights when Johnny hadn't mentioned it in years. It made him look bitter and a bit daft, like he was nursing grudges about things that nobody else understood, spoiling for a fight when nobody wanted one. If he said that stuff privately, Johnny could have reassured him and that would have been it.
That’s your opinion, I definitely don’t agree with it. It was a well phrased letter urging Johnny to stop letting himself be used for clickbait reasons only. Saying terrible things like ‘I don’t share M’s views’, ‘we were never friends in the first place’ and to top it all ‘that guy in Modest Mouse is the best lyricist I worked with’
Personally, I’d have said much more and much worse than Moz, and I love Johnny too to be honest.That’s your opinion, I definitely don’t agree with it. It was a well phrased letter urging Johnny to stop letting himself be used for clickbait reasons only. Saying terrible things like ‘I don’t share M’s views’, ‘we were never friends in the first place’ and to top it all ‘that guy in Modest Mouse is the best lyricist I worked with’
The letter was fine, and said what needed to be said. Johnny response on the other hand, comparing Morrissey to Trump, was typically lazy and below the belt.
