A Day In The Life Of... Morrissey - Smash Hits Yearbook (1988)

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Transcript

"I always wake at 25 to eight. In bed I don't wear anything but I do have a very nice dressing gown — it's quite a heavy towelling thing that I bought in America; in Denver, if you must know. I sleep downstairs and the living room is upstairs — I planned it that way — so I go upstairs. I can't do anything until I've eaten.

I also instantly switch the television on because I do like breakfast TV. Breakfast Time — I don't like TVam. I have a glass of orange juice with a Royal Jelly capsule — like a vitamin capsule — and then I make breakfast. It's generally tea — that's darjeeling — toast and bran flakes. I have a really leisurely breakfast; I'll sit down for about an hour. I don't have a paper delivered but I generally have quite a lot of letters so I sift through them. I just sit there and it's very dismal and dark.

Then I go downstairs, get changed and get washed and then, quite startlingly, I go back to bed, and I'll take my clothes off again. This happens every day without interruption at about nine o'clock. I'll be up again by 11. I don't really fall into a deep sleep because I live next door to a school and the bed is next door to the stairs and I can hear the children running up and down. They're young, affluent, horrendous little monsters, very cushioned, very rich. They don't know who I am.

By 11 I'm back up and on the telephone. Right through the day I'll be on the telephone. In the afternoon I'll often come to Rough Trade to see somebody, whether it's Joe in the art department or Pot Belly (i.e. Pat Bellis, his press officer) but I'll be home by four. I come in to discuss business things — big things, little things and medium-sized things. I can't really leave it to anyone else.

At about four I might go to Sloane Square where I'll get some magazines and go to the health shop. I like music magazines — they have their faults but I think the information is remarkable. I'm very, very interested in what people title their records but there are very, very rarely good ones so, yes, it's an arid search but one has to stay alert. I'm also a chart watcher. I'm fascinated by public opinion, I always have been. When I was seven or eight I had my own personal chart that I'd type out every week — my own personal Top 30. It was always much more interesting than the real chart. I don't mind that The Smiths aren't number one in the real chart — we're in there and that's quite nice anyway. I do think the Smiths are better but when I look out the window I know the type of people out there and the world we live in so it doesn't really surprise me that Samantha Fox is bouncing around on Top Of The Pops. I look at Samantha Fox and that's when I throw everything up in the air and say 'the world is slightly derailed.' Public taste really disappoints me.

I buy quite a lot at the health food shop — still water, pear juice, Royal Jelly tablets, potato crisps, a lot of nuts and curious little sticky cakes that apparently don't tear your cavities to pieces.

Then I wander back. Occasionally I get stopped. It's embarrassing because I never know what to say. I try to slide through the crowd without attracting attention in any way. It's easy enough — I just leave the balloons at home. When I get in I'll read and watch the news. Nothing much grips me. I'm very much more concerned with domestic events than in Iran or whatever. I don't really stretch that far. I'm not interested in the rest Of the world at all. I like some of the adverts — one of them makes me laugh but I'm not telling you which. It's not funny it's just my perverted logic. But I hate that one about The Happy_Eater where she takes the order and they're all singing 'I like bread and butter, I like toast and jam'. I hate that.

For the rest of the day the television is on. I have a lot to do, though — letters, sifting through things, talking on the telephone. I phone my mum, friends or people at Rough Trade. My bill is horrendous — it's always twelve figure. There's not a lot Of things on the television that I like but I'm just on the lookout for something interesting. That's all I do in life really — look out for something interesting. Like a net trawling in the sea? Exactly. I'm just a big net.

I never go out after five. I write and do private things — little bits of reading and jotting down. I literally have boxes full of bits of paper. After Brookside, at least on Mondays and Tuesdays, in fact at about 9.30, I like to have a bath. I don't have a plastic duck — no pets at all — though I have a cat in Manchester. She doesn't have a name — she was a stray — she responds to anything my mother says. She's very morbid, black and sullen. I had a cat called Tibby who died in September 1985, 23 human years of age. It was a big loss to me because he was practically like a brother.

Anyway, my bath. No, I don't have a backscrubber. I've always had spots on my back, though — it's the Marks & Spencers soft-filling chocolate, I do have salts — special Body Shop things, not Radox. Then I get into my dressing gown or into jeans and a t-shirt and continue as I have for the rest of the day.

Creativity hits me all the time. All day I'm messing about with little bits of glue and crayon. Record sleeves don't just magically appear overnight — they are ideas that I harbour for years and years and years. When you've designed 30 you have to think very carefully and deeply about things like colour and this is what we enjoy. Or rather what I enjoy.

Before bed I always have a hot toddy — when I tell people this they spit at me but I do. I have a hot chocolate with semi-skimmed milk which I wash up before I go to bed. Yes, finickity's my middle name. Then it's off with the clothes and into bed.

I dream a lot about Brookside. It's sickening. I have these awkward dreams about business and the events of the previous day and then quite magically a Brookside character will appear.

I have prayed in the past but recently — the last eight months — I've given up slightly. I never knelt by the bed and clasped my hands — it's much more comfortable if you get into the bed and wrap the covers round and drift off into some kind of religious reverie. What I pray about is personal. I try a bit of black magic, put curses on people. I make effigies. It's a very common practice — everyone does it. Really. There's certain people who cross my path in a very vindictive way. I make them from an old washing up liquid tub and a bit of wool, I don't stick pins through them, I've got another method. I... (looks rather embarrassed) — rub them violently.

I suppose the way I live is a very isolated, soft way. A very soft way to live. It's living for pleasure in a very stunted way. It hasn't changed at all in the last five years. The day drifts off into sleep at about midnight, I might read for a few seconds, then it's off with the light and into the real world."