A
An observer
Guest
(I know I'm tardy arriving to offer my $0.02 about the debate begun by Last White Fan, but I'm going to do it anyway. If the debate has become tedious for you, then don't go on...)
Last Civilized White Man's post is reason No. 2,333,910,326 why people with "degrees" from U$C should remain bound and gagged in their bedroom. Reading his post made me ashamed to be a Smiths fan, an Angeleno, and a white guy.
I'm one of the "original" Smiths fans from the 80s, and I've watched with surprise as his fan-base in Southern California has shifted to being heavily Latino.
Frankly I don't care about what Morrissey has become, or who likes him now. If anyone can still gallop a few more melancholy miles on the old nag, then more power to them.
What disgusts me is the revisionist history being perpetrated about The Smiths. The debate over The Smiths being a "white" band, which consciously cultivated a white audience, has been going on for quite some time, ever since Morrissey's lamentations about "black music" taking over the charts in 1986.
Those comments dogged him for years, and "Bengali In Platforms", Rogan's reports of youthful racism, and the Union Jack flap in 1994 didn't help. The fact that Morrissey was always proudly, intransigently white-- even though it has never been proven to my satisfaction that he is even slightly racist-- has made white fans like myself very uncomfortable. For a very long time, to be a Smiths fan (certainly in the States) was to open yourself to charges of racism. I was bewildered, yes, but also *relieved* to go to the "Kill Uncle" shows and see all the brown faces in attendance.
Get this straight: The Smiths neither made racist music or used their music as a tool for promoting racism of any kind. They did not even make "elitist" music, as "Last White Fan" dubiously states. The beauty of The Smiths is that they were for everyone-- gay, straight, white, black, men, women, "the fourth sex", whoever. The whole idea of The Smiths was to include everyone. It was populism in its purest form-- great pop music. Anyone who has ever read any of the early interviews, in which the entire grand idea behind The Smiths was articulated by both Morrissey and Marr, knows this to be true. While some of Morrissey's statements, taken out of context, can seem exclusionary, their meaning becomes clear if you understand them in their totality.
For instance, he said that The Smiths' crowd was "handsome", and that "the thing to be in '83" was handsome. Was this elitist? Should ugly fans not have bothered to show up to the gigs? Not if you consider that on many occasions before and after that statement, Morrissey insisted that he wanted to redefine what "handsome" meant.
Similarly, you can take almost any line in a song or a quote from an interview and interpret it narrowly, in a strict context, and derive some half-baked suggestion of elitism or racism. But if you follow the messages in the songs and the interviews to their natural conclusions, they point only to one thing: The Smiths excluded nobody. That was their genius. That was their charm. Only the shortsighted cannot see that.
All the debate among fans about eating meat, wearing leather, which bands it was acceptable to listen to, and which paperbacks to clutch to their gently quaking breasts is, in sum, just a lot of pretty noise. If you've half a brain you'd understand that The Smiths were for everyone, that, in fact, the music's larger message was aimed not at the etiolated dork with the gladioli and the acne problem but the thug, the ruffian, the frat boy, the jock, indeed, all the "ordinary" boys and girls who really aren't.
The best thing about The Smiths is that they are still perfect, preserved in death-- the music will never suffer from having limped on past its prime. The Smiths are not the Stones, the Who, U2, etc. Marr did us all a favor by cutting off The Smiths in the flower of their youth.
Despite Marr's foresight, the one thing we *can* do to harm the music we all love is to spout this revisionist nonsense about The Smiths, to tarnish their legacy with the old and stupid tag of "racism" (errrrr, sorry-- let's use that wonderful euphemism, 'elitism'). Unfortunately, given the superficial elements of the music, the decade in which it was made, and the type of audience they generally attracted in their heyday, the one criticism to which The Smiths were particularly vulnerable is that of being racist, or indirectly promoting racism. Those of us who loved The Smiths while they lived took pains to ensure that the enemies of art never succeeded in dragging The Smiths into that black pit of sniping political agendas. Now that they're gone, it's perhaps more important than ever that those of us who still love The Smiths and all they stood for should continue our efforts.
We can't bring The Smiths back from the grave, much as we'd all like, but we can certainly exhume them for public disgrace with all this racist tripe. My advice to all the aging fans who feel left out is this: go back and read the lyrics, listen to the songs, study the interviews. Smiths songs have a meaning applicable to everyone, and it's to everyone they're addressed. So in the end, it's not surprising that Latino fans have taken a liking to Morrissey. It's the most natural outcome of the ideology that began when Morrissey and Marr set out in the early 80s to take over the world in the name of Pop.
Lastly, I want to state that while I don't think Morrissey is a racist, it is readily apparent to any longtime observer of the man that he's certainly not the most consistent thinker. My personal feeling is that, sometimes with The Smiths, but increasingly in the 90s, he's made many stupid, irresponsible comments on vinyl and in print that are totally indefensible. Yet I hold that he is not a racist, and nor are The Smiths. Partly it's because of the reasons I outlined above, but also because-- and it's time everyone wakes up to this-- The Smiths were always bigger than Morrissey. Therefore, while I wish him only the best, I care not if he soils his reputation beyond redemption. The Smiths are a different entity apart from him, and while I don't always adhere to Morrissey's worldview, I remain to this day a fervent supporter of The Smiths precisely because they were more than a band, more than one man's string of occasionally brilliant bon mots. They were a beautiful and revolutionary interlude in the middle of an otherwise vacuous pop culture, a lovely hiccup that has more potency than ever, fifteen years after their demise. The Smiths are bigger than Morrissey, and that's the reason I want so badly to protect their legacy.
It's a good thing I-- and all real Smiths fans-- have the truth on our side.
"I want to produce music that transcends boundaries. I want it to get through to everybody." MORRISSEY, 1983
"The Smiths are saying it doesn't matter who you are or what you do, as long as what you're saying is positive." JOHNNY MARR, 1983
Last Civilized White Man's post is reason No. 2,333,910,326 why people with "degrees" from U$C should remain bound and gagged in their bedroom. Reading his post made me ashamed to be a Smiths fan, an Angeleno, and a white guy.
I'm one of the "original" Smiths fans from the 80s, and I've watched with surprise as his fan-base in Southern California has shifted to being heavily Latino.
Frankly I don't care about what Morrissey has become, or who likes him now. If anyone can still gallop a few more melancholy miles on the old nag, then more power to them.
What disgusts me is the revisionist history being perpetrated about The Smiths. The debate over The Smiths being a "white" band, which consciously cultivated a white audience, has been going on for quite some time, ever since Morrissey's lamentations about "black music" taking over the charts in 1986.
Those comments dogged him for years, and "Bengali In Platforms", Rogan's reports of youthful racism, and the Union Jack flap in 1994 didn't help. The fact that Morrissey was always proudly, intransigently white-- even though it has never been proven to my satisfaction that he is even slightly racist-- has made white fans like myself very uncomfortable. For a very long time, to be a Smiths fan (certainly in the States) was to open yourself to charges of racism. I was bewildered, yes, but also *relieved* to go to the "Kill Uncle" shows and see all the brown faces in attendance.
Get this straight: The Smiths neither made racist music or used their music as a tool for promoting racism of any kind. They did not even make "elitist" music, as "Last White Fan" dubiously states. The beauty of The Smiths is that they were for everyone-- gay, straight, white, black, men, women, "the fourth sex", whoever. The whole idea of The Smiths was to include everyone. It was populism in its purest form-- great pop music. Anyone who has ever read any of the early interviews, in which the entire grand idea behind The Smiths was articulated by both Morrissey and Marr, knows this to be true. While some of Morrissey's statements, taken out of context, can seem exclusionary, their meaning becomes clear if you understand them in their totality.
For instance, he said that The Smiths' crowd was "handsome", and that "the thing to be in '83" was handsome. Was this elitist? Should ugly fans not have bothered to show up to the gigs? Not if you consider that on many occasions before and after that statement, Morrissey insisted that he wanted to redefine what "handsome" meant.
Similarly, you can take almost any line in a song or a quote from an interview and interpret it narrowly, in a strict context, and derive some half-baked suggestion of elitism or racism. But if you follow the messages in the songs and the interviews to their natural conclusions, they point only to one thing: The Smiths excluded nobody. That was their genius. That was their charm. Only the shortsighted cannot see that.
All the debate among fans about eating meat, wearing leather, which bands it was acceptable to listen to, and which paperbacks to clutch to their gently quaking breasts is, in sum, just a lot of pretty noise. If you've half a brain you'd understand that The Smiths were for everyone, that, in fact, the music's larger message was aimed not at the etiolated dork with the gladioli and the acne problem but the thug, the ruffian, the frat boy, the jock, indeed, all the "ordinary" boys and girls who really aren't.
The best thing about The Smiths is that they are still perfect, preserved in death-- the music will never suffer from having limped on past its prime. The Smiths are not the Stones, the Who, U2, etc. Marr did us all a favor by cutting off The Smiths in the flower of their youth.
Despite Marr's foresight, the one thing we *can* do to harm the music we all love is to spout this revisionist nonsense about The Smiths, to tarnish their legacy with the old and stupid tag of "racism" (errrrr, sorry-- let's use that wonderful euphemism, 'elitism'). Unfortunately, given the superficial elements of the music, the decade in which it was made, and the type of audience they generally attracted in their heyday, the one criticism to which The Smiths were particularly vulnerable is that of being racist, or indirectly promoting racism. Those of us who loved The Smiths while they lived took pains to ensure that the enemies of art never succeeded in dragging The Smiths into that black pit of sniping political agendas. Now that they're gone, it's perhaps more important than ever that those of us who still love The Smiths and all they stood for should continue our efforts.
We can't bring The Smiths back from the grave, much as we'd all like, but we can certainly exhume them for public disgrace with all this racist tripe. My advice to all the aging fans who feel left out is this: go back and read the lyrics, listen to the songs, study the interviews. Smiths songs have a meaning applicable to everyone, and it's to everyone they're addressed. So in the end, it's not surprising that Latino fans have taken a liking to Morrissey. It's the most natural outcome of the ideology that began when Morrissey and Marr set out in the early 80s to take over the world in the name of Pop.
Lastly, I want to state that while I don't think Morrissey is a racist, it is readily apparent to any longtime observer of the man that he's certainly not the most consistent thinker. My personal feeling is that, sometimes with The Smiths, but increasingly in the 90s, he's made many stupid, irresponsible comments on vinyl and in print that are totally indefensible. Yet I hold that he is not a racist, and nor are The Smiths. Partly it's because of the reasons I outlined above, but also because-- and it's time everyone wakes up to this-- The Smiths were always bigger than Morrissey. Therefore, while I wish him only the best, I care not if he soils his reputation beyond redemption. The Smiths are a different entity apart from him, and while I don't always adhere to Morrissey's worldview, I remain to this day a fervent supporter of The Smiths precisely because they were more than a band, more than one man's string of occasionally brilliant bon mots. They were a beautiful and revolutionary interlude in the middle of an otherwise vacuous pop culture, a lovely hiccup that has more potency than ever, fifteen years after their demise. The Smiths are bigger than Morrissey, and that's the reason I want so badly to protect their legacy.
It's a good thing I-- and all real Smiths fans-- have the truth on our side.
"I want to produce music that transcends boundaries. I want it to get through to everybody." MORRISSEY, 1983
"The Smiths are saying it doesn't matter who you are or what you do, as long as what you're saying is positive." JOHNNY MARR, 1983
