Cuttings

SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE WITH 'SUEDEHEAD' AN EVEN BIGGER HIT THAN THE SMITHS' FINEST AND A SOLO ALBUM, 'VIVA HATE', DUE FOR IMMINENT RELEASE, THINGS COULDN'T LOOK ROSIER FOR MORRISSEY . SO WHY IS HE OBSESSED WITH DISSATISFACTION? WHY ARE HIS SONGS STILL ABOUT ADOLESCENCE AND LOSS? SIMON REYNOLDS MEETS THE GREAT MAN, TAKES A SCALPEL TO HIS LYRICS AND HIS ENGLISHNESS AND COMES AWAY WITH A UNIQUE INSIGHT INTO THE MOST INSPIRATIONAL SONGWRITER OF HIS GENERATION I THINK I'vs met them all now. For me, there are no more heroes left. And no new ones corning along, by the look of it. It could be that this is a time marked by a dearth of characters, or that the smart people in rock aren't interested in self-projection but in obliterating noise. But really, I think, it's the case that, in this job, you don't have the time to develop obsessions, what with the insane turnover, and all the incentives to pluralism. The heroes you have kind of linger on from a pr

SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE IN THE SECOND EXCITING EPISODE OF SIMON REYNOLDS' CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH THE MORRISSEY KIND, STEPHEN PATRICK TALKS ABOUT FAME'S FATAL ATTRACTION, THE SMITHS' FATAL DISTRACTIONS, AND THE LAUGHTER BEHIND THE MISERY. PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL RIDER "DID that swift eclipse torture you?/A star at 18 and then -   suddenly gone/down to a few lines in the back page/of a teenage annual/oh but I remembered you/I looked up to you" - "Little Man, What Now?" "Fame, Fame, fatal fame/It can play hideous tricks on the brain" -"Frankly, Mr Shankly" One of the best tracks on “Viva Hate" is  "Little Man, What Now?", an eerie, enchanted, rather chilling song in which Morrissey ponders the fate of a young TV actor ("a real person — but I don't want to name names') he remembers from “Friday nights 1969', briefly elevated to the level of minor celebrity before being abruptly dispatched back into obscurity, nev

'Stop me if you've heard this before' In the second part of our exclusive chat with MORRISSEY, the ex-Smith ruminates on the state of pop, the nature of fame, his acting debut, South Bank Show immortality - and his plans for Katie Boyle’s windows. Interview: LEN BROWN. Picture: EAMMON J. McCABE MORRISSEY Pt 2 ON POP “I THINK that very strong intelligent artists should dictate practically everything, but they don’t. If we talk about Tiffany and Belinda Carlisle and the whole influx of Debbie Gibsons we can quite easily be accused of giving too much attention to obviously untalented, obviously discountable people. But these people really are ruling the world of British popular music and I think it’s a serious epidemic. The Top 40 has never been as dank and depressing and non-musical as it is now. “We’re intelligent people, we all know that the Top 40 chart is a game and is, quite seriously in certain cases, rigged. I don’t believe that people are going out and buying certain

BORN TO BE WILDE Another dark chunk of past to haunt him, or a whip to drive him giddily on? Either way, the ungainly crash-landing of The Smiths was a watershed for Steven Patrick MORRISSEY . It isolated and exposed him as never before and threw up questions that even his mercurial tongue couldn’t immediately answer. But now, with the unleashing of ‘Suedehead’ and his first public proclamation for months, the longest silence of the Mozzer life is broken. Will the world still listen? LEN BROWN volunteers for the job. Morrissey exposure by EAMMON J. McCABE. “We have a warrant here, Mr Wilde, for your arrest on a charge of committing indecent acts.' 'Where shall I be taken?" “To Bow Street." Morrissey and I are sitting in Chelsea’s Cadogan Hotel; in the very room where Oscar Wilde was arrested on April 5 1895. “I’m almost quite speechless now,” declares the greatest living Englishman, “it’s a very historic place and obviously it means a great deal to me . . . to be si