England’s a Swine, and It Owes Me a Living

So, Mr Wu and I (Mr Wu is a pseudonym), finally got away at about seventeen minutes past six. Even if everything had gone according to plan, we thought we would arrive at seven fifteen, after the doors had already opened, and would miss some of the supporting act. Now we were worried we might miss some of the main event itself, which was the Oxford appearance of Morrissey, touring to promote his new album, Tormentor of the Ringpieces, I mean, Ringleader of the Tormentors. As it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. When we arrived, at about eight o' clock, the supporting act had not long taken the stage. We bought some beers and hung around in the entrance hall of the theatre for a while. It was a strange crowd of people there, which is to say, it was a very ordinary crowd of people. There was little in the way of a particular fashion to mark these people out as fans. And there seemed to be no particular age group, either. This could easily have been a crowd gathering to watch a play or something like that. Here and there, though, was a Morrissey look-alike, and near me was a particularly convincing one. I almost asked him for his autograph.

Mr Wu was keen for a pint before the show, so we went out to a nearby pub. We settled in a corner seat, at a table with a sticky top, and there followed a discussion about the price of beer and how these particular pints had no bite. "See," said Mr Wu, "Everyone thinks that Morrissey is so English, but, that's not the real England. That was way back…"

"Well, even in the Eighties he was in the Fifties," I put in.

"Yeah, but, what I really want is for him to come back and live in England now, and come to a pub like this. I'd send him to the bar to buy the round, and make him carry them all back, you know, three in two hands, like that. You know he'd hate that. Because, then we might get him writing about the real England, which is all, you know, fake 'good deals' and watered down pints in chain pubs."

"So, who do you think is expressing that Britain, then?"

"Well, no one, that's just what I'm saying."

It was almost time. We finished up our pints and left.

Back at the theatre, Mr Wu queued up to buy another beer, when it was announced over the PA that there were ten minutes till Morrissey took the stage. I flashed five fingers twice at Mr Wu.

Beer in hand, Mr Wu rejoined me and we went in search of our seats, which were nearer the front than the back, and a little over to the left side of the stage (if one is looking out from the stage). The intro music came on. I did not recognise it, but it sounded almost like the spooky theme tune to a horror film, opening on a children's nursery. Then the band and Morrissey emerged from a door at the back of the stage and everyone stood. The auditorium was filled with loud applause. Morrissey stood at the front of the stage, greeting the audience, and took the microphone.

"Why?" he asked, as if completely flummoxed, "Why?" He repeated the question a number of times.

"So, for want of anything better to do," he said, and the band struck up and went into their first song, The First of the Gang to Die.

By this time I had noticed a number of things. Well, I had been to a number of Morrissey gigs before, and this was my first 'sit down' gig, in that there were actually allocated seats. People weren't sitting down, of course. Also, at previous gigs, the crowd had been very rough. Sometimes even rougher than the crowds at the heavy metal gigs I have attended. I put that roughness down to the paradoxes associated with homosexual 'rough trade' (also the name of the label that brought the world The Smiths). On this occasion, however, everyone was very polite and gentle. People had been standing so that others could get to their seats in a most cooperative and civilised manner. I vaguely wondered why it was different on this occasion. Does anyone out there know? In fact, this gentleness was also paralleled by the fact that there were no stage divers throughout the show, and Morrissey's gigs are famous for stage divers.

Anyway, so, we opened with the crowd pleaser, First of the Gang. People were moving, swaying and singing along. I found myself, at first, merely listening to the music in recognition and watching Morrissey, observing rather than swept away. I noticed some of the lyrics (and it seemed to me that, even in concert, for Morrissey, the lyrics are important); "We are the pretty, petty thieves." Is this also a reference to Morrissey and his gang, I mean, band? I don't know if they could be described as pretty. They were all dressed in a uniform of matching t-shirts and braces (suspenders if you're American), and looked somewhat like roadies as a result, or perhaps, as some journalist once cattily put it, like 'fairground hands'. Of course, I am not the first to comment on the difference between the fey Morrissey and his blokey band, and of course, he must be aware of it, too. And surely I'm not the first to wonder whether the band are some kind of emblem of rough trade, and whether they know or care. What they are playing is basically rock'n'roll. The guitar is as Joe Bloggs as you can get in the world of guitar. Though maybe that's not quite fair. There is some influence somewhere, even if it is not directly, of the kind of quirkiness and delicacy to be found in the guitar style of Johnny Marr. But, in terms of the band's stage performance, it is very much Joe Bloggs. The music is really only a dependable backdrop to Morrissey's vocals. It has a certain physicality to it, which, if you are still very easily impressed by rock'n'roll physicality, will also carry much of the show, in a roller coaster manner (to continue the fairground theme). If you are by now rather bored of rock'n'roll, this aspect of the music becomes redundant. I don't know why it is, but in this case the experience of Morrissey's music is different live than it is when listening to studio recordings. Is it something to do with recording production versus the live sound mix? I don't know. Anyway, this is why, for me, the rock'n'roll aspect of a Morrissey show is a red herring. It is rock'n'roll in quotation marks, just as Morrissey's quiff is Elvis in quotation marks. And the quotation marks should point us to the real focus of the show, which is Morrissey's voice and what he happens to be singing with it.

Having said all that, I did find myself, perhaps appropriately, singing along with the outro at the end of the first song: "He stole all hearts away-ahey-ahey-ahey, away-ahey, he stole all hearts away." The experience was not entirely cerebral.

The second song was a surprise for some, including Mr Wu. In fact, it was a surprise for me, too. I heard the opening guitar plucking, and I knew it was a Smiths song. It was familiar, but for some reason, I couldn't quite place it. I was thinking of 'Girl Afraid', but wasn't sure. In this new context, the song was renewed for me, and I was able to appreciate the brilliance that had made it so deeply familiar in the first place. And, of course, the song was 'Still Ill'. I should have known, not least of all because I'd heard he was reviving this one. This song also gave me a chance to spot the live lyric changes for which Morrissey is known. The first of these provides the title for this blog entry. "England is mine, and it owes me a living" became "England's a swine, and it owes me a living." Later in the same song, "But there are brighter sides to life/ and I should know because I've seen them/ But not very often" became "And I should know because I've seen them/ But very very often."

Well, Morrissey has just turned 47, apparently, and I'm rather ashamed to say that I noticed how old he was looking. I say 'ashamed' because I honestly think ageism is an underestimated problem in our society. 'Still Ill' looked very much to me like an older person revisiting his past, rather than someone singing a song that he still felt he was living now. Perhaps that's one reason he changed 'not very often' to 'very very often'. Still, it was a reminder of how much pathos Morrissey was once able to put into a simple wail, and still could now, if push came to shove. But there are two Morrisseys, it seems. The pale and skinny waif of The Smiths was a radical and an outsider. The rather beefy (if I may use that term for a vegetarian) gentleman commanding the stage on May the 25th in Oxford looked more like John Wayne. Of course, John Wayne with a high proportion of Oscar Wilde. But he had a swagger and an assuredness that spoke of someone who is now the establishment, and is not going to try too hard. It's almost as if flesh itself, when it acquires a certain thickness, is right wing, or at least conservative, whatever Morrissey's actual politics might be. In other words, and other, rather well-worn words, Morrissey has become a British institution, like Only Fools and Horses or Fawlty Towers or Last Night at the Proms or the Blackpool illuminations. It is very hard for him to appear radical now, as once he was.

I am very tempted to go through the entire show song by song, but I fear I would have far too much to say about each.

I will say that, despite many points of interest throughout, for me the gig did not really get into full swing until about half way through, with the song, I Will See You in Far Off Places. Significantly, this song contained another slight lyric change. "It's so easy for us to sit together/ But it's so hard for our hearts to combine" became "It's so easy for us all to stand like this together/ But it's so hard for our flesh to combine." And then there came the repeated, "And why? And why? And why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" an example of one of those live moments in which part of a song clicks for you when in the studio version it didn't quite. The lyric changes here were also an example of something I noticed throughout – the self-awareness with which Morrissey addressed himself to the audience, playing on our expectations. Yes, it's easy for us to stand in this concert hall together, but will we really get something out of it? And we wait for the line about our hearts combining, only to find he has turned it into a kind of flirtation. I believe that this was the first song in which the gong was used, rather dramatically, at the end. It also contained the line which Mr Wu was to point out on the way home, received the biggest audience response: "If your god bestows protection upon you/ And if the USA doesn't bomb you…" Once again, what may seem a trite, even clumsy line on disc, made much more sense in the shared experience of the auditorium. It was simple recognition. We all knew that we are more afraid of being bombed by the USA than by any other country in the world. It's a very simple fact.

Part of Morrissey's self-awareness, I felt, related to his age. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but the next song, Let Me Kiss You, seemed to contain a strong sense of becoming less sexually desirable with age. "But then you open your eyes/ And you see someone you physically despise/ But my heart is open, my heart is open to you." On this score, I was heartened by one thing in particular. Morrissey first came on in a red shirt, tied just at the level of the navel into a knot. In the past he has been well known for stripping off, to a certain extent, on stage, and I wondered whether he could really pull it off (so to speak) these days. But he did. More than once. Half way through the gig, at the end of one of the songs, the red shirt came off, to cheers. He then went backstage, and came back with a dusky golden brown shirt, which also came off later. He went through at least three shirts, which almost seemed a parody of the elaborate costume changes of Bowie in the Seventies. And though he did not revel in the nakedness of his torso for long, it was long enough to reassure that he still could, beefy or not.

It was after this song that the evening's 'controversy' began. In the entrance hall, Mr Wu and I had spied a stall with literature on animal rights, which we knew very well had been put there by Morrissey's orders. "Hypocrite," remarked Mr Wu.

"In what way," I enquired.

"Well, just wait till it's his mum that needs medical treatment."

Before the next song, Morrissey touched upon this subject:

"Well, I know some of you are half-smiling, but really, Oxford is the shame of England."

There followed some remarks about the vivisection laboratories in Oxford. From the crowd there came mixed boos and cheers. The band and Morrissey, as if in answer to the heckles, went into a moody new piece called Ganglord:

"Ganglord, the police are
Kicking their way into my house
And haunting me, taunting me
Wanting me to break their laws."

This was one of those songs on which Morrissey reminds you that he is still capable of some breathtaking vocals. When he sang:

"And I'm turning to you, to save me…
And I'm turning to you, to save me, save me…
To save me, save me, to save me!"

I knew I had come to the right place. Apparently the song is going to come out as a B-side with the next single. I think I shall make a purchase, for that song alone.

After the song ended there were continued shouts from the audience. I couldn't make them out, and apparently Morrissey couldn't either. He put his hand to his ear:

"What's that?… What's he saying?"

Someone seemed to give him the answer.

"Oh. That simple?" A pause. "Who will save the English countryside from the farmers? Sixteen Landrovers and eighteen people carriers. I ask you."

Laughter. Some applause. Some boos. Then the next song.

And so the show continued, and I enjoyed it increasingly as it went on. The highlight, for me, and perhaps rather predictably, was the Smiths song How Soon is Now. I wondered whether the band would be able to do Johnny Marr's famous guitar riffs justice, but they didn't do badly. Not bad at all. Once again, in this new setting, the genius of the familiar song hit home to me. The words seem so simple, so casual, so unemphatic, and yet they capture something perfectly:

"You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way.
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does.

"There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home and you cry and you want to die."

The image of going to a club in order to find love sprang up in my mind: What an absurd, tragic image, and yet, so utterly normal. This is, I thought, an example of how The Smiths were radical, how the personal and poetic intersected perfectly with the political. It was the right time for The Smiths when they came out, and as a result you can listen to the music now, and it's still the right time. Contrast this with I'll Never Be Anyone's Hero Now, which Morrissey sang a little later. It's an exquisite, poetic song, but it fails to be more than personal, about Morrissey. It doesn't become 'political', because the time when this fey version of pop-rock was radically new has gone. It is Morrissey as the establishment. And Morrissey may not be expressing Britain, or England, as it is now, but he is still (it occurred to me) as quintessentially English as vinegar-soaked fish'n'chips on a rainy, boozy night. A Morrissey gig is hardly hedonistic in the normal sense of the word. It's not like a holiday in Greece, soaking in the sun. It's a wet weekend that we still manage to enjoy in a self-pitying, masochistic sort of way. It is at once disappointing, reassuring, and slightly unsettling. If it were a drug, it would be a downer, a tranquilliser. Don't be fooled by the rock'n'roll trappings. You can only tune into this mood when the drug has slowed your pulse down to a sluggish rate. The boozy, woozy feeling takes hold, and the lights of the fairground begin to blur. "My love is under the ground," you think, "My one true love is under the ground." But you are in a different place now, in a numbness beyond the ache. But no, it's not even that. It's… Look, you've got to laugh.

"I'm sorry about the open grave," said Morrissey to those in the front row, "I'm not referring to the orchestra pit, but myself."

I challenge you not to smile.

It's not true that you can't dance to Morrissey, you know.

Anyway, so Mr Wu and I filed out with everybody else. There had been one encore Irish Blood, English Heart. It was, as Mr Wu said, a 'fake encore'. It's not that Morrissey could not have had any amount of encores he wanted. But he didn't wait that long. On he came again, and off he went again. The crowd cheered for more. Before they disappeared, the band seemed to be encouraging us to cheer more, too, and we did, hoping against hope that Morrissey would actually do another encore. But the houselights came up, and immediately everyone stopped cheering and turned to go. They knew the form very well. Only one encore from Morrissey. The houselights come up. You leave feeling, oh well, enough said.

So, we emptied our bladders (in the urinal two blokes were talking, "Amazing, wasn't it?" "Fucking brilliant") and collected my bag, and, in the crowded entrance hall found that there was some kind of trouble. What it was was hard to say, since we could not see, but apparently some anti-anti-vivisectionist had come in to try and start something. (At one point during the show, Morrissey had said, addressing himself to vivisectionists, "Make no mistake, we're going to get you.")We shuffled out, hoping to avoid the fight, if that's what it was. This task being completed successfully, we headed to the coach station. On the top deck of the coach, Mr Wu and I casually discussed the gig (perhaps not 'enough said', after all).

"Yeah, it was great, wasn't it?" enthused Mr Wu.

"Yeah. It took a while to get started, I thought."

"You know, I got the impression he really cared about the audience, trying to communicate and so on."

"Yeah. There was a lot of banter this evening, wasn't there?"

"But you know, one thing that is different is, this sense of recognition. I got the feeling that everyone there was there to see Morrissey. It wasn't like, for instance, the White Stripes gig that I went to, where there were some people who just knew that this was something big and thought they should turn up, and others, like me, really getting into it. It wasn't even like a Bowie gig, where not everyone's really a fan. It was like, if you could see everyone's auras in the audience, as if they were all sort of waving at the stage and going, 'Oh, hello! It's you.' So, put that on your blog."

"I will," I said.