The Believer - The Passion of the Morrissey - The Diigo Meta page

• 13 Aug 09
  

  Brendan Montague

  article believer magazine morrissey music thesmiths

  • Even before he dropped his Christian names and became a pop icon in his own  right, Steven Patrick Morrissey obsessively worshipped outsiders. As a bookish,  isolated teenager holed up in his bedroom in Manchester, he idolized a string of  famous misfits, from James Dean to Oscar Wilde, going as far as to pen a booklet  about Dean entitled James Dean Is Not Dead. He was an avid reader of  feminist texts and fan of outmoded 1960s British, female pop divas like Sandie  Shaw and Twinkle. 1960s kitchen sink dramas such as A Taste of Honey and  Billy Liar, both studies in the themes of isolation, marginalization and  the power of the imagination, exerted a potent influence on him.
  • Gradually, the adoration turns into unabashed devotion, as people try to clamber  onto the stage. Those that make it past the heavy-set bouncers cling desperately  onto their pop idol like lepers begging for a miracle. As the singer up on stage  leads the bacchanal of flailing bodies in a rousing chorus of "Hang the DJ! Hang  the DJ, Hang the DJ!" the scene resembles something of a cross between a room  full of lagered-up soccer hooligans and The Sermon on the Mount.
• 19 Mar 07
  

  ashley

  article believer magazine morrissey music thesmiths

  • Even before he dropped his Christian names and became a pop icon in his own  right, Steven Patrick Morrissey obsessively worshipped outsiders. As a bookish,  isolated teenager holed up in his bedroom in Manchester, he idolized a string of  famous misfits, from James Dean to Oscar Wilde, going as far as to pen a booklet  about Dean entitled James Dean Is Not Dead. He was an avid reader of  feminist texts and fan of outmoded 1960s British, female pop divas like Sandie  Shaw and Twinkle. 1960s kitchen sink dramas such as A Taste of Honey and  Billy Liar, both studies in the themes of isolation, marginalization and  the power of the imagination, exerted a potent influence on him.
  • Gradually, the adoration turns into unabashed devotion, as people try to clamber  onto the stage. Those that make it past the heavy-set bouncers cling desperately  onto their pop idol like lepers begging for a miracle. As the singer up on stage  leads the bacchanal of flailing bodies in a rousing chorus of "Hang the DJ! Hang  the DJ, Hang the DJ!" the scene resembles something of a cross between a room  full of lagered-up soccer hooligans and The Sermon on the Mount.

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