Brendan Montague's Profile

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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.

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.