Morrissey’s Moral Hierarchy

Following in the footsteps of the notorious belittler Lee Ryan, Morrissey is said to have made the following observation while onstage in Warsaw on Sunday night:

“We all live in a murderous world, as the events in Norway have shown, with 97 dead. Though that is nothing compared to what happens in McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Shit every day.”

If you weren’t aware already, this should make it absolutely clear that Morrissey is not only a vegetarian and a maker of controversial remarks, but also a searing wit. But the former Smiths frontman doesn’t need Anders Breivik to bring out his proselytizing side. He’s displayed an inverse, perverse, or even-verse sense of moral judgement many times before. Keen to get a Morrissey-eye view of the world, we tried to figure out who Moz thought most deserved to be in it. After holding a bacon sandwich hostage for nine hours, we were ultimately given permission by Morrissey’s people to get an ordered list: a top-to-bottom Moral Hierarchy, delivered via the pop singer’s own leaky quill.

Animals
Animals, it is often supposed, appear to me as tiny people in fur coats. I feel I must rebut this idea here and now, as it is egregious. No animal would ever wear fur. They have too much dignity, too great a heft of moral virtue in their hearts, to sully themselves with such unethical and vulgar dressings. Why, I spoke to a swan the other day in Hertfordshire who would potentially make a better moral leader than Nelson Mandela. Animals would never do the things that we weak and venal humans do—kill each other, have intercourse indiscriminately, leave the aged members of their community to die, eat their newborn babies, and so on.

Working Class Thugs

Oh, whisper to me softly of working class thugs. I tell you solemnly, there is nothing so beautiful as the sight of a sweet hooligan doing irreparable damage to the knees of an ageing shopkeeper with a homemade cosh, fashioned rudely from spare lead piping found in the back of Darren’s transit van. So free. So spirited. They know not how beautiful they are, these youths, and so it has been up to me to hymn them in song. I confess: I regularly trawl the aisles of Deptford ASDA on Saturdays, cunningly disguised as Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, in order to eavesdrop on their conversations to generate material for my next album. They do say the most fascinating things. “Aren’t eggs next to the baking aisle?” “Here, get that, those are two for one.” “Sorry, mate, is this on Rollback?” It is a richly bejewelled argot all of its own. But one, I fear, that is being swept away by the ceaseless immigrant tide.

Nazis

Many people will tell you bad things about Nazis. That they weren’t as neat as they were made out to be. That the colors on their flags clashed. That they did not always only obey orders. However, I feel it is time to take a fresh look at Nazis. Hitler, as is widely known, loved dogs. Indeed, it was out of deep compassion that Hitler gave Blondi the first cyanide capsule inside the bunker, so that this German Shepherd would not be put through the trauma of watching his master and mistress take their own lives. If only more pet owners would spare their animals this unbridled horror when they make the selfish decision to poison themselves out of existence, the world would be a much better place.

Alan Bennett

A beautiful man. We have spent many happy hours over the past few decades discussing the works of 1950s comedian Jimmy Clitheroe, which is the only topic of conversation I will countenance. I visit him for tea most Tuesdays. He has begun playing a superbly wry game with me, which involves him hiding behind the curtains for six hours while I ring the bell over and over. The man is lord not only of the arch witticism, but of suitably dry physical comedy, too.

The Editor of Morrissey-Solo.com

He has failed to control the forums on his website on the digital wire-press, resulting in negative commentary on my new songs, which is why I was forced to expel him from my Danish show and impose a lifetime ban. Yes, so this man [above, right] has devoted himself to compiling long lists of articles about me. Is that enough for a reprieve? It cannot be. He reminds me of the limpid parasite Paul Morley, who wrote kindly of me in the NME during that lamentable decade, the 1980s, then traitorously failed to prevent the publication of McNicholas’s scurrilous lies some 20 years later. Worse still—this man was working on the digital wire-press, yet in my two incursions onto the digital wire-press via my electronic computing machine, I have run across many digital wire-press pieces which do not portray me well, and so it is surely up to him to police the digital wire-press properly. I gather there are now more than ten billion pages thereon, but as a paltry penance he ought, at least, to make a start.

The Drumming Oaf Mike Joyce

This session musician, whom I vaguely recall clinging to my coattails throughout much of that lamentable decade, the 1980s, had the gumption to stick his beaky nose above the parapet and attempt to rob me of my paltry 40 percent share in the profits of The Smiths. As I recall it, the judge damned his claims as devious, truculent, and unreliable, and sentenced him to jail for crimes against Morrissey. Morrissey was once again vindicated. As I stood on the steps of the courthouse, I must confess, I wept. I wept for Mike Joyce and for his outlandish delusions. This poor pitiful fool had assumed he was on par with Morrissey. But justice had prevailed. “Justitia omnibus Morrisseyus,” I whispered. Sorrow will come to him in the end.

Morrissey turns his righteous heat up on Page 2.

The Poisonous Fool Andy Rourke

A bass guitarist of ill repute. I had limited interaction with him, but biographers tell me Rourke was a heroin user, another sort of person I cannot countenance. He had limited intelligence at the best of times, was patently of no benefit to society, and while it pains me to say this, perhaps it would have been better for all concerned if this profoundly ordinary Mancunian had succumbed to his affliction like the capricious fret-mangler Hendrix.

The Royal Family

Elizabeth Windsor, a housewife from Berkshire, does not represent a Britain in which I wish to live. Yet her face is everywhere. Every time I open my pocketbook—there, her diseased Germanic features leer back at me. Which is why I am beginning a concerted campaign of money burning. I have so far managed to burn over £500,000 with that vinegar-visaged hag’s face on it. I call upon my fans to, likewise, burn every bill in the land. Only in this way can we bring an end to their Cromwell-saluting royal line.

Josef Fritzl

Fritzl was a monster. There are no two ways about that. This simpering sub-human wretch committed the greatest crime anyone is capable of. He fed his child meat. The thought of it sends chills to the core of my marrow.

The Chinese

A subspecies. And not even a nice one at that.

Conor McNicholas

Reader, this man plotted against me for nearly 20 years—taking on a career as a journalist, working his weasel way up the hierarchy, encouraging me to return from my American sojourn, giving me lots of free publicity, then, once the moment was precisely right, detonating his payload by tricking me into stating my opinions in his grubby rag. What a bastard.

Racists

Terrible people who are lower than vermin—obviously, because most vermin are exquisitely lovely. The conversations I have had with field mice, voles, rats, and weasels outrank in their depth, eloquence, and perceptiveness those I have had with most heads of state or latter-day poet. Don’t get me wrong—some of my best friends are racists, but they are far, far down the hierarchy. It is difficult for me to believe that, in this day and age, discrimination still goes on. For instance, the other day I learned that there are certain pubs throughout this land that allow dogs in, but seemingly have no room at their inns for jackals, foxes, wolves, or any other member of the canis family. It pains me to say, but based on this evidence our war against irrational prejudice is far from won.

AS RELAYED BY MORRISSEY TO THE PREVARICATOR GAVIN HAYNES