Words Dept.: entry

There’s an interview with Morrissey in this week’s NME that’s credited in a way I’ve never ever seen before.

It says:

Interview: Tim Jonze

Words: NME

How? What? HUH?!!! It turns out that Jonze, the writer of the piece, conducted two interviews with Moz but the NME decided to rewrite his copy. Jonze says “virtually none of [the resulting article] is my words or beliefs” and requested that his name be removed, hence the baffling byline.

I haven’t read the piece myself – it’s not online and I’m certainly not buying a copy of the NME unless they wrap it in something less embarrasing, like some soft porn – but I read some chunks of it on the Guardian Arts blog. There’s also a detailed analysis at No Rock and Roll Fun.

However, even without reading it in full, I’m at liberty to observe that it’s a stupid idea to commission an interview with one of the most influential pop stars of the last fifty years and then to rewrite it so significantly (in order to pursue an ill-thought out and totally pointless student politics-style witch hunt) that the journalist goes to the virtually unheard of length of completely disowning it.

The Morrissey-sanctioned website True To You has a bunch of e-mails that reveal, in fascinating detail, the wheeler-dealerings that led to the NME‘s decision to rewrite the interview. Conor McNicholas, the NME editor, attempts to justify his decision to “be much stronger than we originally discussed”, while Merck Mercuriadis, Mozzer’s manager, accuses the “eNeMEy” of misleading him in its response to his concerns about the tone of the piece and waiting until after it was published to reply.

And to top it off, there’s a nice letter from Russells solicitors threating legal action should the NME carry “expressly or by imputation the false assertion that our client [Morrissey] is a racist or holds racist views”. [continues below]

McNicholas, in his e-mail to Mercuriadis, is at pains to stress that he is a “huge Morrissey fan” but says he has no choice but to expose the singer’s views. He admits these views “obviously” aren’t racist but feels they “are not those that we’d normally expect to come from someone in the very liberal world of rock’n'roll”.

This is a particularly illogical statement since Morrissey’s illiberal tendencies surely exhibit an eccentric, outsider-ish, even (whisper it) rebellious streak – and isn’t that what “rock’n'roll” is about? Clearly, if someone is espousing racism then of course it should be challenged. But no-one is suggesting Morrissey is expressing views that are anything more that a bit old-fashioned. Thank Christ NME wasn’t adopting this tut-tutting tone towards free expression during the Seventies or punk may never have happened.

McNicholas adds:

I am – as I say in the magazine – fully confident that Morrissey’s comments are simply the result of a man in his 50s looking back nostalgically on the England of his youth, but his reasoning for that change is unreasonably skewed towards immigration and as a title we think that’s wrong.

Quite, quite. In other words, the NME‘s claim is that Morrissey holds some views on immigration that, er, well, you know, aren’t very liberal (and may even be a tad conservative). Well stone me.

By the way, Morrissey’s date of birth is May 22 1959, meaning he is 48, not “in his 50s”. But then you wouldn’t expect a huge Mozzer fan to know such a thing.

Update 29 November: Morrissey’s lawyers have issued legal action against the NME and are demanding a retraction.

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