Morrissey believes that the media are peddling miserable lies to "delete" his "central essence" in The Smiths.
In a website post titled 'Cancel culture begins at home', the 64-year-old singer alleges that dark forces are conspiring to downplay his pivotal role in the iconic Manchester indie band.
He writes: “There is also an obvious media shift to delete me from being the central essence of The Smiths, but this cannot work because I invented the group name, the song-titles, the album titles, the artwork, the vocal melodies, and all of the lyrical sentiments came from my heart. And so it's a bit like saying Mick Jagger had nothing to do with the Stones.”
Exactly who these malevolent media organisations trying to write Morrissey out of his own history is not specified - any story seeking to erase Morrissey from The Smiths would obviously have no credibility - but the singer's ire seems to have been prompted by reports in places unknown about an early meeting that the band had with Rough Trade Records boss Geoff Travis.
“Several news sites now claim that the initial meeting at Rough Trade Records was with ‘Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke,’ even though Andy wasn't even a committed band member at that point,” he writes. “The meeting, of course, was Morrissey and Marr. Even Geoff Travis has now suddenly decided that he ‘can't remember who was with Johnny,’ even though Geoff looked me squarely in the eye on that very day and said ‘we'd like to release “Hand In Glove” immediately,’ and he then more importantly said to me that his name was Geoff with a G, not Jeff with a J. The hounds are snapping!”
Morrissey rounds off his post by quoting a lyric from Hand In Glove, writing “Hand in glove, I stake my claim! I'll fight to the last breath!”
The post actually originates from comments made by Morrissey in conversation in Japan last year.
