Johnny Marr responds after Morrissey shares open letter to him
"This fake news business...a bit 2021 yeah?"
Johnny Marr has responded to Morrissey’s open letter about him in a series of social media posts.
Last night (January 25), Morrissey posted a statement asking his former Smiths bandmate Marr to stop talking about him in interviews.
In a post on his Morrrissey Central website, he wrote: “This is not a rant or an hysterical bombast. It is a polite and calmly measured request: Would you please stop mentioning my name in your interviews?”
“Would you please, instead, discuss your own career, your own unstoppable solo achievements and your own music? If you can, would you please just leave me out of it?”
He added: “The fact is: you don’t know me. You know nothing of my life, my intentions, my thoughts, my feelings. Yet you talk as if you were my personal psychiatrist with consistent and uninterrupted access to my instincts.
“We haven’t known each other for 35 years – which is many lifetimes ago. When we met you and I were not successful. We both helped each other become whatever it is we are today. Can you not just leave it at that? Must you persistently, year after year, decade after decade, blame me for everything…from the 2007 Solomon Islands tsunami to the dribble on your grandma’s chin?”
Now, Marr has replied in a series of his own social media posts. On Twitter, Marr wrote: “Dear @officialmoz. An ‘open leteter’ hasn’t really been a thing since 1953, It’s all ‘social media’ now. Even Donald J Trump had that one down. Also, this fake news business…a bit 2021 yeah?”
Over on Instagram, he also shared a photo of himself on a hammock, sunbathing above the sea. You can see it here.
The two, who were bandmates in The Smiths for six years, released four albums together: ‘The Smiths’ (1984), ‘Meat Is Murder’ (1985), ‘The Queen Is Dead’ (1986), and ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’ (1987). Morrissey also mentioned this in the second part of his post.
He said: “You found me inspirational enough to make music with me for 6 years,” he said. “If I was, as you claim, such an eyesore monster, where exactly did this leave you? Kidnapped? Mute? Chained? Abducted by cross-eyed extraterrestrials? It was YOU who played guitar on ‘Golden Lights’ – not me.”
He continued: “Yes, we all know that the British press will print anything you say about me as long as it’s cruel and savage. But you’ve done all that. Move on. It’s as if you can’t uncross your own legs without mentioning me. Our period together was many lifetimes ago, and a lot of blood has streamed under the bridge since then. There comes a time when you must take responsibility for your own actions and your own career, with which I wish you good health to enjoy. Just stop using my name as click-bait.
“I have not ever attacked your solo work or your solo life,” he said, “and I have openly applauded your genius during the days of ‘Louder than bombs’ and ‘Strangeways, here we come’, yet you have positioned yourself ever-ready as rent-a-quote whenever the press require an ugly slant on something I half-said during the last glacial period as the Colorado River began to carve out the Grand Canyon.
Morrissey signed off: “Please stop. It is 2022, not 1982.”
It comes after Marr recently opened up about Morrissey for the cover of Uncut Magazine.
In the interview, Marr said he was not “close” with Morrissey because they were “so different.”
He said: “It’s a simplistic way of putting it, but one of the reasons I’ve been in so many bands was because I wanted to be loyal to them,” said Marr. “It won’t come as any surprise when I say that I’m really close with everyone I’ve worked with – except for the obvious one. And that isn’t that much of a surprise because we’re so different, me and Morrissey. But all of these different musicians, I can pick up the phone to any one, and just pick up from where we left off.”
Marr is due to tour with Blondie this April.