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The Songs That Saved Your Life

The Smiths and Morrissey have inspired legions of fans worldwide to don daffodils, hearing aids and librarian glasses and grope their way through the arcane chords sequences of Johnny Marr in musical homage. Eoin Devereux writes about the enduring appeal of Morrissey while Gavin Corbett talks to the tribute acts, from Manila to Manchester, who keep the light from never going out

Johnny Marr performs with Modest Mouse, 2008

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Next weekend, thousands of Irish and international fans will make their way to Cork and Dublin to pay homage to their anti-hero Morrissey. As before, the concerts will undoubtedly be the scene of an intense outpouring of emotion by male and female fans who will come to worship at the feet of Manchester's most famous son. Bequiffed fans will compete with one another to touch the hand of this notoriously shy and reclusive icon. The bravest of them will try and outfox Morrissey's security guards and get on stage to hug and kiss him. A small number of fans will leave the concerts with fragments of Morrissey's shirt which will be treasured for a very long time. For his part, Morrissey will repay this adulation by performing from a repertoire of songs that deal with raw human emotions such as depression, loneliness, rejection and sadness. As the perennial outsider, Morrissey's songs speak directly to the disenfranchised and the disenchanted.

While the inevitable pre-concert chanting of 'Morrissey' 'Morrissey' 'Morrissey' (to the tune of the football anthem 'Here We Go') may fleetingly remind concert goers next week of being at a football stadium, the much stronger parallels between attending a Morrissey concert and a religious event will also be in evidence. Since 1982, fans of The Smiths and Morrissey have been referred to in media coverage as 'apostles', 'acolytes', 'devotees' and 'disciples'. Reflecting his Irish Catholic roots, the object of their fandom has, in turn, been called the 'Pope of Mope', a 'prophet', a 'messiah', a 'monk', a 'missionary', a 'priest' or even elevated to the exalted position of 'Saint Morrissey.' This widespread use of religious language in describing Morrissey and his fans is interesting in that it is worthwhile remembering that the word fan comes originally from the Latin word 'fanaticus' meaning a servant or devotee of the temple. But it is not just the media that describe Morrissey fans in this way. Fans themselves resort to religious language in explaining how and why they became followers of Morrissey.

My personal experience is not that much different. I saw The Smiths for the first and only time on 17 November 1984. The gig took place in the windswept Galway seaside town of Salthill. I was transfixed. Morrissey's beads, the flowers on the stage, the wearing of his image on our bodies, the need to touch the hand of the untouchable resulted in fever pitch emotion amongst the fans. Leisureland had become a sort of church for the disaffected for 90 minutes. The Smiths spoke to me in a way that I had never before experienced. Morrissey's lyrics were witty and Wildean. I was smitten.

Since then I have attended dozens of Morrissey concerts throughout the world. Irrespective of location I am continually struck by the intensity of feeling which his fans display. I recognise how my own interest in Morrissey and The Smiths is inextricably bound up with my own autobiographical details, sub-cultural and political affiliations. Like Morrissey, I grew up in a Catholic working class family. My personal connection with Morrissey is based upon his ability to confront (often humorously) those existential realities that so much popular culture avoids. He represents to me a sort of shy big brother who is always on the side of the lonely and the depressed. He writes about many of the awful sides to life with his tongue firmly in cheek. The Smiths' anti-establishment stance on a wide range of issues including royalty and sexuality was also appealing.

When fans of The Smiths and Morrissey try to explain their fandom to themselves and to others they invariably do so through a religious lens. On-line fan essays, for example, commonly refer to how Morrissey's lyrics have had the effect of transforming people's lives. Parallels are regularly drawn between the experiences of a religious conversion and the processes involved in becoming a Smiths or Morrissey fan. Fans see themselves as making pilgrimages to sites such as the iconic Salford Lads Club in order to make a more 'authentic' connection with The Smiths. Last month, along with two of my friends, I visited the 'Smiths Room' at the Salford Lads Club. As well as containing posters, photographs and other memorabilia, the room contains hundreds of postcards and Post-it notes which fans from all over the world leave behind in order to thank Morrissey and The Smiths. One poignant note from a Serbian fan read: "Now my heart is full. Thank you."

In reading fan writings about Morrissey there is a recurring theme of redemption. In 2006, for example, the Guardian news-
paper published an article by the founder of the fanzine Smiths Indeed. He stated that the band was a source of personal redemption for him when he was a teenager. In the face of loneliness and social isolation, The Smiths were his "only solace". In becoming a self-described "superfan", he began to assemble a "shrine-like collection of memorabilia" concerning the object of his fandom. He writes of contacting "like-minded Smiths' apostles" through the NME with the view to setting up a fanzine which eventually went on to have some success over a three-year period.

These redemptive themes continue to be echoed by Morrissey fans, most notably by his new found fan-base amongst Latino immigrants in Los Angeles. In speaking about hearing the lyrics for the very first time of 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' one Latino fan, Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, said: "As soon as I heard those words, I finally felt like someone understands my life and how I feel. How could it be? This voice, this guy with an English accent could perfectly articulate how it feels to be an outsider not only in your own city, your own country and your own ethnicity, but also in your family. Whoever this person was, he understood the infinite complexities of my life."

'Moz Angeles'

Morrissey's appeal to a growing number of Latino fans has resulted in the emergence of a new hybrid sub-culture. For some Latino fans their dedication to Morrissey and The Smiths has meant that they have attempted to recreate the experience of participating in a Smiths and/or Morrissey show, performed by groups such as Sweet and Tender Hooligans. As a tribute to their reluctant icon, Morrissey's Latino fans have renamed their hometown 'Moz Angeles.' They dress and attempt to look like Morrissey – especially in his early 1990s' rockabilly phase. In writing about the Latino fans, the critic Jessica Hundley has remarked that "Despite the fact that they exist in a vastly different reality than the one that spawned their favourite band, these fans display the same dedication as their predecessors, a loyalty that has spawned a fascinating movement defined by both a sound and an aesthetic – music that has transformed into salvation."

The Latino fans are not alone. As Gavin Corbett demonstrates on these pages, the phenomenon of tribute bands is replicated all over the world. Concerts by tribute bands allow fans to recreate (or imagine) the experience of attending 'real' Morrissey/Smiths concerts. In a strange ironic twist I found myself at one of these events last summer in the USA. An intimate Morrissey show was cancelled at the last minute in the Rams Head in Baltimore owing to the singer's illness. We had to make do with local tribute band Girl in a Coma, who rose to the challenge of convincingly becoming Morrissey and The Smiths for the otherwise disappointed fans.

The need to be like and 'become' Morrissey even for just one night is also a feature of a unique performance art project devised by the Brighton based video artist Phil Collins. Using local musicians in Bogotá, Collins recorded a karaoke version of The Smiths (1987) record The World Won't Listen. This soundtrack has been used in Columbia, Vilnius, Istanbul, Indonesia and in Cork as the basis of a karaoke recording of fans singing their favourite Smiths' songs against a makeshift backdrop.

In 2005, the open invitation to the Cork recording described the event as: "...a karaoke for the shy, dissatisfied, narcissists, and anyone who ever wished they could be someone else for a night." Upwards of 40 participants took part in the Cork event with each person being given 30 minutes each for their performance. In discussing the event on the fan website Morrissey-Solo, one of the participants said: "I got my 15 minutes [of fame] in Cork for 'The World Won't Listen' karaoke. I sang 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', with pride and some gladioli for fun. Was brilliant, [it] was always my dream to sing The Smiths."

If anything, fan devotion to Morrissey has intensified in recent years. He continues to provoke strong feelings of empathy among his fans. This is in evidence in the on-line communities of fans who communicate with one another on a daily basis on fan sites such as Morrissey-Solo. The mere hint of a Morrissey performance such as next week's concerts will invariably result in a flurry of exchanges concerning tickets, travel plans, and crucially, getting a prized place in the front of the stage. A further example of intense fan devotion may be witnessed in the emergence of a group whom Morrissey has termed the "regular irregulars" who attend as many Morrissey concerts as is humanly and financially possible.

Morrissey continues to be cited by a wide range of newly emerging bands such as Ida Maria, The Courteneers and Girl in a Coma as being a major influence. For his part, Morrissey has had considerable commercial success and critical acclaim with his two most recent studio albums, You Are The Quarry (2004) and Ringleader of The Tormentors (2006).

So how do we explain his continued and renewed appeal? Apart from his obvious abilities as a songwriter, Morrissey's transformation from 1980s' celibate aesthete to 21st-century global icon may be explained by his ability to combine both the 'authentic' and the 'ambiguous' in his creative work. The fluidity of Morrissey's own identity may help us understand his appeal. His refusal to be classified in terms of one specific sexuality and his ability to sing from a range of gender perspectives (male to male; male to female; female to male; female to female) serves to create an ambiguity and fluidity in which a wide range of fans can see themselves. He continues to present his audience with an eclectic set of reference points such as early Eurovision performances, Sacha Distel and Jobriath. His pre-performance show-reels are populated by iconic outsiders such as James Dean.

'10 parts Crumlin, 10 parts Old Trafford'

Morrissey is a sort of cultural magpie whose nostalgia for northern English working-class life manages to present a sense of the authentic to his fans. His local concerns have become global in their appeal because he expertly deals with universal themes such as alienation and loneliness. Yet side by side with this is is an ambiguity and a mystery as to who Morrissey really is. As he has said himself, he only exists on stage. The thousands of fans who will show up at next weekend's Irish concerts won't agonise about that too much however. They will show up and faithfully take part in a show which will celebrate the joys and sadness of human experience.

Morrissey plays at The Marquee in Cork on Thursday 26 and at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on Saturday 28. His new album 'Years of Refusal' will be released in September

Eoin Devereux is a senior lecturer and head of department at the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick. His most recent book is Understanding The Media 2nd edition published by Sage (London) 2007.