Morrissey's Sudden Love for Rome?

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Mozzy's Little Easter Bunny

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I don't know if this was brought up but, is anyone out there just a little suspicious about Morrissey's sudden new love for Rome? Doesn't it seem a little odd that a man that lived and loved LA for 7 years just decides to just get up one day, sell a home that he loved and move to the other end of the earth?

What I'm getting at is that is his relocation somehow related to his FBI investigation? Do you think the FBI threatened him enough with either blackmail or deportation in retailiation to his anti-Bush comments?
 
> I don't know if this was brought up but, is anyone out there just a little
> suspicious about Morrissey's sudden new love for Rome? Doesn't it seem a
> little odd that a man that lived and loved LA for 7 years just decides to
> just get up one day, sell a home that he loved and move to the other end
> of the earth?

> What I'm getting at is that is his relocation somehow related to his FBI
> investigation? Do you think the FBI threatened him enough with either
> blackmail or deportation in retailiation to his anti-Bush comments?

It's a combination of what you said, the fact that L.A. fans never left
him alone, and the fact that he wanted to watch Pete Burns on celebrity
Big Brother, which he couldn't do from the U.S., but could pick up on
satellite from Italy, all fact.
 
> I don't know if this was brought up but, is anyone out there just a little
> suspicious about Morrissey's sudden new love for Rome? Doesn't it seem a
> little odd that a man that lived and loved LA for 7 years just decides to
> just get up one day, sell a home that he loved and move to the other end
> of the earth?

> What I'm getting at is that is his relocation somehow related to his FBI
> investigation? Do you think the FBI threatened him enough with either
> blackmail or deportation in retailiation to his anti-Bush comments?

If you read Paul Morley's Uncut interview, he presses Moz, Paxman-style, 4 or 5 times, and asks him if he fell in love with someone and moved to Rome to be with them. Finally Moz denies it.

Peter
 
he's fallen in love with someTHING I think he says.

> If you read Paul Morley's Uncut interview, he presses Moz, Paxman-style, 4
> or 5 times, and asks him if he fell in love with someone and moved to Rome
> to be with them. Finally Moz denies it.

> Peter
 
> he's fallen in love with someTHING I think he says.

Yes, you're right, sorry. Here's the extract in question:

PM - "One of the first things the listener will think on hearing the album is that Morrissey's in love, and it's not nosiness to want to ask about that...well, it is...but it's also wanting to give the songs a wider framework...so, are you in love?"

Moz - "I'm in live with something, I often am."

PM - "Not someone."

Moz - "Not a human being, no. And on these new songs, I'm in love with something, so keep stabbing away."

PM - "You've moved to Rome."

Moz - "I travel so much that I actually live nowhere. I live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I left Los Angeles last year after seven years. I became an Italianophile, yes."

PM - "You moved to Rome to be with someone."

Moz - "Something."

PM - "Because of someone."

Moz - "Something."

PM - "Someone?"

Moz - "Something."

PM - "You met someone and moved to Rome to be with them."

Moz - "That's the tabloid journalist in you, as if there is no story unless there is a greasy little tabloid element to it."

PM - "So you haven't."

Moz - "I haven't (sigh). I can't say anything other than I haven't if I haven't. Don't put the innocent face on me. Does it really matter one way or another whether I have, haven't, have never, have soon?"

Peter
 
They are so desperate for Morrissey to have "another half" aren't they? It must be so tedious to have to deal with questions like that all the time.
 
does anyone else find that extract quite funny?

"someone?"
"something"
"...someone?"
"something"

Not sure who I found more amusing, the hack or Mozz!
 
Rome & Italy

If he's so in love with Italy why doesn't he come and play some real gigs here rather than just a festival where he's not even headliner!
 
Re: Rome & Italy

Maybe there aren't enough Italians that appreciate him so the venues don't ask him?
 
Re: Rome & Italy

Maybe he doesn't want to spoil Italy for himself.. he can obviously walk the streets in peace which is something he hasn't been able to do for years in L.A. (well noone walks in L.A., do they?). Maybe he wants to establish Rome as his living space whereas the rest of the world where he's hassled remains his working space.

Just a wild thought.....

On the other hand, maybe it was just time set sail and he went with wherever the wind blew him.....

> If he's so in love with Italy why doesn't he come and play some real gigs
> here rather than just a festival where he's not even headliner!
 
I don't know if this has already been suggested anywhere but if the lyrics of "Dear God please help me" and "You have killed me" are about being in love with 'something', my interpretation of that 'something' would be: the scene of male prostitutes in Rome.

'Dear God...' is obviously about a sexual encounter with a rentboy. It's the rather technical description of a sex act with a stranger who approaches men on the street. Not an account of personal romance, although it's clear that to the singer this encounter has the value of a religious ritual. What he is in fact implying in the 'now i'm spreading your legs' bit is that he's having sex with some manifestation of God (God is the 'you' throughout the song.) In literature this combination of gay sex and religious (Roman Catholic) imagery is far from uncommon. I had never heard it turned into popular song.

In the opening of 'You have killed me' the singer _is_ Pasolini and he is metaphorically 'killed' by someone who introduced him to the phenomenon of 'entering' and 'being entered'. (Pasolini actually was murdered, allegedly by a rentboy (an 'accattone'))

In short: it's 'Picadilly Palare' in Rome.
 
bartvdp said:
I don't know if this has already been suggested anywhere but if the lyrics of "Dear God please help me" and "You have killed me" are about being in love with 'something', my interpretation of that 'something' would be: the scene of male prostitutes in Rome.

'Dear God...' is obviously about a sexual encounter with a rentboy. It's the rather technical description of a sex act with a stranger who approaches men on the street. Not an account of personal romance, although it's clear that to the singer this encounter has the value of a religious ritual. What he is in fact implying in the 'now i'm spreading your legs' bit is that he's having sex with some manifestation of God (God is the 'you' throughout the song.) In literature this combination of gay sex and religious (Roman Catholic) imagery is far from uncommon. I had never heard it turned into popular song.

In the opening of 'You have killed me' the singer _is_ Pasolini and he is metaphorically 'killed' by someone who introduced him to the phenomenon of 'entering' and 'being entered'. (Pasolini actually was murdered, allegedly by a rentboy (an 'accattone'))

In short: it's 'Picadilly Palare' in Rome.
Click to expand...

Excellent first post - welcome!:)
 
I'm not sure what the confusion is about Morrissey's love for Rome. It seems like the perfect place for him to live: romantic, historic, stylish, eclectic. What I think is the better question is - what on earth possessed him to live in Los Angeles for seven years???? I could never figure that one out.
 
I just wanna say or ask..is it possible he is not in love?The whole album is full of love and hope so i was so happy for Moz!It may sound stupid, but really...I can understand he didnt want to answer the question to the journalist, but ---he must be in love or am i missing something.
 
He's not in love with a person. He has clearly stated it in several interviews after the release of ROTT (including one of the TV appearances, I believe). He's admitted he has been in love before, during the Vauxhall era, but recently he's amended that to "a close call" (paraphrasing).

He's in love with something. God or sex (the above theory about paid-for-sex is interesting) crossed my mind as possibilties. Both figure prominently on ROTT. Maybe it's something as mundane as "life itself," but I thought life was a pigsty?

Hmmm
 
King Leer said:
He's not in love with a person. He has clearly stated it in several interviews after the release of ROTT (including one of the TV appearances, I believe). He's in love with something. God or sex (the above theory about paid-for-sex is interesting) crossed my mind as possibilties. Both figure prominently on ROTT. Maybe it's something as mundane as "life itself," but I thought life was a pigsty?

Hmmm
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's if you just take what Moz says at face value. You must remember, that interviews are not a thing Morrissey enjoys and he thus must make them interesting. If I've learnt one thing, it's never believe Morrissey.
 
dazzak said:
Yeah, that's if you just take what Moz says at face value. You must remember, that interviews are not a thing Morrissey enjoys and he thus must make them interesting. If I've learnt one thing, it's never believe Morrissey.
Click to expand...

I have always had the impression he does like the interview - he quite likes to trifle with the interviewer as well as with the audience/readers of the interview with sarcasm, humor, and evasion. I think in many cases he actually enjoys treating these interviews as a game and certainly likes and wants to keep his fans guessing, as always.

But very much agreed that his "answers" are never to be trusted!!
 
It's no surprise to me that he's decided to spend time in Rome. I think from what he's said this is a moment in his life when he is inspired and full of confidence.

Much as he tries to brush it off as something he chose to do, my impression of his time in LA is that he fled there after the court case and more or less became a depressive recluse because he felt so hated. It's no surprise now he feels more loved he has the confidence to travel again and not hide away.

As far as paying for sex goes, I don't think Morrissey would approve of something like that. This is an old fashioned puritan socialist we are talking about. Prostitution is exploitation to someone like him. He disapproves of musicians exploiting groupies and prostitution isn't any different. I know in this postfeminist world a lot of people equate prostitution with freedom, but to someone whose politics were formed in seventies and eighties Britain, the Marxist analysis still stands.
 
I don't think he is necessarily in love with a person. I think it's more that he is in love with life. He's in love with the new possibilities that living in Rome has given him. He's spoken of how he likes to walk about Rome immersing himself in the crowds of people filled with style and vitality. I think as he's gotten older, he's become less inhibited and more open to new experiences, and his perspective has changed. And Rome is the perfect match for this new openness - and the perfect antidote to 7 years of living in the City of the Dead.
 
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