The Guardian: "Matt Berninger webchat: your questions answered on Morrissey, Taylor Swift and infinite creativity" (October 13, 2020)

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The Guardian - October 13, 2020.
Laura Snapes.

Matt Berninger webchat: your questions answered on Morrissey, Taylor Swift and infinite creativity.

"I want my daughter to listen to the Smiths.
I don't want her to pay attention to what Morrissey says now.


djdazz asks:

Hi Matt, we are about the same age, with many of the same formative influences. The reception of all art changes over time, but I’m wondering how you reconcile your love of the Smiths with Morrissey’s recent political dalliances. Of course, I want to trust the art rather than artist, but sometimes it’s not easy. Your thoughts on the issue would be greatly appreciated!

Matt:

I'm really glad somebody asked me. I brought up Morrissey and the Smiths so many times to journalists over the past few years because I'm interested to talk about that, and so often it never makes it into the interview because it's just such tricky territory, right? Because Morrissey was one of the voices, writers, performers that made me - maybe more than almost any, at this phase in my life when I was 15, 16, 17. When you just feel like a misfit. But I was a misfit with a lot of confidence. I had a lot of chips on my shoulders, small chips. And then to hear this other person from a place that I'd never heard of, didn't know anything about Manchester, didn't know anything about England, really, and then here was this band and this singer singing about all these emotional, hugely dramatic grievances - the Boy With the Thorn in His Side, Please Please Please let me get what I want, these raw pleas to the universe to be understood. And so funny. Morrissey, the thing that's hardest to square now, is how a person with such empathy for himself and for the misfits and those around him, writing so beautifully about that, now seeming to have very little empathy for other perspectives. It's a hard thing. I listen to the Smiths a lot still, and I listen to Morrissey a lot, and then I do pay attention to the things that he says and it's heartbreaking. I feel like fear and the anxiety of the world has maybe kinda overtaken him a little bit, and I guess it makes me try to keep my mind open and keep listening to everyone. At some point, the older you get, you can close your brain off. I feel like Morrissey became very frustrated because he wanted the world to be a very specific way. When festivals have to change their rules because he's there, I understand that when he's making sure the entire festival is vegan because he believes in that. But I think at a certain point you can't control everything, you get bitter and angry and that's happened to a lot of people. The world is chaotic and out of control and people retreat to a very small corner when they feel they cannot control the world, and I feel he's retreated to a very small corner that doesn't have the empathy that he used to have. I think about it a lot. I wish I had a better answer. But the Smiths still provides me a lot of comfort and inspiration and empathy. I still listen to the Boy With the Thorn in His Side and feel less alone in the world. The Smiths really helped me out of some emotional, dark tangles and they still do. Morrissey's body of work, so much of it provides me really healthy, positive answers, still. I won't give up that. I won't put those records in a box and bury 'em. I want my daughter to listen to the Smiths. I don't want her to pay attention to what Morrissey says now. She listens to them now in fact, she loves them. Frankly Mr Shankly - how can you not love that song? Girlfriend in a Coma, it's great."


Regards,
FWD.


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I don't mind the article...when I saw Snapes name I thought, oh here we go.
But no, the article's not offensive.
However, I think Berninger's daughter will listen to whatever & whoever she wants, regardless of her father's views, or wishes.

My Dad would know that he may as print out every Morrissey interview in existence & hand it over if he tried telling me not to listen to him.

Besides, I've learned a lot picking my way through Morrissey's ideas. And if I'm still a staunch leftie I don't see what he's worried about. ✊
 
I’m literally acknowledging everything he’s said, Felcher girl. So is the ray of the world. There’s no conspiracy against Morrissey. He’s reaping what he sows. Just because your wee noggin is firmly planted up his anus, doesn’t make the truth any different.

No, you're not.

The ray of the world can be full of internet bullsh*t.

& your head is obviously firmly planted up your own.
 
Actually some balanced, thoughtful shit from Matt. Got to give him credit. He’s not slagging Moz off, unlike some people.
 
Its a bit difficult to decipher your post but if you are talking about Matt Berninger, he fronts a band called the National, who have been around since 1999.
f***ing brilliant band, at that.
 
Don't play daft Surfy you know exactly what I mean. I remember seeing the episode of Later With Joolz when both Moz and The National were guests and the singer Matt looked like a vagabond with a filthy long beard and a rag bag suit. No stage style whatsoever.
WTF are you on about? Melvis walks around in frumpy trousers and a jacket that looks like it was rescued from a demolished 1920s tenement home. ...and that’s just on the street.

On stage, he wears ill-fitting trousers, a disposable jacket and daft t-shirt - with floppy, grandpa hair. Then he rips off his jacket and shirt to reveal his cheese-fed bitch-tits ...and is surrounded by style-less hacks in increasingly daft - matching t-shirts.

Not much weight can be placed on the fashion preferences of Mandingo. He’s got his head right up Morrissey’s anus, with the rest of the sycophantic slags around here.

Carry on.
 
No, you're not.

The ray of the world can be full of internet bullsh*t.

& your head is obviously firmly planted up your own.
You’re right about one thing. Unlike you, I don’t spend my days licking the space between Morrissey’s asshole and balls.

If someone created a list of your ball-licking nonsense, it would look like Eva Braun’s journal. ...and, doubtless, the outcome will be the same.

Get back up your hole, kiddo. Shallow as it may be, you’re out of your depth.
 
Actually some balanced, thoughtful shit from Matt. Got to give him credit. He’s not slagging Moz off, unlike some people.
...and it’s not as if Morrissey has ever slagged anyone off. Lol!

You do know that Morrissey was talking about and taking the piss out of you lot when he titled his lame attempt at fiction, “List of the Lost”, right?

Keep drinking the jizz.
 
My Dad would know that he may as print out every Morrissey interview in existence & hand it over if he tried telling me not to listen to him.

Besides, I've learned a lot picking my way through Morrissey's ideas. And if I'm still a staunch leftie I don't see what he's worried about. ✊
Do you have your word of honor on that, Karen? 🤞

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I’ve seen this guy say the same before on here. He seems cool and the National are fine but I can’t as always think that it would be so much better if people like Matt said instead of “morrisseys toxic or it hurts when people like morrissey turn” and rather said “I didn’t like when morrisseys said blank specifically because of blank”
 
I'm going through the Der Spiegel audio & I haven't been this depressed since I watched Dennis Potter's play about miners beating a bear to death because they thought they'd been told that it had killed a girl.

He's trying to discuss complex things... she's hunting for controversy... buzzword catastrophe.

If you want to be as despairing as me - this is the play:


 

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