Sunday, 15. October 2006, 13:32:32
The title for this entry comes from
Pretty Girls Make Graves, one of my favourite songs by The Smiths, if not one of my favourite songs full stop. Even the title of the song alone is a powerful statement. Four words can say so much, and I feel I know the emotional truth of these words, having been, in my time, what is described in the lyrics of the song as "Sorrow's native son". If pretty girls are basically Life, with a capital L (which also begins those sister words 'Love' and 'Lust'), then Sorrow's native son knows that something has barred him forever from getting on that particular ride, which leads, through social Darwinism, to genetic immortality. In the words of the song: "I could have been wild and I could have been free/But nature played this trick on me". Therein lies the pain that digs the grave.
The line in question (that which is the title of this entry), is delivered by Sorrow's native son to a girl who appears intent on his seduction:
End of the pier, end of the bay
You tug my arm, and say : "Give in to lust,
Give up to lust, oh heaven knows we'll
Soon be dust ... "
Oh, I'm not the man you think I am
I'm not the man you think I am.
In this context the word 'man' takes on an interesting double meaning. The statement can mean something like, "I'm a different man to the one you think I am". Or, alternatively, it can mean, "You think I'm a man, but I'm not". Both readings are, I think, relevant, but the second one takes on a bitter poignancy in context, since the song seems to be about sexual impotence:
And Sorrow's native son
He will not rise for anyone.Somehow that line, "I'm not the man you think I am", fascinates me and resonates with me. In many ways it can be seen as a kind of summary of Morrissey's career. In the documentary
The Importance of Being Morrissey,
Will Self described Morrissey's artistic stance as an eccentric one: "'I am what I am' he seems to say, 'But you're not allowed to know what I am'. And that's a very eccentric position."
"I'm not the man you think I am" also echoes the defiant position taken by Arthur Seaton, hero of Alan Sillitoe's
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Arthur Seaton, a young, determined hedonist (or perhaps not), declares, "Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not." Morrissey, something of a film buff, is known to be a fan of this film. (This quote has also, recently, provided
The Arctic Monkeys with the title of their album.) Coming from the mouth of the young, pugnacious Arthur Seaton, there's an almost Zen-like wisdom to his pronouncement. I believe I thought of this line after being told, by someone who had read
my work, that I was old-fashioned.
Just before the release of his album
You Are the Quarry, Morrissey made a fascinatingly awkward appearance on the talk-show
Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. At one point, Jonathan asks Morrissey, "Can I be your friend after the show?" To which Morrissey replies, simply, "I don’t think so." When Jonathan asks him how many friends he has, he replies immediately, "Seven." (Single word answers seemed quite prevalent in the interview.) This issue of friendship was pushed by Jonathan, and, at one point, there was the following exchange:
JR: What about people who work with you? What kind of relationship do you have with them, then? Does it ever blur and you ever feel awkward that they want to be more friendly and you don't want to let them closer?
M: Yeah, it's happened in the past. It has happened in the past.
JR: (Laughs) We're talking about a long time ago, I imagine then?
M: No.
JR: No? Recently?
M: It has happened. It does become difficult sometimes. Errrm. But... errrm... then it ends. Remarkably. When they've found out what I'm really like. (Laughs.)
JR: What are you really like, then? What do you mean by that?
M: I haven't a clue. I've got no idea.
This last line is delivered in a rather faint voice so that it is hard to tell if that is what he was really saying.
On the album
You Are the Quarry is a track called
How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel. At first, this seemed to me one of the cruder tracks on the album, but recently I feel that I understand it more. In some ways it could be seen as revisiting the themes expressed in
Pretty Girls Make Graves, especially with reference to the line, "I'm not the man you think I am". Perhaps one significant difference in viewpoint is that, while
Pretty Girls Make Graves belongs to the debut album and was therefore written and recorded before Morrissey had achieved fame, the later song was written by someone very much in the midst of fame:
She told me she loved me, which means, she must be insane.
I've had my face dragged in fifteen miles of shit, and I do not, and I do not,
And I do not like it.
So how can anybody say they know how I feel?
The only one around here who is me, is me.Once again there is someone who mistakes the singer for someone else. If she loves me, she's insane. In other words, her love is a delusion. I've heard more than one person express irritation at this song because it seems to disavow the devotion of Morrissey's many fans. In interview, however, Morrissey has said that probably everyone feels the things expressed in that song at some time. In a broad, universalistic reading, the song is simply this:
When someone tells you they love you, look out. They could be projecting a fantasy onto you, and ultimately such projection is also imposition. They want you to conform to the fantasy. They want to use you. Otherwise they will be disappointed, and love will disappear. It will be revealed for the lie that it is. I'm sure it will not come as a totally alien idea to people who read this if I say that those who tell you they love you are often those most likely to drag your face through the shit. When Morrissey sings, "So how can anybody possibly think they know how I feel?" he is effectively trying to struggle free of the many grasping hands reaching out to him, unwilling to conform to the fantasies imposed on him.
Relating this back to
Pretty Girls Make Graves, if it's true that "I'm not the man you think I am" when you find me attractive, it's also true that "I'm not the man you think I am" when you're disappointed in me.
I thought about all of this on Friday night in connection with a very trivial episode that I will relate here.
I had gone to see a show called
Saints and Superheroes at the Battersea Arts Centre. After the show, the bar was very crowded. I was struggling through the press of people when I thought I heard an American accent. I suppose I was curious enough to turn my head. The accent seemed to belong to a tall blonde girl. However, when I turned my head, it was a man standing near her who immediately caught my gaze and said hello. As it turned out, he was American, too.
Anyway, he greeted me as if he knew me. "How have you been?" - that kind of thing. Now, this is a very common occurrence in my life. I don't know why it is - maybe there's a horde of doppelgangers of me out there doing mischeif in the world - but very often, especially if I'm in a crowded place, people will come up to me and greet me as if they know me. Sometimes they even do know me. For instance, after I had settled down in my seat before the show began earlier, a young lady had set next to me and said hello, and it turned out she really did know me. A little embarrassed, I said that I could remember her face, but didn't recall the circumstances under which we had met. She explained those circumstances very convincingly. Besides which, she actually knew my name without me telling her. However, in the case of the American man, I had to 'remind' him of my name. "Have we met before? We do know each other, don't we? At the um..." He was obviously beginning to doubt his original conviction. "I don't know," I said, "Maybe."
The man gave me his name (let's call him 'Norton') and introduced me to the young ladies with whom he had been talking. There was the tall blonde, someone I don't recall quite as well now, and a shorter blonde, with an English accent. They had apparently just put on a show in the same theatre under the title of "Whatever you Desire" or some such thing. I was beginning to feel a little awkward having been introduced to these ladies on the assumption that I was a friend of Norton. It was clear that Norton was trying to chat the ladies up, and maybe he thought he stood a better chance with two of us, so that he didn't look like a lone shark. I didn't want to just walk away, but there were some uncomfortable pauses in the conversation.
"So, what are you doing here?" asked one of the ladies.
"Well, I came to see
Saints and Superheroes," I said.
"No, don't tell them that," said Norton from the side, "You've come here to see
them."
The conversation continued in this way. I remember Norton saying to one of the girls, even after I had given my real reasons for being there:
"He's come all the way from Oslo just to see you."
Oslo?!?
The girl sounded surprised, as if she actually believed him. I've been on the rounds with a womaniser before, and it always amazes me just the kind of whopping tall tales they get away with.
After a while, the shorter blonde (let's call her Hortense) began to talk to me.
"How do you know Norton?" she asked.
I laughed. I'd had enough of the charade.
"I don't know. People come up to me and tell me they know me. I don't actually remember. I feel terrible, really."
I didn't add that Norton was clearly a liar. I wasn't going to interfere with all that. I'm no do-gooder. Let him lie, if he wants, and let them believe him if they want. And the truth was, I didn't feel terrible. I suddenly felt much better now that I had relieved myself of the fantasy that Norton had placed on me. I relaxed.
Thank god, I was no longer under any pressure to chat these girls up. Hortense, under what compulsion I do not know, led me to the corner of the bar, and introduced me to an acquaintance of hers. He turned out to be Japanese, so I spent a while talking to him about my time in Japan until Ed (star of
Saints and Superheroes and, I'm afraid to say it, close personal friend), entered the bar, and I went over to catch up on stuff.
When I left, I noticed that Norton was chatting up some other girl. I nodded to him.
I walked to the station alone and caught the train home.
WIDGETIZE