Reading Morrissey And Marr’s Memoirs
Simon Goddard writes: ‘Such was the critical pandemonium surrounding the publication of Morrissey’s “Autobiography” in October 2013 that despite my vested interest as the author of two books on the man and his work—the hymn-by-hymn Smiths history Songs That Saved Your Life and the pick’n’mix biography Mozipedia—I abstained from my peers’ speed-reading hysteria. So, it seems, did Johnny Marr. “I didn’t [read Morrissey’s] to avoid everyone asking what I thought,†he recently told the press, who forgivably
thought it only fair to inquire considering Marr was promoting his own equivalent. Touted as “the truth,†Marr’s recent memoir, Set The Boy Free, finds the guitarist “setting the record straight†after too many “so-called Smiths books†spreading “shit†and—be still my bamboozled heart—“lies.†Which sounded like a challenge not to turn a deaf ear twice to the gospel of a former Smith, but instead retreat to a dingy cell with oil lamp and wicker matting to devour both chronicles of Morrissey and Marr simultaneously. And, you know, atone for my sins.’
