Background and career
Steven Patrick Morrissey (; born 22 May 1959), mononymously known as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of the rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. Since then he has pursued a successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrics with anti-establishment stances and recurring themes of emotional isolation, sexual longing, self-deprecation, and dark humour. Morrissey was born to working-class Irish immigrants in Old Trafford, Lancashire, England; the family lived in Hulme but moved due to the 1960s demolitions of almost all the Victorian-era houses, known as "slum clearance", and he grew up in nearby Stretford. As a child, he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism and 1960s pop music. He began a career in music journalism and wrote several books on music and film in the early 1980s. He formed the Smiths with guitarist Johnny Marr in 1982 and the band soon attracted national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his trademark quiff and witty and sardonic lyrics. Deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the image of a sexually ambiguous social outsider who embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)—and had a string of top twenty singles on the UK chart. The band were critically acclaimed and attracted a cult following. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the separation of the Smiths in 1987. Morrissey launched his solo career with Viva Hate in 1988. This album and its follow-ups—Kill Uncle (1991), Your Arsenal (1992) and Vauxhall and I (1994)—all entered the top ten on the UK Albums Chart and spawned multiple top twenty singles on the UK chart. He took on Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer as his main co-writers to replace Marr. During this time, his image began to shift into that of a more robust figure who toyed with patriotic imagery and working-class masculinity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his albums Southpaw Grammar (1995) and Maladjusted (1997) also charted but were less well received. Relocating to Los Angeles, United States, he took a musical hiatus from 1998 to 2003 before releasing a successful comeback album, You Are the Quarry, in 2004. Ensuing years saw the release of the albums Ringleader of the Tormentors (2006), Years of Refusal (2009), World Peace Is None of Your Business (2014), Low in High School (2017), California Son (2019), I Am Not a Dog on a Chain (2020) and Make-Up Is a Lie (2026), as well as his autobiography (2013) and his debut novel, List of the Lost (2015). Highly influential, Morrissey has been credited as a seminal figure in the emergence of indie pop, indie rock and Britpop. In a 2006 poll for the BBC's Culture Show Morrissey was voted the second-greatest living British cultural icon. His work has been the subject of academic study. He has been a controversial and polarising figure throughout his music career due to his forthright opinions and outspoken nature, endorsing vegetarianism and animal rights, and criticising royalty and prominent politicians. He has also supported far-right activism with regard to British heritage and freedom of speech, and defended a particular vision of English national identity while critiquing the effects of immigration on the UK.
Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 May 1959 in Old Trafford, Lancashire. His parents, Elizabeth (née Dwyer) and Peter Morrissey, were Irish Catholics who had emigrated to Manchester from Dublin with his only sibling, his elder sister, Jacqueline, a year before his birth. Morrissey claims he was named after American actor Steve Cochran, although he may instead have been named in honour of his father's brother, Patrick Steven Morrissey, who died in infancy. His earliest home was a council house at 17 Harper Street in the Queen's Square area of Hulme, inner Manchester, since demolished. Living in that area as a child, he was deeply affected by the Moors murders, in which a number of local children were killed; the crimes had a lasting impression on him and would inspire the lyrics of the Smiths song "Suffer Little Children". He also became aware of the anti-Irish sentiment in British society against Irish immigrants to Britain, and would often use his heritage in some of his songs with the Smiths. In 1970, after the "slum clearances" of Victorian-era houses in Hulme, the family moved to another council house at 384 King's Road in Stretford.
Following a primary education at St Wilfred's Primary School, Morrissey failed his 11-plus exam and proceeded to St Mary's Secondary Modern School, an experience he found unpleasant. He excelled at athletics, though he was an unpopular loner at the school. He left school in 1975, having received no formal qualifications. He continued his education at Stretford Technical College, where he gained three O-Levels in English literature, sociology, and the General Paper. In 1985, Morrissey gave a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show and spoke fondly of St Wilfred's, including meeting his former teachers and going through a photo album. Later in the tour, he arrived at St Mary's and described it in highly negative terms, wryly closing with "Not to be recommended." He has been critical of his formal education, later stating, "The education I received was so basically evil and brutal. All I learnt was to have no self-esteem and to feel ashamed without knowing why." He has also discussed being subjected to corporal punishment as a pupil, which is the subject of the Smiths' 1985 song "The Headmaster Ritual". Education is a recurring theme in his lyrics, such as "The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils" from Southpaw Grammar (1995) and the Years of Refusal bonus track "Because of My Poor Education" (2009). The working title for his first solo album Viva Hate was Education in Reverse and it was initially released in Australia under that title, though this was later rectified.
In 1975 Morrissey travelled to the United States to visit an aunt who lived in Staten Island. The relationship between his parents was strained, and they ultimately separated in December 1976, with his father moving out of the family home. Morrissey's librarian mother encouraged her son's interest in reading. He took an interest in feminist literature, citing examples such as Marjorie Rosen, Molly Haskell and Susan Brownmiller in a 1983 interview with NME. He particularly liked the Irish author Oscar Wilde, whom he came to idolise and reference often in his songs. The young Morrissey was a fan of the television soap opera Coronation Street, which focused on working-class communities in Manchester; he sent proposed scripts and storylines to its production company, Granada Television, although all were rejected. He was also a fan of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey and its 1961 film adaptation, which was a drama focusing on working-class life in Salford. Many of his later songs directly quoted A Taste of Honey. Of his youth, Morrissey has said, "Pop music was all I ever had, and it was completely entwined with the image of the pop star. I remember feeling the person singing was actually with me and understood me and my predicament." He later revealed that the first record he purchased was Marianne Faithfull's 1965 single "Come and Stay With Me". He became a glam rock fan in the 1970s, enjoying the work of English artists like T. Rex, David Bowie and Roxy Music. He was also a fan of American glam rock artists such as Sparks, Jobriath and the New York Dolls. He formed a British fan club for the latter, attracting members through small adverts in the back pages of music magazines. It was through the New York Dolls' interest in female pop singers from the 1960s that Morrissey too developed a fascination for such artists, including Sandie Shaw, Twinkle and Dusty Springfield.
Having left formal education, Morrissey proceeded through a series of jobs, as a clerk for the civil service and then the Inland Revenue, as a salesperson in a record store, and as a hospital porter, before abandoning employment and claiming unemployment benefits. He used much of the money from these jobs to purchase tickets for gigs, attending performances by Talking Heads, the Ramones and Blondie. He regularly attended concerts, having a particular interest in the alternative and post-punk music scene. Having met the guitarist Billy Duffy in November 1977, Morrissey agreed to become the vocalist for Duffy's punk band the Nosebleeds, although Morrissey later said, in 2024, that he "did not ever join" the band. Morrissey co-wrote a number of songs with the band—"Peppermint Heaven", "I Get Nervous" and "I Think I'm Ready for the Electric Chair"—and performed with them in support slots for Jilted John and then Magazine. The group soon disbanded. Morrissey came to be known as a minor figure within Manchester's punk community. By 1981 he had become a close friend of Linder Sterling, the frontwoman of the punk jazz ensemble Ludus; her lyrics and style of singing both influenced him. Through Sterling he came to know Howard Devoto and Richard Boon. At the time Morrissey's best male friend was James Maker; he would visit Maker in London or they would meet in Manchester, where they visited the city's gay bars and gay clubs, in one case having to escape from a gang of gay bashers. Wanting to become a professional writer, Morrissey considered a career in music journalism. He frequently wrote letters to the music press and was eventually hired by the weekly music review publication Record Mirror. He wrote several short books for local publishing company Babylon Books: in 1981 it released a 24-page booklet he had written on the New York Dolls, which sold 3,000 copies. This was followed by James Dean is Not Dead, about the late American film star James Dean. Morrissey had developed a love of Dean and had covered his bedroom with pictures of the dead film star.
In August 1978 Morrissey was briefly introduced to the 14-year-old Johnny Marr by mutual acquaintances at a Patti Smith gig held at Manchester's Apollo Theatre. Several years later, in May 1982, Marr turned up on the doorstep of Morrissey's house, there to ask Morrissey if he was interested in co-founding a band. Marr had been impressed that Morrissey had authored a book on the New York Dolls, and was inspired to turn up on his doorstep following the example of Jerry Leiber, who had formed his working partnership with Mike Stoller after turning up at the latter's door. According to Morrissey: "We got on absolutely famously. We were very similar in drive." The next day, Morrissey phoned Marr to confirm that he would be interested in forming a band with him. Steve Pomfret, who was the band's first bassist, soon left the band, to be replaced by Dale Hibbert. Around the time of the band's formation, Morrissey decided that he would be publicly known only by his surname, with Marr referring to him as "Mozzer" or "Moz". In 1983 he forbade those around him from using the name "Steven", which he despised. Morrissey was also responsible for choosing the band name of "the Smiths", later informing an interviewer that "it was the most ordinary name and I thought it was time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces". Alongside developing their own songs, they also developed a cover of the Cookies' "I Want a Boy for My Birthday", the latter reflecting their deliberate desire to transgress established norms of gender and sexuality in rock in a manner inspired by the New York Dolls. In August 1982 they recorded their first demo at Manchester's Decibel Studios, and Morrissey took the demo recording to Factory Records, but they were not interested. In late summer 1982 Mike Joyce was joined as the drummer. In October 1982 they gave their first public performance, as a support act for Blue Rondo à la Turk at Manchester's The Ritz. Hibbert however was unhappy with what he perceived as the band's gay aesthetic; in turn, Morrissey and Marr were unhappy with his bass playing, and so he was removed from the band and replaced by Marr's old school friend Andy Rourke.
