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A push and a shove and the land is ours: Morrissey's counter-hegemonic stance(s) on social class

2012; Routledge; Volume: 9; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17405904.2012.713207

1740-5912

Martin J. Power, Aileen Dillane, Eoin Devereux,

Gender, Feminism, and Media

Abstract We explore how the singer Morrissey has represented the struggles of the proletariat in creative and provocative ways, inviting a deep textual reading that reveals a complex counter-hegemonic stance on the issue of social class. A champion of the 'Other' in a variety of guises, Morrissey is revealed in this article as a raconteur of the marginalized working class. We illustrate this through a detailed semiotic, musical and contextual reading of one particular song; 'Interesting Drug'. We reveal tensions in Morrissey's representations of the proletariat. Specifically, Morrissey's romantic, nostalgia-laden, oversimplification of the working-class hero of an earlier era seems some distance from the 'real' proletariat struggle for representation in the places that count. However, in providing both collective places and intimate spaces in which to reflect, his music becomes counter-hegemonic as he hands power back to the individual to make the music meaningful in whatever way he or she wishes. Keywords: Morrisseyneo-liberalismpersonal responsibilityclass stigmatisationcounter-hegemonic discourses Notes Negus was, in part, responding to Middleton's work on Lennon's 'Imagine', a socialist song, even a song of 'global communism' that gets co-opted by the right and became the theme song of Thatcher's Convention in 1987 (Negus, Citation1996, pp. 192–196). While we concur that such an act was an example of 'hegemony at work' (Frith, Citation1988, p. 203) and that songs accumulate new meaning, particularly when placed in a particular ideological context ('Imagine' was subsequently banned from accompanying news reports during the Gulf War of 1991), we still feel it is important to locate meaning in the song's original context, which is what we are attempting to do here. Schuker points out that Grossberg also takes the view that listeners can derive pleasure from the performance of music that ostensibly is about affecting social change, without subscribing to or even being aware of the politics involved (Citation2001, p. 235), which is also important in considering Morrissey who seems to want his audience to take what they wish from his music, further underscoring the idea of Morrissey as a raconteur and a commentator and not as an activist. Frith cites Sir John Herschel statement in 1839 'music and dancing (the more's the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes that a taste for them, for their own sake, can hardly be said to exist, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a very great change of ideas must take place'. Such rhetoric represents high culture critiques of popular music which persist today. Taken from the opening of a chapter entitled '"Pushin" Too Hard' Popular Music and Cultural Politics', it is interesting to note that Roy Schuker lists rap in the 1980s and rave in the 1990s as the genres that have sparked 'controversy and opposition'. Mainstream pop is not mentioned further underscoring Morrissey's satellite position in relation to operating within a genre not perceived to be designed, in part, for social protest. Red Wedge was a collective of British musicians who attempted to connect music fans with the Left-wing policies of the UK Labour Party prior to the general election of 1987, with the intention being to remove Thatcher's Conservative Party from government. Morrissey made extensive use of the spoken word song 'Imperfect List' by Big Hard Excellent Fish as a prelude to his live concerts. It contains phrases such as 'The Tory Invention of the non-working-class' and 'fucking bastard Thatcher'. In response to questions by the authors, the song's co-writer and producer Stephen Street told us that 'Interesting Drug' was 'written around the slightly Afro sounding guitar line that starts the song, then I added the bass line before working out what the chords were'. In line with the usual way in which Morrissey's songs are composed, the music was written first by Street and submitted to Morrissey on tape to which he added the lyrics. Asked if the 'Madchester' sound was influential in the writing of the song, Street maintained that the Afro 'Hi-Life' guitar figure used at the start of the song 'just seemed to suggest an up-beat danceable rhythm' (Interview by email, the authors and Stephen Street [November, 2011]). At a surface level, the video narrates a 'story' of how four male pupils at Hawtrey High become animal rights activists and join forces with a feisty unemployed female protagonist who leads them to liberate rabbits from an animal experimentation laboratory owned by Clever Brothers – presumably a thinly veiled reference to the powerful global conglomerate Lever Brothers. The basic storyboard for the 'Interesting Drug' video seems to have been heavily influenced by Jan Mark's (Citation1988) collection of children's short stories Enough is Too Much Already. Set in 1980s' Norwich, the collection tracks the limited opportunities facing a group of students who are repeating their General Certificate of Secondary Educations in a Britain that is experiencing record unemployment. Its influence on the song and video is evidenced in the fact that the book's title is partially quoted in the song's third last line 'Because ENOUGH is TOO MUCH!' Owing to the inclusion of gory video images of a seal cull, it was initially banned by the BBC and other TV stations. The BBC relented only when these scenes were deleted, which allowed for the video to be broadcast on Top of The Pops.