At first glance, it seems like one of the more baffling love affairs in musical history.
On the one side, there is Morrissey, the sexually ambiguous Manchester boy whose angst-driven but darkly humorous lyrics imprinted themselves on a generation of British teenagers sitting in their bedrooms, curtains drawn, on grey days in Thatcher’s Britain.
On the other side, there are the young Latinos of Los Angeles and the die-hard fans of Mexico City, more used to ranchera or norteño tunes, sunny skies and machismo, who have adopted “Mex Moz” as their own. They see the singer — who settled in the City of Angels more than two decades ago — as a kindred spirit, tackling issues of alienation, passion and thwarted love.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said there were no second acts in American lives, but Morrissey has made his American life into a reinvention of himself.
The Latino love poured out for the former frontman of the Smiths can be seen in the adoration of his youthful flower-waving fans, the two LA tribute bands — the Sweet and Tender Hooligans and the Handsome Devils — and the regular Morrissey nights at bars, where young Latinos belt out his songs on stage. Spanish karaoke cover versions are sung, a phenomenon known as MorrisseyOKE.
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Odd as the match-up may seem, it is not actually so far from Salford Lads’ Club to Little Mexico in Los Angeles.
“Morrissey was raised from Irish roots in England,” Jose Maldonado, singer with the Sweet and Tender Hooligans and the man known as the “Mexican Morrissey” told the NME. “It’s kinda the same experience for a kid growing up with Mexican parents in Los Angeles. As a people, we’re working class, Catholic, into boxing and soccer . . . very much like Morrissey is.
“That experience of not quite belonging somewhere that Morrissey sings about like no else can — that’s a very common feeling among the Latino people here.”
The feeling is mutual. In a rare interview on US television last year, Morrissey said, “It is a beautiful thing. It is the passion and the music. They are passionate people, they like to hear about reality — and here I am.”
Mexicans have taken up his music, translating it — often with some difficulty, given the nuances and cultural references to English characters — and putting it to their own rhythms. Last year, a band of Mexico City musicians played the Barbican, singing Latinised versions of Smiths and Morrissey songs. Now they have brought out an album, Mexrrissey: Mexico Goes Morrissey, to seal his status as a bona fide Mexican idol.
Cómo se dice . . . en español
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The love has been reciprocated by Morrissey in song. In his hit single The First of the Gang to Die, he recounts the story of a Latino gang member named Hector who is shot to death. In another song, simply entitled Mexico, he laments exploitation and racism against Mexicans. “I could sense the hate from the Lone Star State,” he sings, and: “It seems if you’re rich and you’re white, you’ll be all right.”
That will only echo ever more resoundingly as America lurches deeper into Donald Trump-fuelled xenophobia, with his talk of building a vast wall along the border.
Latino fans tend to focus more on the themes of lost love, melancholia, nostalgia and near-misses in hard lives that pepper Morrissey’s songs, and which are so reminiscent of Mexico’s own tearjerkers, listened to by grown men forced to bottle up their emotions.
Many Mexicans discovered Morrissey on their own, but the cross-pollination of the immigrant community and the homeland has ensured that Los Angeles Latinos have transmitted their passion south of the border, where he frequently tours and where he once said, “I wish I was Mexican.”
With Mexico’s penchant for religious artwork, fans can now buy T-shirts with a picture of the beatified singer — hands clutched in prayer, and wearing a saint’s robes — with the slogan: “Only Morrissey Can Judge Me.”
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