The glory years

Like many other cardigan-wearing teens, I had an unhealthy obsession with Morrissey and The Smiths. In addition to a binder in which I kept typed sheets of all their lyrics—I even had blank pages for the rare Smiths instrumental like “Oscillate Wildly”—I began to hew to Moz’s philosophy of life. Upon the release of Meat Is Murder, I stood tall in the kitchen and defiantly declared myself a vegetarian to my meat-loving family.

It didn’t last long. In fact, that night my mom dumped a full package of uncooked tofu on my plate, with the rejoinder “you’ve got to get your protein somehow.” I was game enough to dig in, but my uneducated palate couldn’t get past the sticky, watery mess on my plate. I soon reverted to meat, happily so, but the experience only deepened my sense of dislocation.

The horror of remaining a sensitive misfit, surrounded by the drabness of [insert city here], unappreciated, misunderstood—the sentiment fades quickly into yadda-yadda, doesnt it? Its been the interior Muzak of every adolescence since child labor was banned.

What is it about Morrisseys voice that still breaks my heart? – By Stephen Metcalf – Slate Magazine