I thought I had read all Mark Simpson’s blog, and heard all Morrissey’s songs, but this one passed me by till now.
All You Need Is Me.
http://www.marksimpson.com/blog/2007/10/17/all-you-need-is-me/
Apart from the fact Moz’s 2007 (?) performance on a chat show confirms my belief he has become a ‘psychotic lounge singer’ I couldn’t help but smile rather ashamedly at the lyrics.
In a previous post of mine about ‘subjectivity’ ‘objectification’ and narcissism, a frighteningly astute commenter likened me to Morrissey. He quoted me:
“He [Roland Barthes] positioned himself as the ‘amorous subject’ and that seemed to me like the font of his creativity and knowledge and writing and work. If you are always the ‘object’ of someone else’s affections, it is a very passive role. What do you actually do?”
And then said, damningly:
‘This is Morrissey in a nutshell. A continually fascinating aspect of his work is how melancholic longing is always a form of activity, even attack. Always pursuing, its unimaginable that the “amorous subject” of a Morrissey lyric could ever be the pursued. You are the quarry.
His work is constantly recriminating the loved object for its passivity. And here there is a secret collusion between lovers and enemies: “And what do you do? You just sit there”.’
To draw the circle back on itself, my ‘morrissey-esque’ sensibility has become rather exposed of late, since relations between me and Mr Simpson (author of Saint Morrissey) have gone sour.
Morrissey sings here:
‘You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone’.
And I am pretty sure there is an email somewhere sent by me to Mr Simpson, that uses almost those very words.
Even now, though, as I sit here, embarrassed to be ‘found out’ , I am like Morrissey, who never seems to regret anything or recriminate himself for doing or saying anything, only everyone else, and I still think I’m right!
Mark Simpson DOES need me. I am obviously not all he needs . I am not quite as arrogant as Moz. But I do think without the inspiration, research, insights and hard work of QRG, he will struggle to dominate metrosexual theory, to be ‘The (Metro)Daddy’.
Part of me hopes I am wrong. Another, louder part, is standing on the stage next to Morrissey, two psychotic lounge singers, certain and confident in our own necessity to someone else. All You Need Is Me.
http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/letter-from-an-alien-subjectobjectnarcissist/
