Fans of English musician Morrissey may not be thrilled about this list. However, most would have to agree that Morrissey has dug his own grave more than a few times through the years, starting countless beefs with his contemporaries. Let’s take a look at just a few (yes, there are more) songs about hating Morrissey that other musicians have penned through the years.
1. “Getting Away With It” by Electronic
The Smiths made it big on MTV at the end of the 1980s, and they knew it. Rather than goading about how his band had reached pop stardom, Morrissey was more inclined to talk smack about his contemporaries instead.
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Electronic (which featured Pet Shops Boys’ Neil Tennant, who also makes this list again) wasn’t having any of it, and they wrote “Getting Away With It” as a satirical diss track of sorts written from the perspective of Morrissey himself. Tennant gets pretty bitting throughout the song. It’s worth noting that the band featured The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, which made things a bit awkward.
2. “Miserablism” by Pet Shop Boys
Neil Tennant makes our list of songs about hating Morrissey again with “Miserablism” by the Pet Shop Boys. This outfit embraced the emergence of synth-pop and the optimism associated with pop music. Naturally, Tennant wasn’t exactly a fan of Morrissey’s mopier indie rock works.
“Miserablism” shows Tennant loudly and proudly voicing his disdain for the type of music Morrissey was making at the time. The lyrics “Just for the sake of it, make sure you’re always frowning / It shows the world that you’ve got substance and depth” are particularly biting.
3. “Lighten Up Morrissey” by Sparks
This track from art rock outfit Sparks isn’t nearly as contentious as other songs on this list. However, it’s a great song, so we’re including it anyway. In fact, the Sparks had a decent relationship with Morrissey. “Lighten Up Morrissey” was written more as a tongue-in-cheek fun-poking at Morrisey’s public image. If anything, this is one of the funnier songs on this list.
4. “Stephen You’re Really Something” by The Associates
A former friend of Morrissey, Billy McKenzie of The Associates took some offense to the song “William It Was Really Nothing”. In the song, Morrissey bemoans his life at the time, and McKenzie found the whole thing disingenuous. The Associates clapped back with “Stephen You’re Really Something”, which is more or less a scathing critique of Morrissey’s character.
5. “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” by Morrissey/David Bowie
A noteworthy entry on our list of songs about hating Morrissey, this song technically isn’t about hating Morrissey. But some context is important, and we think this cover from David Bowie is suitable for this list.
One can’t deny (though many will try) that Morrissey’s “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” sounds extremely similar to the David Bowie song “Rock And Roll Suicide”. Bowie caught wind of it and decided to cover “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” to make it sound even more like a Bowie song. Morrissey was, obviously, PO’d about it.
“His last album, ‘Your Arsenal’, was produced, ironically, by Mick Ronson,” said Bowie. “Mick sent me a copy of the tape, and I couldn’t help notice that one of the songs on the album, ‘I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday’, was kind of a parody of one of my earlier songs, ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’. And so I sort of thought it would be fun to take that song and do it the way I would have done it in 1974ish.”
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