"Everyday Is Like Sunday"

John Williams: "Everyday is like a Sunday" an early solo hit for Morrissey in 1988 just months after the split of the band he fronted, the Smiths, today regarded as one of the best loved and most influential British groups the Smiths have never reformed despite lucrative offers. Morrissey has enjoyed a successful solo career with 9 studio albums so far and a reputation as one of pop's most witty and inventive lyricists. Hes a reluctant interviewee though and in recent years has regarded the British media with increasing disdain. But earlier today Morrissey arrived at the Front Row studio keen to talk about his latest album, a best of collection, of singles b-sides and album tracks. When he launched his solo career 23 years ago could he have imagined that he'd still be around in 2011?

Morrissey: "Not at all. I'm...I'm very surprised it's lasted so long. Especially, shall we say, under the circumstances. It hasn't been the easiest journey, but I'm very surprised, very very surprised. Initially I thought if maybe I could do one, maybe 2 albums that would be extraordinary."

To take you back to the early, the first album, you thought maybe you'd get a couple of albums. What would you have done afterwards in your mind?

"I would have...I would have become a novelist which is what most people who can't write do. But otherwise I really don't know."

You don't know?

"I really don't know. Because I only ever wanted to sing. That was to me that was the only thing. To me, that was the ultimate power and the ultimate form of expression and that's all I wanted to do."

"You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side"

"When you write or record a song when you're in your twenties, and then you find yourself singing it once you've turned fifty, you have to think about the words. You have to think, for example, do I look silly or do I sound silly now singing those words? But, uh, but I think for the most part I don't."

Are there songs in the back catalogue that you just don't sing anymore because it would what have been embarrassing?

"Uh, there's a couple of songs, many of the earlier songs were like mating calls. Unanswered of course, but they were like mating calls, and, um, I have to think very seriously about trying to sing them now, because obviously you know the dreaded subject of age and so forth."

Which songs?

"I don't want to tell you."

Really

"Yeah" chuckles

Let the listeners decide for themselves?

"But the thing is I have to consider for how people viewing me will see me as I sing those words and it's a minor consideration but it's a consideration nonetheless. And none of us want to look like an idiot."

Looking back most of these songs are at least 20 years old and they're, they mark that transition point from being the frontman of a much loved band, the Smiths, to forging your own identity.

"Yes."

And looking back, having listened to these songs and as you say re-evaluate them, re-understand them, did that take you back to a daunting period of your life? Were you scared or was there a sense of freedom?

"It was daunting more than free, but the transition was so quick and the first single and the first album happened so quickly that if I had left it, if I had thought too much about the, the gulf, then perhaps I would have been more hesitant. But because it happened as a solo singer it happened so quickly for me, then there was never time to think. Suddenly I was there and suddenly I was here, and let it be..."

"Suedehead"

And you hear on that first single, "Suedehead", you hear you almost hear the baton being passed from The Smiths to Morrissey...

"Yes"

And I mean very hard obviously for you to sound different, noticably different, I mean you were never obviously suddenly going to become a jazz singer overnight

"No..."

or a techno artist.

"No..."

But you hear that could have been a Smiths record

"Well, uh, to me, the, the whole things is seamless, really, and people talk about Smiths songs and they talk about solo songs but I, I don't really see any difference."

One body of work.

"Well, yeah, for me from how I approach it and how I am in the middle of it all there's no difference at all. And I don't feel that Smiths songs belong to other people. And so, it's seamless."

They're all yours.

"Yes, they are all me."

And you're very proprietorial of the Smiths, of the name, of the legacy

"Yes."

of what it meant

"Yes."

It means so much to other people, you know that.

"Yes, yes it does, yes it does."

And you share that?

"I do, and that was the intention and I'm very happy with the Smiths' legacy. I'm very very happy. It's a great name still, it doesn't sound like a silly name from the, from the 80s. It, it still speaks for now. The music still speaks for now."

It's the every man band; at least, that was the intention of the name The Smiths

"It was indeed."

And Johnny Marr, your former band mate, again, very protective of the Smiths' legacy. He, he issued an edict to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to say that he must not, you, you're not allowed to listen to the Smiths songs, because Cameron claims to be one of your biggest fans. You're with Johnny on that one.

"Yes, I am indeed, because of, uh, David Cameron is a hunter, he kills stag, and so forth, and that's everything the Smiths were against. But then, once you release something and it's out there in the world, you can't really trap people into either listening or not listening, you can't really insist that people listen or don't listen. So, eh, it's very difficult. Sometimes you see people whom you would least expect to be interested, and they have a lifestyle which is everything that you oppose, and yet they're very influenced by something you've done. And you think, well, how does it connect? Where's the connection?"

And does it give you any quiet sense of pride that the Prime Minister of Great Britain is a massive, not only a massive Smiths fan, but supposedly a massive Morrissey fan?

"Yes, he's been to many, many Morrissey concerts, and the Daily Telegraph at one stage wrote that I had banned him from coming back stage, which was of course was absolute crap but, eh, it's a mystery, but..."

Have you met him?

"No, I've never met him."

So he's never knocked on the dressing room door?

"No, he's never knocked on the dressing room door, but when you make music of course you're very happy that anybody listens, whoever they may be. But somebody with such an extreme lifestyle, as David Cameron, killing stags, as I say, as a hobby, sport, you're mystified. You just can't see how it joins."

You don't ban him from the gigs. But you wouldn't necessarily open the dressing room door to him?

"Well, no, I don't think I would. Because, uh, it's a, it's a moral issue, isn't it?"

And taking you back to the way the way that you, that you've talked to me about this before, writing with Johnny Marr, it was, it was this unit, and creating what he calls pop symphonies, you were providing him with the poetry. Are you writing in notebooks all the time? Do you sit down and work? Is there a disciplined process of writing? Or is it just whenever inspiration strikes?

"It, it doesn't stop, it really doesn't stop. It's the way I live and it's the way I live every single day. I don't do anything else."

But write?

"Mmm, yes, and I have no other interests other than music. At all."

The song titles themselves have a melodic quality. There's an internal rhythm, and sometimes that very, having that "The Last Of The Famous International Playboys that we talked about there

"Yes."

It almost suggests a melody, so when you write, does that start with the title, the line, or the melody?

"I think the title is often more important than the song because more people will read the title than will hear the song. And the title can draw people in, or repel them, and it's very important to me that all the words have very soft edges, and are very easy to say."

There Is A Light That Will never go out

laughs "Well, yes"

And many others

"And, thousands of others, that are too plentiful to mention."

"The Last Of The Famous International Playboys"

You must have noticed outside as you arrived at the broadcasting house that the street outside is festooned with Union Jacks

"Yes."

They have gone up overnight. And you must notice London and Britain changing every time you return and because you told me on this program last time you live kind of a nomadic lifestyle. You're living in hotels around the world.

"Yes."

You didn't seem particularly pleased with Britain two years ago. Has it changed noticeably?

"I think it's changed dramatically. It's become very American in terms of news reporting and so forth and in terms of television generally. But I find that politically it's very very hard to take. And now, of course, we, we're aware of politics 24 hours a day."

Can you foresee a time when you would return to Britain to live permanently?

"Yes, yes I could, very easily, very easily. But it's it's become like America in the sense that you have to be very aware of what you must avoid. And you mustn't really watch the television. And you mustn't really listen to the news, and we all love royalty, and I find that very very insulting."

People love the, a lot of people love the Smiths, as you know...

chuckles

And it, you cringed when I asked this last time, it has to be asked. You said "It will never happen,"

"No, it won't happen."

The Smiths reunion will never happen.

"No."

So you're still no closer. Even though you agree with Johnny Marr that David Cameron is banned from listening to the Smiths music, you're not going to come any closer than that with Johnny and get back together.

"I don't think so. I..."

Do you follow him on Twitter, by the way?

"No."

He's very funny.

"Is he really?"

Mmm hmm.

"I've never followed anybody on Twitter. But why? There's no reunion point. There really is no point AT ALL that I can think of and that's that."

You've mentioned before that you were writing a memoir. How far with those are you?

laughs "How far am I? Well I've reached the redrafting/trimming stage."

Oh, so you've been through the whole life,

"Yes."

and now you...

"The whole life, yes, I've been through the whole life in many ways, and I just wonder if 660 pages are too much for people to bear. And then I sit down and I think, 'Well, are six pages too much for people to bear?' I really don't know. So I'm I'm I'm trimming."

You're trimming at the moment.

"I'm trimming."

So you've written what? A couple hundred thousand words?

"Yes. Which is baffling, cause I'm really not that interesting, so I, I don't know why I've written so much."

Do you have a publisher then?

"No, I don't."

So it's going to be offered?

"Yes."

I read that you wanted it published by Penguin, and straight into, to become a, to be published as a Penguin Classic straightaway.

"That was right, yes, yes."

And that you'd still like that to happen?

"I can't see why not."

The very first, contemporary Penguin Classic.

giggle "You're not mentioned... you're not mentioned, I'm sorry." giggle "Oh, dear me."

So you're going to carry on making music, the autobiography will come out...

"Yes."

Within the next, you hope within the next year or so...

"Yes."

And then...you don't consider bowing out musically while you still have the hair and a waistline? Or are you just going to carry on like the old blues singers?

"I'm just going to carry on like the old blues singers and die on stage in Chicago, probably. I don't know. As the world knows, music has changed dramatically, and record labels have changed dramatically, their needs and requirements have changed dramatically. So somebody of an advanced age, shall we say, finds it very very difficult to convince, etc. But not convince an audience. But just convince the existing shops and so forth that uh, that you're sellable and stockable. Em, so it's all very difficult. It doesn't become easier. But nonetheless I'm still here."

Singer, songwriter, and author Morrissey. The album The Very Best Of Morrissey is out next week.