Dear Hadiyah, Astrid, Lindsay and Lakshmi,

I’ve never actually met Morrissey, which is probably why I like him. He is undeniably a complex and divisive figure, someone who takes more than a little pleasure in pissing people off. As enjoyable as some may find this, it holds little interest for me, but for the fact that Morrissey is probably the best lyricist of his generation – certainly the strangest, funniest, most sophisticated, and most subtle. We had a few pleasant email exchanges last year in which Morrissey asked if I’d sing on a new song he had written. I would have been happy to do so, however, while the song he sent was quite lovely, it began with a lengthy and entirely irrelevant Greek bouzouki intro. It also seemed that he didn’t want me to actually sing on the song, but deliver, over the top of the bouzouki, an unnecessarily provocative and slightly silly anti-woke screed he had written. Although I suppose I agreed with the sentiment on some level, it just wasn’t my thing. I try to keep politics, cultural or otherwise, out of the music I am involved with. I find that it has a diminishing effect and is antithetical to whatever it is I am trying to achieve. So, Astrid, I politely declined. I said no.

Which brings me, Lindsay, to your observation, with which I completely agree – yearning is, indeed, the essence of being human. We live our lives with a sense of incompleteness, of abandonment, a feeling of something lacking. This is the human predicament, as enacted in the Garden of Gethsemane where, at the final hour, Christ prays for God’s mercy but finds that God has withdrawn, leaving him to his fate. This sense of godlessness, which my friends the atheists interpret as the non-existence of God, is, I believe, the supreme act of divine love – God allows us the freedom to be whatever we wish to be. The yearning you speak of, Lindsay, is the universal yearning for what is good, beautiful, and true. We exist in this world and ache for this truth, for this beauty, in its seeming absence.

Certain music has the ability, at least temporarily, to fill that void, making us feel whole and less abandoned. We feel complete when we listen to music we love, while being guided towards the goodness of things. I find that Morrissey’s music, regardless of how jaundiced and disaffected the songs may sometimes seem, does precisely that – ushers us toward what is true.

Lakshmi, at the moment, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Zurich where I’ve played a series of concerts with Colin Greenwood. I’m eating a box of Swiss chocolates for breakfast that a fan gave to me, musing on Morrissey (because Hadiyah asked), while listening to YHWH Nailgun, who, in their own purifying way, do all of the above, pointing us to the heavens by going all the way down. Completely awesome.

Love, Nick

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