TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD
SIMON GODDARD DEFENDS MORRISSEY'S HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL 1992 'GLAM RENAISSANCE', YOUR ARSENAL

He's been called a poet, a genius, the voice of his generation and the greatest living Englishman- He's also been condemned as "devious and truculent" in the eyes of a high court judge, targeted by The Sun, accused of condoning paedophiles and still finds himself haunted by hysterical charges of racism To be Morrissey is to be no stranger to controversy.

First the Thatcherite tabloids (goaded by former Sounds writer Gary Bushell) had hounded The Smiths for allegedly promoting child-abuse on ', Reel Around The Fountain" Then came a similar outcry, provoked by "Suffer Little Children". an account of the Moors murders that was equally misconstrued by the popular press. Meanwhile, naming an album The Queen Is Dead ranked him as pop's public enemy number one. After "Shoplifters Of The World Unite", questions were raised in the House of Commons. " Margaret On The Guillotine" was subversive enough to warrant a police investigation (as mischievously recollected on 1990's "He Knows I'd Love To See Him") When Morrissey later sang "Trouble Loves Me", it was no jest.

Throughout such misdemeanours Morrissey had been largely supported by the British music press, eager to ally themselves with their favourite cover star against the Conservative moral majority. That all changed, irrevocably, on August 8, 1992, when against a stage back-drop depicting two skinhead girls, Morrissey wrapped himself in the Union Jack at that year's Finsbury Park Madstock weekender.

The press reaction was to berate his use of "fascist imagery , interpreting the national flag in the context of the skinhead backdrop as a dangerous flirtation with far-right extremist parties (even though it had been a hardcore skinhead minority, hurling bottles and abuse, that had forced him to abandon his set). The NME's subsequent "This Alarming Man" feature pronounced him guilty as charged. Young Asian bands- Cornershop included - burned his records outside the offices of Morrissey's label, EMI. Only last winter, touring the UK after a two-year hiatus with no record to promote, an NME columnist likened him to a Nazi war criminal, suggesting he be "bricked" off stage. The verdict still stands.

After Finsbury Park, when Britpop reclaimed the Union Jack and effectively legitimized fervent nationalism. Morrissey never received his due pardon. With the whole country rediscovering their appetite for jingolism during the Euro '96 soccer tournament, to be Noel with the flag on your guitar or to be Ginger Spice (a self-confessed Thatcherite) in that dress, was to be a patron saint of "Cool Britannia" It was a tragic Irony.

For Morrissey, the real tragedy of Finsbury Park was that it sabotaged what had until then been his boldest manoeuvre since The Smiths Four years after the initial solo Number

One honeymoon of 1988's Viva Hate, In the wake of ever decreasing singles chart positions and 1991's bitterly disappointing Kill Uncle, Morrissey once the most important man in pop - was fast becoming obsolete. He needed a dramatic comeback and, although it would ultimately lead him to his fate at Finsbury Park, Your Arsenal was it.

The omens for Morrissey's third solo album improved with his first full-scale tour since The Smiths to promote Kill Uncle, paradoxically, his weakest recording ever was the catalyst for stage one In Morrissey's rebirth His new band of unknown Camden Town rockabillies restored his confidence as a performer while guitarists Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer would soon emerge as the longest serving co-writers of his entire career Just as crucial was producer Mick Ronson, once Ziggy Stardust's iconic right-hand guitar hero (who would tragically lose his battle against cancer the following year). Ronson enticed Morrissey to fulfil his most perverse glam fantasies, symbolically shedding the fey indie-skin of bedsit miserablism and with it the ballast of The Smiths. It was as if Morrissey wiped the slate clean, baptising himself anew as a bona fide rock star Hell, a glam rock star.

There was the Bolan-esque "Certain People I Know", a virtual rewrite of " Ride A White Swan" that would even be issued in a promo pastiche of the classic T-Rex Wax Co design sleeve On the glitter-stomping "Glamorous Glue" and "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side", it finally registered that Morrissey really had been besotted with The New York Dolls "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" even plagiarised Ronson's past; the "Won-der-ful" climax of Bowie's "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide". Stranger still, Bowie himself would cover this same track on 1993's post-Tin Machine comeback Black Tie, White Norse - a bizarre case of Bowie doing Mot doing Bowie His genius for self-deprecating melodrama returned with a vengeance on the serene "Seasick, Yet Still Docked", pulverising the soul with its exorcism of emotionally alienated despair ("All my life, nobody's ever given me anything") Similarly, the punch-line frivolity of the singles "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" and "You're The One For Me, Fatty" were the work of an old master rediscovering his irrepressible sense of pop vaudeville with fresh zeal.

Yet at the heart of Your Arsenal boils a more savage documentary, one of turnstile thugs and social misfits finding strength in the politics of hate; an unspoken, ideologically fucked-up England at odds with its past, terrified of its future "We'll Let You Know", an objective psychoanalysis of football hooliganism, remains depressingly relevant given the recent shame of Euro 2000 ("The songs we sang, they're not supposed to mean anything").

More problematic still is "The National Front Disco" - in which Morrissey dares to humanise a member of the far-right. While dangerously empathetic (with no accompanying lyric sheet we weren't to know, as he later insisted that "England for the English" is recited in quotation) the "dream" of white rule the song's protagonist clings to is a hopeless one; for "you want the day to come sooner", read "You just haven't earned it yet, baby." Morrissey knows a loser when he sees one, NF conscripts included.

Your Arsenal stirred up some uncomfortable home truths about our national character, insights only a social commentator as arch as Morrissey would even think about putting into song. But hadn't he always? Morrissey is in his prime when overstepping the mark, missing on taboos, unafraid of the consequences. As an audacious two-finger salute to his native country, Your Arsenal is up there with the best of The Smiths.

Indeed, its release coincide with just that: The Smiths' posthumous Best Of... compilation reaching Number One that summer. With his most accomplished solo work not far behind and the reissued "This Charming Man" back in the Top 10, suddenly Morrissey was the people's friend again.

Until Finsbury Park, that is.

His failure to react to the racism charges by way of an official public apology was taken by many as a confirmation of guilt. Rallying to his defense however, Tony Parsons later commented, "Morrissey could invade Poland and I still wouldn't believe he is a nazi." Absolutely. Would a racist ever make a point of including Bob & Marci's "Young, Gifted and Black" or Afro-American poet Maya Angelou reciting her own fiercely poignant "No, No, No, No" on pre-gig tapes played to packed arenas world-wide? Come on, would a fascist ever lament her majesty's death and Mrs T's head on a chopping block? Morrissey himself would reflect, "I think that if the National Front were to hate anyone it would be me."

Like the man said, if we don't believe him now, will we ever believe him.