Emotional Places: The Role of Affect in the Relocation of Mancunian Melancholia

Abstract

The scene in Los Angeles described above, could hardly be further from the music’s place of origin in the north of England where, due to the autobiographical character of much of his song writing, the music of the Mancunian songwriter Morrissey features multiple references to localities drawn from his native city. Morrissey rose to fame during the 1980s with his band the Smiths and subsequently pursued a solo career. Despite living for many years in Los Angeles and Rome, he is forever conflated with the city of Manchester. Indeed Morrissey’s association with Manchester, referred to by O’Hagan (2007) as ‘poetic provincialism’, exemplifies the use of location as a source of identification. In addition to numerous allusions within song lyrics, the Smiths’ record cover art also included signifiers relating to Manchester and northern England.

For two days in April, fans of a disbanded Mancunian pop group and its forgotten frontman … picked over U.K. bootlegs and danced to Hairdresser on Fire like dehydrated Helen Kellers, which is how people at Smiths conventions are supposed to behave. Yet these fans are not the glowing white semi-goths you’d expect to encounter; this scene looks like a 1958 sock hop in Mexico City.

(Klosterman 2006: 49)