An Outsider At Home: Why Morrissey's Big With Mexicans

Morrissey rose to prominence as the swaggering lead singer of UK 1980's rock band The Smiths, filling his songs with baroque expressions of longing and world-weariness. He continues to be the subject of much fascination -- and no small amount of controversy. But at least some of his ongoing popularity today is in part due to his die-hard fans of Mexican heritage.

The son of Irish transplants found a home in Los Angeles among Latino fans who connect with Morrissey's immigrant identity. Camilo Lara of Mexican Institute of Sound chronicles this phenomenon with this Sunday's WNYC RadioLoveFest show, “Mexrrissey: Mexico Loves Morrissey." Soundcheck's Jon Schaefer speaks with Nadia Reiman, producer of NPR's Latino USA, to discuss how Morrissey's heart wrenching emotion mirrors the ethos of traditional Mexican songs.

Interview Highlights

Why does Mexico love Morrissey?
"There's not one thing that really points to why Latinos love Morrissey but there is a kind of parallelism with the melodrama we hear in a lot of bachatas, boleros, a lot of the music that our parents played for us and Morrissey's sort of overtly emotional, earnest lyrics. In addition, I think it's because a lot of us were either kids of the 80's or kids whose parents or aunts or uncles or cousins are from the 80's so growing up in houses where the English music being played were Depeche Mode, and other kind of 80's UK rock, it made sense that Morrissey and The Smiths wormed their way in there."

On the connection between Morrissey being the son of Irish immigrants and the immigrant identity of Latinos:
"Morrissey speaks very well about being an outsider in your own land. About sort of being an immigrant. I think people forget that as an Irish guy he was also an immigrant in England and he also had parents from another place and that sort of feeling of being singled out and kind of belonging but not really belonging. He's great at being an outsider and a little bit of an outcast and I think that Latinos for a long time we felt like we are split. We belong here, we also belong home, we belong in the middle, and there aren't a lot of artists that can channel that the way he does."

Morrissey hasn't really given back to the audience but he does to this one.
"It's true. A lot of the connection is also because when Morrissey came to the states he came to LA. It was also at a time when he wasn't receiving a lot of love in England. He came here, audiences were going crazy. He happened to come to LA where just demographically LA is very strongly Latino city so the audience was very Latino and he sort of embraced that rather than shying away from it."