Este Hombre Encantador

I've always wondered why there were so many Latino Morrissey fans. A few years ago I was in Anaheim in the midst of a Morrissey concert at The Pond, and noticed that the majority of people around town that day were Mexican. The person I was with that day (who didn't know much about The Smiths, or The Moz for that matter) asked if Morrissey was a Spanish act, which honestly would have been a reasonable question given the circumstance.

I decided to dig a bit deeper, and found an article in the OC Weekly that explained my query so deep that I felt all of you should know.

Here's a quick excerpt from the article.

The crowd chants, "Me-xi-co! Me-xi-co!" in an attempt to get the singer to acknowledge that the majority of the audience is Latino. He does. "I’m going to sing a couple of more songs," he tells them, "then all of you can go back to Mexicali."

And the Yuma Convention Center explodes.

Only one white man in the world—and he’s not the pope—can tell a group of Mexicans in the United States to return to Mexico and not only avert death, but be loved for saying so.

His name: Steven Patrick Morrissey, former lead singer of the Smiths, current saint among countless young Latinos.

The same convention-center audience demographic greets him wherever he performs: Los Angeles, Colorado Springs or this desolate desert town. So he always makes sure to yell out "Mexico" or perform some grand ethnic genuflection to his adoring fans, letting them know that he knows. They always respond in ecstasy; grateful.

For those of you too lazy to click this awesome read (Colin Snowsell's theories are spot on), I'll leave with this.

What is it about Morrissey that attracts Latinos? It may be that it echoes the music of Mexico, the ranchera. His trembling falsetto brings to mind the rich, sad voice of Pedro Infante, while his effeminate stage presence makes him a U.K. version of Juan Gabriel. As in ranchera, Morrissey’s lyrics rely on ambiguity, powerful imagery and metaphors. Thematically, the idealization of a simpler life and a rejection of all things bourgeois come from a populist impulse common to ranchera.