How Does It Feel
Thomas Moore reviews the new Morrissey album
Morrissey. Make-Up Is A Lie. Sire, 2026. You’re Right, It’s Time 3:48. Make-up is a Lie 3:09. Notre-Dame 4:08. Amazona 4:11. Headache 4:20. Boulevard 5:40. Zoom Zoom the Little Boy 3:12. The Night Pop Dropped 4:24. Kerching Kerching 2:53. Lester Bangs 3:42. Many Icebergs Ago 5:24. The Monsters of Pig Alley 4:57.
Thomas Moore. How Does It Feel. Amphetamine Sulphate, 2026.
I guess you’re born with a voice inside your head that is constantly telling you to kill yourself or you’re not. I always assumed that everyone had it – to a degree at least – just based on others I’ve spoken to about the notion, and some massive assumptions based on … well, just looking around and presuming that there couldn’t really be any other way to think, could there?
I was surprised recently, when I was describing this to a good friend and they told me that they had never experienced or had to live with that feeling before. I asked them about how they felt when they crossed bridges. Absolutely fine. No impulse to throw themselves off, to feel completely on edge until the bridge was well behind me, such was the enormity of the urge that said I should throw myself off it, jump, do it, just dump yourself over the side and drop. That was a surprise. I’d heard people talk about that a lot more openly than the voice. How could anyone walk across somewhere with a drop and not imagine themselves hurtling from it? What’s wrong with you?
The voice has always been there for me, but it comes and goes, or rather, it is louder and quieter at some points. Sometimes I’m able to tune it out in a way, but it never stops being there. When I was younger, there were points of absolute misery, times when I’d be doing nothing other than begging for this voice to stop, and of course at the very worst – teenage years, early to mid-twenties, when I got so close to doing what the voice was begging me to do.
Nowadays, it’s something that at times, I’ve just gotten used to. The emotional reference points that I have tell me that it will pass. Like everything else – it’ll change, it’ll move on, it’ll feel less bad, it’ll feel better. There have been periods in my life when it has felt so much better, the comparison is almost extreme. So, these days, the voice is a lot rarer, easier to mute, less present, for long periods it can be tuned out into the constant feedback of the world.
Recently, though, for whatever reason, it’s been back. The last few months have been the thickest, sludgiest, most alarming bouts of depression that I’ve had in years. It appeared from wherever it does and made quite a din for a couple of weeks and then, whereas in recent years, it tends to dissipate or do what it needs to and then retreat or refocus somewhere more minuscule in my psyche, this time it has hung around. The voice has been there each morning, the feelings that go alongside it have been like being stuck in sinking sand – I’m aware that I have to think myself out of it carefully and try not to panic or overreact to the growing muddy weight of it all.
My friends tell me to talk about it more. They say that I hardly speak about any of this stuff, that I’m very private but that I should tell them when it starts to get bad or hurt a lot.
I’ve tried to at least vocalise it a little more this time round, perhaps because I’ve been concerned about it for the first time in a long time, due to the time that it’s seemingly sticking around for.
It’s always been times like this when certain artists, certain pieces of work have always shown their importance and their magic. Books, records, films, sculptures, whatever, have all stepped in and saved me at certain points. I owe them everything. For people who have not felt it, it might sound strange, but I do – these things are so important to me that I can barely express it with words how much I value them and owe so much to them.
Despite everything, despite everything, there are things in here (I’m putting my hand on my heart) that are only in there because Morrissey put them there. There aren’t many bigger things you can say about someone. Especially someone I’ve never met.
There have been so many times with him – so many times it’s not even the words. It’s the sound and the feeling of the voice. Obviously, when he is singing some precisely meaningful things (which often he has) that’s a bonus but someone else could sing those exact words and it would mean nothing. I’d be jumping. Maybe I’d be gone.
This specific time around was a Monday morning commute a few weeks ago. I’d been listening to Make-Up Is a Lie, and it was growing on me. It had been hard to judge on the first few songs that had been released, complicated further by how much I’m still hoping that the much-delayed Bonfire of Teenagers gets a surprise announcement at some point. But that morning, things were bubbling. I’d been able to pay more attention to the sounds of the songs in my headphones, the arrangements, the mix of to-the-point-lyrics and the short story feel of the lines in other songs. I loved their attempt at a Sly Stone jam (The Night Pop Dropped), the various references to Paris spread out between the title track, The Monsters of Pig Alley, Boulevard, and Notre-Dame of course.
I crossed a bridge that links the bus station to the train station, a busy road and bus lane in the heart of the city below. The song got its fangs into me, I knew something was coming and then the glorious venom, the beauty, entered me. Two words did it: “Lester Bangs.”
It wasn’t the fact that it was a paean to the legendary New York rock critic, it wasn’t the fact that the song celebrated the massive transformative power of rock n roll to young ears, or that it conjured the image of a teenage Morrissey, feeling the world expand through the words of rage and praise of Bangs as he helped those in distant bedrooms to discover the songs that could change their life, and of course how that can be rolled onto the Morrissey fans who have often looked to him for the same – for more – for so much more.
But, oh, when you lift your pen
For Roxy Music and The Dolls
The Village Voice, it has no choice
It must laud your every word
How does it feel to be you, Lester Bangs?
How does it feel to be you, Lester Bangs?
Three thousand miles away
This nerd hangs on your word
I lean, and you are leaned upon
When all my life was so wrong
It was just how he sang “Lester Bangs” that saved me this time. The sound of his voice – the purity of it? Maybe, I don’t know. The tone? I don’t know, maybe. Maybe all of it, maybe none of it. Maybe the fact that two words are imbued with the passion of 50 years of love, devotion, knowledge of the importance and possibility or rock music and art? Perhaps, but I prefer still not knowing how the magic is done. If you get it, you will understand, and if not, don’t worry – hopefully you’ve found whatever your thing is.
Obviously, the words surrounding it do wonders too, and have built themselves around that moment and have been growing more special each time I hear them, but in the first instance, it just takes those moments. Morrissey still has them in droves.
Life is always worth sticking around for. Life is always interesting. There is always something to learn, even in the darkest moments. Art is everywhere, and life can be so, so beautiful.
Thomas Moore is the author of Alone, Forever, Your Dreams, and We’ll Never Be Fragile Again. All available from Amphetamine Sulphate.
©Amphetamine Sulphate ©Thomas Moore 2026
Truly delightful post. Would love more writing of this ilk, Mr Moore. Totally feel the same regarding the importance of music / books / film etc and being the barrier between being here and not being here. My darkest moments about 20 years ago were when this stuff wasn't working for me but thank Christ it did again... I absolutely adore this new Morrissey album. Don't think he could say or do much to stop me from loving his output, the rascally troll that he is! I get nothing but snidey comments from friends for still enjoying this as much as I do but not many artists in mainstream music excite me as much. He really is one of one. There's not much I dislike on this new one but you're right on 'Lester Bangs', this is the definite highlight.
I haven’t heard the new album yet, but I must say Asleep is one of the most darkly beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. Like almost frightening in the contrast between the music and the starkness of the lyrics.