Morrissey was the lead singer and lyricist for the Smiths. If you know the first thing about either Morrissey or the Smiths, it’s this. But for reasons that I genuinely can’t figure out, Morrissey feels that there’s “an obvious media shift to delete me from being the central essence of The Smiths.” He won’t stand for it. Morrissey, last seen discussing his “traumatic” album-release holdup on local New York news, has now written a missive about how nobody can deny that he was the guy in the Smiths.

In the “messages from Morrissey” section of his website, Morrissey recently shared a statement mourning the loss of the former Smiths agent Mike Hinc. Two days later, Morrissey returned to correct any misconceptions about the role that he played in the Smiths. Here’s what he wrote under the headline “Cancel Culture Begins At Home”:

There is also an obvious media shift to delete me from being the central essence of The Smiths, but this cannot work because I invented the group name, the song-titles, the album titles, the artwork, the vocal melodies, and all of the lyrical sentiments came from my heart … and so it’s a bit like saying Mick Jagger had nothing to do with the Stones. Several news sites now claim that the initial meeting at Rough Trade Records was with “Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke,” even though Andy wasn’t even a committed band member at that point. The meeting, of course, was Morrissey and Marr. Even Geoff Travis has now suddenly decided that he “can’t remember who was with Johnny,” even though Geoff looked me squarely in the eye on that very day and said “we’d like to release Hand In Glove immediately,” and he then more importantly said to me that his name was Geoff with a G, not Jeff with a J. The hounds are snapping!

Hand in glove, I stake my claim! I’ll fight to the last breath!

I can’t find the Geoff Travis statement that set Morrissey off, but truly, the light of Morrissey’s resentments will never go out.