Glasgow. Drums. Dry ice. Bright lights: red, blue, red. I’m up near the back with Gillian, who says she loves him more than I do (as if). And there he is: hair high, shirt askew, knuckles white, clinging to the microphone like he can’t live without it, which he can’t. He repeats a refrain, painful, beautiful, on a loop, so we understand. “Life is a pigsty,” he sings, to himself and to us. “Life is a pigsty. And if you don't know this, Then what do you know?”

That moment, down in the crowd of the 02 in Glasgow nearly 20 years ago, is still in my head now, as intense as it ever was, because that’s what Morrissey does. He walks right up to the microphone and names all the things that he loves and all the things that he loathes and he sings my life. I have tried other places for what I need: other music, books, I’ve googled, but in the end I return to Morrissey, always. I hear his appeals for the lamb and the lion and the lonely man, I hear the suppressed and secret devotion, I hear him say that life is a pigsty and I feel better because I know it’s not just me then.

And he’s right: life is a pigsty, and then there’s the internet. A fact I learned today is that Morrissey does not own a smartphone and has never visited Facebook or X or Instagram and I love him a bit more for that. I wish that I had never visited Facebook or X or Instagram because we were told it would be a worldwide community spreading love and friendship and information but it turned out to be the opposite of those things because of the design flaw: it involves human beings.

Morrissey has reason to know the truth of it more than most. You may have seen the news this week that Web Sheriff, an online protection company that’s acted for Beyonce and Bob Dylan among others, has launched an investigation into what it says is a campaign of fraud, disinformation and defamation targeting the former Smiths frontman. Lawyers representing him have also taken action against a person who some are calling the “Scots harasser” because it’s believed they live in Scotland. It’s nothing to be proud of.

We know how we got to this point: the internet brings out the worst in us. But it’s also a place – and I don’t know how we fix it, I wish I did – where inaccurate and defamatory information spreads with impunity and nuance dies at the hands of hysteria. It’s also the place where identity politics has thrived and grown, because if you haven’t applied a label to yourself, someone else will do it for you.

This is what’s happened to Morrissey, with serious consequences for his music and the people who want to hear it. Most of us who love his work know that he’s always taken on controversial subjects and swiped at them with his wit. “Closer comes the screaming knife”: meat. “A wonderful dream: Margaret on a guillotine”: Thatcher. “We’ve lost our boy”: fascism. “Don't blame me, don't hate me”: race. No one else sounds like this, and perhaps no one ever will. “Pop stars scared to show intelligence, it might smear their lovely career” (Morrissey, 2004).

Read more

Mark Smith: The corner of Scotland that’s really going to feel the pain of Trump

Mark Smith: Bye bye Patrick – there are some things you need to take with you

Mark Smith: Can we fix the taxi problem before it’s too late?

The problem for him, and it goes back a long way, is that some people, especially some people who’ve written for The NME and The Guardian, have insisted on taking him literally whenever he’s tackled subjects like race and nationalism. Writing a song called National Front Disco does not mean he supported the National Front, you idiot. Even some record companies don’t appear to get it: his most recent album was apparently shelved because of concerns over the title track, which is about the terror attack at the Ariana Grande concert in 2017 even though the song is Morrissey clearly expressing his anger at what happened.

The other related issue that’s emerged in recent years – and it’s the issue at the centre of the legal action – is the idea that Morrissey is far-right, the label the typists on X and Facebook wield with the greatest enthusiasm. The investigators at Web Sheriff say they’ve uncovered fake websites and false social media handles which have sought to deliberately distort Morrissey’s views and the law firm has been appointed to issue cease-and-desist letters to those responsible. The point Web Sheriff make is Morrissey’s public image has been shaped by online discourse beyond his control and that a reassessment is needed of the narrative that’s taken hold because of it.

(Image: Morrissey will play the 02 Academy in Glasgow in June)

There will be some who say actually, they can point to what Morrissey has said that proves he’s right-wing, but what do they mean exactly? His hatred of Margaret Thatcher, or the Royal Family, his criticism of Donald Trump, or Theresa May? The lawyer’s letter says Morrissey is a pacifist and apolitical and has never joined a party or voted; he’s also stated clearly he despises racism and fascism. So perhaps we should take his word for it rather than the word of someone with a keyboard who’s never met him and whose favourite phrase is “far-right”.

This is, in the end I’m afraid, what the internet has made of us, or revealed about us. We’ve created a platform, or stood back while it’s mutated, in which misinformation and misrepresentation run free: deep-fakes, false narratives, fact-free criticism. We’ve also created an atmosphere in which public figures, or ordinary people for that matter, who apparently don’t conform to a particular set of so-called progressive ideas are labelled far-right. And the consequences of it are real-life: the lawyer’s letter proves that, and the unreleased albums.

I suppose we must hope good sense prevails in the end (with a little help from the law). There are now two albums from Morrissey which haven’t been released because of the irrational atmosphere of the last few years and I’d like to hear them one day. But I do have one little piece of good news: 20 years on from that gig at the 02 in Glasgow in which he told us life was a pigsty, Morrissey will be back at the same venue again in June. And I’ll be there, far away from X and Facebook and Instagram, down among the drums and the dry ice and the bright lights, clinging to the music like I can’t live without it, because I can’t, I really can’t.