November 12, 2009: fifteen years ago, in Paris, my first Morrissey's concert

2009 is a very special year in my life for two reasons: one is that I FINALLY had the chance to see Morrissey live, after two decades and almost a half of loyal devotion to his voice and his music, in spite of the lack of a complete and proper collection of his albums, singles and compilations with The Smiths and solo.

At the very beginning, as I lived in a house with plenty of books and very few essential technological tools, I just could listen to some of The Smiths' songs on the radio (thank God, I was a small child living in Italy, where The Smiths had a place in the RAI Radio Due programming and few spots in TV broadcasting) and I remember I literally jumped on the radio as I recognized the very first notes of a Smiths' song and Morrissey's warm, wondrous voice and his unconventional and so captivating way of singing. It was harder to see him and his band on their rare TV appearances on RAI Due because of our small black-and-white television set and the very bad signal received by our television aerial, looking like a mast on our house at the feet of the promontory, because of my myopia and also because, when my sister announced "Ci sono gli Smiths!" ("Here are The Smiths!") while I was unenthusiastically doing my homework, my siblings, much older than me, standed just in front of the TV, blocking my sight, and I had to push them in order to see a bit of the short clip or gig (or TOTP) excerpt.

My father too, he was intrigued by this band - or, more precisely, by the quirky young frontman, dancing awkwardly and making strange noises. I remember a funny episode on a Sunday afternoon in Winter, when my dad was asking "Cu è 'stu scimunito?" ("Who is this silly guy?") and, at the same moment, Morrissey stuck his tongue out, as if he was reacting to my daddy's question. Sadly, as I was behind my dad and my siblings, I was not able to see Morrissey making fun of my dad.

Many years later, my dad smiled at seeing Morrissey's picture (a scan of a picture in a Smiths' CD box) on my PC desktop

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OK, once again, a bug has boycotted my article and I will have to rewrite 3/4 of it this weekend - it is so unfair!

It is late, I am tired and I have to wake up very early to go to work.

I will just add again the Youtube link to the bootleg of Morrissey's concert at the Zénith in Paris on 12th November 2009.

I will come back to rewrite the rest of the article as soon as possible.