Morrissey's 'National Front Disco' and it's Meaning

His most underrated and misunderstood masterpiece.

The fourth track of Morrissey’s third studio album Your Arsenal was one of his most controversial songs. Recorded in 1992, twelve years before Morrissey released Irish Blood, English heart, the song stirred significant backlash. A couple of weeks after its release, Morrissey sparked outage when he appeared in Finsbury Park draped in the Union Flag, with a backdrop of two skinhead girls.

The song initially confused audiences, with contemporaries claiming that Morrissey had been radicalised, flirting with extreme far-right politics. Today, his more moderate fans have interpreted the song as a satirical commentary on the National Front’s supporters. There is a level of irony that the song continues to be misunderstood by listeners, who, much like that of David's family, don’t cry, "We've lost our boy", but instead lament, "We've lost our Morrissey."

Rather than celebrate or excuse the subject’s affiliation with the National Front, Morrissey’s song addresses how the inaction and refusal to confront the effects of immigration on Britain have contributed to the radicaltion of youth — who should have gone on to lead normal lives, yet have had such a reality stripped from them. Left with no choice but to call out the disease plaguing their country, they hope one day to cure their homeland from:

“There’s a country, you don’t live there

but one day you would like to

And if you show them what you’re made of

Oh, then you might do”

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The song starts with the lyrics:

“David, the wind blows,

The wind blows,

Bits of your life away”

Here the wind symbolises an external force that causes the loss of something intangible— in this case David’s hopes, desires and aspirations. Parallels can be draw between “Wind Blows” and the “Winds of Change” speech given by Harold Macmillan to to the Parliament of South African in 1960, a pivotal moment in Britain’s decolonisation process, marking the end of empire and the fading of Britain’s former glory.

The lyric also mirrors the Windrush generation, who moved to Britain following the introduction of the British National Act of 1948. It was the first time Britain had ever witnessed mass-scale immigration to the isles. As Enoch Powell remarked during his River’s of Blood Speech in 1968, for reasons “the British could not comprehend, and the pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they had found themselves made strangers in their own country.” The lyrics, therefore, demonstrate that David has been left a victim of this new age.

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The curious of the song most stands out:

“Your Mum says:

‘I’ve lost my boy’

But she should know

Why you’ve gone

Because again and again you’ve explained…”

Both David’s friends and family, who cry out in emotion, are puzzled as to why David has joined a radical movement, oblivious to his reasons. This was a widely held sentiment across the country, with towns and areas yet to be affected by mass-immigration viewing the National Front and supporters of Enoch Powell as if they were merely nuts, because they had no understanding of their legitimate concerns. Even today, immigration biggest supporters are those who have yet to experience its effects. No matter how much David explains again and again, they will never truly understand.

Morrissey is thereby the first to sing about ‘Boomer Truth,’ a sentiment that was once true around the time of the Baby Boomers but is now widely untrue and out of touch — such as getting to live in an England that was still English. Those around David fail to understand why he has been radicalised, because they are disconnected from such realities. They don’t realise that David was born in an England that is no longer English no more, his forefathers have lived in Britain that he will never get to experience.

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The song is best understood to be a commentary on cultural change and conflict within the United Kingdom. If one is concerned about political radicalisation, they must first address the underlying issues at its core in order to resolve them. In this case, that issue is immigration. To vilify those who recognise that something is amiss adds no value other than serving as a means to bolster ones woke credentials via virtue signalling. This is why arguing that the “far-right" is our biggest threat is futile — such groups did not emerge from nowhere. Morrisey was in tune with what the British working class really thought, felt and experienced.

Morrissey’s message resonates with the modern day. Just last year, amid the Southport riots, we were told by leaders like Kier Starmer, that the far-right is the real problem, not the fact that a second generation immigrant had fatally stabbed little girls to death. When the British public responds to events that are continually allowed to happen, it is they who are demonised — often given harsher sentences than foreign criminal convicted of raping English girls. People will cry that they’ve lost their sons and daughters to “far-right politics,” and teachers will involve Prevent when students show any support for right-wing opinions, but can they really be surprised when the establishment has failed to address the legitimate concerns of their citizens?

After the bonfire of teenagers in Manchester in 2017 we were told to “not look back in anger.” But as Morrissey himself perfectly put it himself, we should be “looking back in anger till the die we die.” Until the “thunder is ever going to begin,” Morrisey song National Front Disco will forever ring true. The youth of today have been left betrayed, inheriting a Britain reduced to ashes, resembling nothing of it’s former self. That we are left with no choice but to be radicalised when confronted with such a tragic inheritance.

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The National Front Disco Lyrics:

David, the wind blows,
The wind blows
Bits of your life away.
Your friends all say,
“Where is our boy?
Ah, we’ve lost our boy”.
But they should know,
Where you’ve gone,
Because again and again you’ve explained
That you’re going to . . .
Oh, oh, oh, going to . . .
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
“England for the English”,
“England for the English”.

David, the wind’s blown,
The wind’s blown
All of my dreams away.
And I still say,
“Where is our boy?
Ah, we’ve lost our boy”.
But I should know
Why you’ve gone,
Because again and again you’ve explained
You’ve gone to the . . .

To the National, ah . . .
There’s a country, you don’t live there,
But one day you would like to.
And if you show them what you’re made of,
Ah, then you might do.

But David, we wonder,
We wonder if the thunder
Is ever really gonna begin,
Begin, begin
Your mum says,
“I’ve lost my boy”.
But she should know
Why you’ve gone,
Because again and again you’ve explained
You’re going to the,

National,
To the National Front disco,
Because you want the day to come sooner,
You want the day to come sooner,
You want the day to come sooner,
When you’ve settled the score.
Oh, the National,
Oh, the National,
Oh, the National,
Oh, the National,
Oh, the National