Morrissey makes another move in securing 2026 as the Year of Moz. It hasn’t gotten off to the best of starts, and Happy New Tears is no way to improve it. A strong showcase at The O2 in London is punctured somewhat when you realise Morrissey marked it as the only show on English soil this year. No wonder it (nearly) sold out. A great show all the same, promoting an album which may go down as the worst in his career. Make-Up is a Lie did not need residual work. Happy New Tears is just that, though. More from a period which can be buried in the back of your mind as quickly as your brain will allow. Truly, the low point for Morrissey, who, despite maintaining a credible singing voice, has been taken up by his ego and propelled further by fans who believe his second coming has been prevented by the press. Far from the passer-by to give a reality check to those moved by Notre-Dame, Happy New Tears may be a wake-up call to those blinded by Morrissey as a musician.
Should listeners be surprised by the lack of quality featured in a song selected as a bonus track for a particularly poor album? Yes. Despite it now being more than a decade since Morrissey did anything of real, boundary-pushing work, it is still a surprise to hear how far off the mark he is. Well, it definitely feels like a leftover from the studio. Morrissey has enough material backlog to decide on better songs than this, but it’s inspiring to see he’s willing to release such low-quality work still. Lyrically, he’s bought into his own hype, made for him by fans who see him as a martyr. He’s a man who hasn’t written a solid song in years, instead coasting on early years solo hits, the occasional cover of work he did with Johnny Marr, and a knack for causing controversy where nothing inflammatory had been said. Happy New Tears fits that, a withering, softly spoken new song.
Happy New Tears is a song depicting Morrissey feasting off of the cyclical joy that comes from his most dedicated listeners. In that manner, it’s a striking and bold piece of work, noting what occurs as part of his creative process now. It’s not a matter of having a relevant point or gripe, but because he needs the happiness of others, those who attend his shows. This would be a much easier sell, a more acceptable note from The Smiths frontman, had he not spent much of this year and last cancelling shows. It may take him a year to recover from the fatigue of cancelling a European show, but it will take listeners a lifetime to remember the dud-filled Happy New Tears. An instrumentally underwhelming bridge between the tired heart and need for feeding is the only life injected into this song.
Just when it feels as though the song may spring to life, make good on that drop of instrumental credibility, it ends. You can hear why it was left off of the album. Little of Make-Up is a Lie featured Morrissey engaging with the words and work which defines him and his fans, but Happy New Tears is an active attempt at doing so, and it sounds beyond sloppy. A real snooze of a song where the lyrical quality is such a lead weight it’s hard to hear what he possibly could’ve intended beyond the obvious, handwringing message of thanks to fans who would swoon if they so happened to be in the same stadium as Morrissey. Many such cases at The O2 show, not so much here with this forgettable addition made to one of Morrissey’s weakest creative outputs.
