... but even so deserves to be handled with a little caution. On the plus side, Rogan's research is meticulous, and if you really want to know about the young Morrissey's schooldays and so on, this is the place you should come to. It's interesting stuff, written in an interesting manner. Also, Rogan's analysis of the band politics is very good; his explanation of why the band eventually split well argued and pretty convincing...
... But that's not the whole story - it's not even the most important part of the story, in my opinion. As far as any comment on the songs goes, I'm afraid there's little to match the detail put into the biographical sections of the book. Rogan's commentary on Morrissey's lyricism tends to be either glancing or completely superficial. A shame, in many ways...
Connected with that, the well-publicised Morrissey-Rogan spat that accompanied the first publication of this book a few years back does seem - unsurprisingly - to have made Johnny Rogan far less even-handed in his treatment of his subject than he otherwise should be. The mealy-mouthed preface that accompanies the revised edition of the book is a case in point, and is perhaps better ignored altogether...
"The Severed Alliance" is, I repeat, the best work to be published on the most significant songwriting partnership of the 1980s, despite its small but significant failings. But please (please!) could someone get a move on and write something that does justice to the songs themselves?
