Trust me, Tony Wilson never said: "This is Manchester, we do things differently here."
Trust me, Tony Wilson never said: "This is Manchester, we do things differently here."
There is no recorded evidence of him saying it, because he didn't.
It has become this slightly ridiculous marketing slogan, plastered on hotel reception walls, property marketing brochures, a health strategy and Andy Burnham's manifesto.
Steve Coogan said it, playing "Tony" in Michael Winterbottom's film, 24 Hour Party People. In a script entirely written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, a brilliant writer, who knew what he was doing. It's a mesh of literary references, something Tony could have done, but didn't, not those anyway.
It's a great film. I love it's warmth, I love the version of Tony that Coogan carries off for public consumption, and he liked it too. Others didn't, I remember Steve Morris describing it as 'Carry On Factory Records'.
Here are the roots of that quote though.
Half way through the film, in a delicious use of the theatrical technique of 'breaking the fourth wall' "Tony" reflects on the transition from one musical era to another, sort of quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon (subject to some dispute, by the way): There are no second acts in American lives.
The supposed Manchester quote is the reply, which itself is derived from ‘The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,’ the first line of L. P. Hartley’s The Go Between.
Does any of this matter? No, probably not. Afterall, didn't Tony Wilson also say - 'faced with the choice between the truth and the legend, always print the legend?' Except, he probably didn't say that either. It comes from 'This is the West, Sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,' which is from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Quotes from the film, attributed to Tony started at his funeral, beamed on to a wall at the wake. He's become one of these figures who people project their own version of an ideal reality onto. I asked Frank about all of this and as a public intellectual he'd never have referenced Fitzgerald, or WB Yeats, and was far more interested in philosophers like Derrida, Adorno, Deleuze and in his later days, Habermas.
By the way, I haven't said any of this in order to trash Tony's reputation. In fact, precisely the opposite. Here's what Frank says about Tony in David Nolan's candid and reflective biography: "He was a good device for driving a movie forward. You have this idea when you're growing up that musicians are rock 'n' roll and suits are boring. Tony was massively more interesting than any musicians he worked with. I know he worked with geniuses. I'm sure Ian Curtis was an amazingly charismatic person and Shaun Ryder as well, but utterly boring compared to Tony. Musicians become fossilised; Tony was always moving forward. He was alive in a way most musicians aren't. And more romantic. He cared less about money than they did. He was incredibly generous. He was like a perverse St Francis, he gave everything away. He was psychotically generous."
So, can we all stop now please. How about, Manchester, the psychotically generous city.
Journalist / Newsreader / Producer at Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
5 年Mr Wilson actually didn't need to say much because he had all of that incredible, brilliant music from Manchester that he unearthed and helped to foster that spoke the loudest of all. And it will speak to the world forever more, too.
Innovating lifelong learning for social justice.
5 年I would love to live somewhere that regarded itself as being ‘psychotically generous’ ..... the whole ‘doing things differently’ thing (truth or myth) is a mixed blessing. Sometimes it drives creativity and ingenuity. Other times it is what we Mancs say when we stubbornly refuse to learn from the experience of others.