With a news cycle rife with revelations of misconduct of famous men, tattoos inspired by living artists can have a short lifespan

As Sheryl Crow once wisely stated: every day is a winding road. One moment you’re bingeing the Smiths in your childhood bedroom and the next your favorite sensitive sad boy artist has turned out to be a rightwing provocateur.

So what to do about your now-embarrassing Morrissey tattoo? One man replaced it with an homage to Crow herself.

Ryan Mangione, a 23-year-old musician in Seattle, Washington, said after a long night out drinking several years ago, he had a friend make a DIY tattoo of Morrissey’s name on his knee. The next day, the regret was immediate.

“I woke up and I realized, ‘Oh no, he’s a bad man, I don’t want this tattooed on me for the rest of my life,’” he said. “This was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

In the four years since, Morrissey’s problematic behaviour has increased, and so has Mangione’s desire to change his tattoo. Morrissey has criticized immigration, called Halal meat “evil”, called Chinese people a “subspecies” and declared his support of the far-right Islamophobic political party For Britain.

kyle (@sosagoth) no idea what the shit is wrong with my brother but he's forever a legend for this one pic.twitter.com/HYwuYSUDWn

“There has been a build up over the years where more articles have come out about him being a clown of a human being, and the tension of wanting to get rid of the tattoo grew,” Mangione said.

Years later, he decided to cover it up with Sheryl Crow’s name (this time done by an actual tattoo artist in the Seattle area). His brother tweeted an image of the photo that struck a chord with many former Morrissey fans. As one clever follower tweeted: every day is a wine knee road.

Mangione’s Morrissey tattoo is not unique. So many fans have tattoos inspired by Morrissey and the Smiths that there is a book dedicated to the phenomenon called To Me You Are a Work of Art, which takes its name from a 2006 Morrissey track.

But in the era of #MeToo and a news cycle rife with revelations of the misconduct of famous men, tattoos inspired by living artists can have a short lifespan.

Lara, a 30-year-old writer based in New York City, had been a major fan of the artist Ryan Adams for half of her life when allegations of his predatory behavior towards female artists emerged in February 2019. Her first thought when she read the report was that she needed to remove her tattoo of his lyrics.

“I spent years of my life and a lot of energy and money traveling for concerts. It’s an amalgamation of shock and disgust and also so much sadness, that something that once meant so much ended in a truly devastating way,” she said.

She is the founder and administrator of a Facebook group for fans of Ryan Adams, and said at least a quarter of the members have tattoos inspired by the artist. Many of them are also considering getting them removed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest One man replaced his Morrissey tattoo with an homage to Sheryl Crow. Photograph: Scott Legato/Getty Images

Misha, a Los Angeles tattoo artist known as “the Countess of Coverups” said she has not yet seen an uptick in people wanting to cover up problematic artists – the most common coverups are still work that is simply poor quality, and names of ex-partners. Still, she said the Morrissey-Sheryl Crow mashup represents a theme she often sees in coverup efforts: tattoos that have come to bring negative associations for the wearer.

“In actuality this isn’t as much a coverup as much as it is a statement of the refusal of the behavior of the artist,” she said. “The point of a coverup is to cover the old tattoo, so you see the new tattoo and that the old one is difficult to see or no longer visible at all. So by those parameters, it is not a coverup – but it is funny.”

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Mangione said he chose to cross out the name rather than cover it up to acknowledge the humor of the situation – “the whole nature of this tattoo is being goofy, being 19 and making an impulsive decision to get a tattoo,” he said.

He has 14 other tattoos, all of which he says he is happy to have on his body forever. As for the Sheryl Crow-Morrissey mashup, he said nearly as little thought went into the coverup as did the initial tattoo.

“I was trying to find someone who hopefully wasn’t going to say something terrible – now I have to sit around and hope she doesn’t blow it in the next 30 years or so,” he said. “I don’t want to have to cross out another name.”