The Smiths Critical Discography - Various

THE SMITHS
CRITICAL DISCOGRAPHY
Hand In Glove
Hand In Glove
Handsome Devil
Released May 1983
Yea-Sayers:
"Uh-oh, love comes to town. The debut affair of the year, and no mistake."
- Dylan Jones, i-D, October, 1987
"'Hand in glove/the sun shines out of our behinds...' Boom! The Smiths can't
wait... in the very first line of their debut they spell it out, announcing their
indestructable self-belief and irresistible intent with an audacity unheard since 'I
am an An-ar-chist' howled outta the opening rumble of 'Anarchy...'"
- Danny Kelly, New Musical Express, August 8, 1987
"The pivotal line of 'Hand In Glove' is 'The sun shines out of our behinds.' That,
plus a picture sleeve of a male derriere, is a heck of a way to lead off a debut 45.
Further, Sounds and the British daily The Sun decided that 'Handsome Devil' is
about molesting young boys - a claim not borne out by lines like 'let me put my
hand on your mammary gland'. Both sides, though, are punchy numbers of great
promise."
- Trouser Press
"The Smiths ride up 'Hand In Glove' to knock me from my own gallows. With a
paucity of effects they seem to piece the cool of a Julian Cope/Teardrops
sensitivity with a certain vigour that only us young ones can adopt. Morrissey's
voice invocations just rise above the fuzz of treble. Truly a new Bunnyman."
- David Dorrell, New Musical Express, June 11, 1983
Nay-Sayers:
"Aha, Dave McCullough's fave rave of the moment. And yes, it's tinny messily
produced crap. Oh dear..."
- Unknown Critic
Smiths-Speak:
"The only tragedy for The Smiths has been that 'Hand In Glove' didn't gain the
attention it deserved. I won't rest until that song is in the heart of everything. It's
been given another lifespan because it's been re-recorded for the L.P. But it
should have been a massive hit. It was so URGENT - to me, it was a complete cry
in every direction. It really was a landmark. There is every grain of emotion that
has to be injected into all the songs and it worked perfectly with 'Hand In Glove'.
It was as if these four people had to play that song - it was so essential. Those
words had to be sung."
- Morrissey, Jamming, 1984
"The favourite lyric I have written appears in a song called 'Hand In Glove'. The
lines which are most precious to me are: 'The good people laugh/Yes we may be
hidden by rags/But we have something they'll never have'. Which is how I felt
when I couldn't afford to buy clothes and used to dress in rags but I didn't really
feel mentally impoverished.
"The inspiration? Just the very idea of people putting enormous importance on
what they had and how they dressed and this very materialistic sense of value
which is completely redundant. It goes back to the old cliche of what one has
inside is really what one is. And that was it really.
"I remember vividly the night I wrote 'Hand In Glove'. It was just over a year
ago. I just wanted to use the theme of complete loneliness. It was to be our first
record and it was important to me that there'd be something searingly poetic in
it, in a lyrical sense, and yet jubilant at the same time. Being searingly poetic and
jubilant was, I always thought, quite difficult because they're two extreme
emotions and I wanted to blend them together.
"I was in my room, alone, with a cassette with a guitar tune on it and I was
surrounded by lots of words, and I just sat there for two hours and threw the
whole thing together."
- Morrissey, Star Hits, 1985
"The original 'Hand In Glove' was financed by The Smiths... representative... Joe
Moss, and took a day in - where else - Strawberry Studios... one day in Stockport
to enliven history. I re-did the vocal a week later, if only to make a point of
starting as stroppily as I intended to continue. The next day we took the train to
London, to Rough Trade at the old Blenheim Crescent place. We waited for hours
to then be told that Geoff (Travis) couldn't see us, so Johnny said, "Who is Geoff
Travis?" and someone pointed to a looming figure swarming down a corridor and
Johnny raced after him and forced him to listen. Two hours later the record was
cut."
- Morrissey, The Catalogue, 1988
"When we did 'Hand In Glove', that was brilliant because it was a fantastic piece
of vinyl."
- Johnny Marr, NME, June 24, 1989
"'Hand In Glove' was done for £250, because the other side was 'Handsome
Devil,' which was live from the Hacienda, straight off the desk. Off, by the way,
what was only the third gig we'd played."
- Joe Moss, Q, January, 1994
"...the message of the song is to forget the cultivation of the brain and to
concentrate on the cultivation of the body. 'A boy in the bush...' is addressed to a
scholar. 'There's more to life than books you know, but not much more' - that is
the essence of the song. So you can just take it and stick it in an article about
child-molesting and it will make absolutely perfect sense. But you can do that
with anybody. You can do it with Abba."
- Morrissey on "Handsome Devil"
NME, September 24, 1983
"Like Morrissey, I feel that my life was leading up to 'Hand In Glove,' and from
then on things began to happen. My life began. That record set the standard.
When Johnny played me their first demo tape, I thought it was the best thing I'd
ever heard, both musically and lyrically. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity
and too good to miss, so I leapt at it as quickly as possible."
- Mike Joyce, Record Mirror, September 8, 1984
"I remember Johnny glowing with pride saying 'This is it! Just listen to this.' I was
helplessly won over."
- Geoff Travis on being forced to listen to the demo of 'Hand In Glove',
The Face, May, 1985
"'Handsome Devil': It took a week or two to get my head round it. I knew I
wanted to do it, but it took a while to get used to, with him singing those sort of
lyrics."
- Andy Rourke, Select, April 1993
This Charming Man
This Charming Man

Jeane
Accept Yourself
Wonderful Woman
Released November 1983
Yea-Sayers:
"The Smiths didn't fall out of a clear blue pop sky — groups like Orange Juice had
engaged in similarly fey janglepop. But there was something about Morrissey —
cavorting louchely on TOTP in a big, pyjama-like shirt, idly brandishing a bunch of
gladioli like a weapon, his vocals deliberately plummy and prominent in the mix.
That Thursday evening when Manchester's feyest first appeared on TOTP would
be an unexpectedly pivotal cultural event in the lives of a million serious English
boys. His very English, camp glumness was a revolt into Sixties kitchen-sink
greyness against the gaudiness of the Eighties New Pop World, as exemplified by
Culture Club and their ilk. The Smiths' subject matter may have been 'squalid' but
there was a 'purity' of purpose about them that you messed with at your own
peril."
-Uncut, February 2001, #10 Single That Changed Your Life
Single Of The Decade

NME: One of the greatest bands ever (and they get to review The Smiths as
well!!). The timing of this re-release is impeccable - Brett is absolutely
flabbergasted, it's time for some gentle weeping and mutual blouse swapping.
Brett Andersen of Suede: I don't know really what to say about this. There's no
way that any of these other records are ever gonna compare to it, it's in a
completely different league. This is how to do it, really. It's a truly magical,
beautiful song. It's one of the greatest records ever made, it's so ultimately
charming and has some of the most brilliant lyrics ever.
NME: Did The Smiths say anything to you about your life?
BA: Mmm, yes. Actually yes, completely honestly and not just being a thing to
say but yes, they did. I've never seen them live, that's how much they changed
my life, it didn't seem to matter. Anyway, it is one of the best singles ever, it's
incredibly idiosyncratic but incredibly self-confident within that. It's a bit unfair to
make it Single Of The Week because it isn't a new single - it's a piece of art
history. We'll call it Single Of The Decade instead.
NME: How do you feel, knowing Morrissey is a big Suede fan?
BA: Pretty incredible. He's doing a cover version of one our songs, "My Insatiable
One." The thought of it is pretty brilliant, imagining him sitting down with our
record and learning it, thinking about what the words are after I've spent so
many years thinking about his lyrics (sighs wistfully), it's quite incredible.
- Brett Anderson of Suede, New Musical Express, 1992
"Taking things seriously; intelligence is not an awkward, obscure thing which is

difficult to set in motion, but a way to glory. When you have thoughts of your
own, you can be assured that you will be accused of seriousness. So? Morrissey is
serious, but he offers us rapture, not dialectics. 'This Charming Man' is an
accessible bliss, and seriously moving. This group fully understand that the casual
is not enough... This is one of the greatest singles of the year, a poor
compliment. Unique and indispensable, like 'Blue Monday' and 'Karma
Chameleon' - that's better!"
- Paul Morley, New Musical Express, November 12, 1983
"...as are this group, and the title might well refer to their wonderful singer
Morrissey, the man who combines the charm of Liberace, the soul of Van
Morrison, and the falsetto of Tiny Tim! The Smiths are becoming consistently
brilliant - especially live - and the winning combination of lazy vocals and ringing
guitar chimes (like Buzzcocks meet the Byrds on Top of the Pops!) look set to
confirm both their talent and their potential massiveness. A free daffodil with
every copy (ring 01-727 6085 for details)."
- Unknown Critic
"Waller was weak tea-ed about 7" of 'This Charming Man' last week. His senses
must be profoundly dulled. The new Smiths record isn't good; it isn't brilliant;
it's......... (adjective to be filled-in by those sensible, adult-teenyboppers who
regularly these days invade the stage at Smiths live outings). The Smiths are so
important the media is not noticing it. Just how IT should be; I mean, the
emergence of a mega-to-be group, who are also musically very sound indeed.
The 12" features ANOTHER version of 'This Charming Man', entitled the
'Manchester' version. It is a close thing but it is even better than the regular,
Waller-abused 'London' interpretation. They sound as though they were recorded
underwater, doubtless Morris(S!)ey's attempt at something exotic-sounding and
filmatic. These are two songs to stick on the flip of a twelve inch single. If they
are giving these away, what on earth have they got in store for us on the
album?"
- Unknown Critic
"Yes, friends, after all these years good ol' Rough Trade is making a commercial
push. Beneficiaries are the Smiths, a Mancunian foursome who play not the
electro-funk suggested by assorted mixes of 'This Charming Man', but rather
what might be termed 'power pop' were the music not so raw nor the lyrics so
artsy... 'This Charming Man' realizes [their] promise in somewhat calmer fashion.
As before, the guitar has a glassy jangle, bass is driving and agile when it counts,
and drums supply just the right amount of rhythmic fillip. Monochromatic
crooning is more of an acquired taste, but the melody (particularly in the bridge)
is addictive.
I now find it necessary to play the record at least a couple of times a day. Choose
your version: The 'Manchester mix' of 'This Charming Man' is also available on the
7-inch. The 'London mix' adds echo to the guitar for a unique effect, but lightens
the beat. Francois Kervorkian's New York mix - a separate 12-inch, vocal backed
with instrumental - clarifies the vocal and emphasizes percussion, but extends
and dissects the song dub-style to no great advantage. Neither of the two 12-inch
B-sides can hold a candle to the 7-inch flip of 'Jeane', in which the Smiths get
tender but not gloppy."
- Trouser Press
"Where has all the wildness and daring got to? Some of it has found its way onto
The Smiths' record, 'Charming Man'. It jangles and crashes and Morrissey jumps
in the middle with his mutant choir-boy voice, sounding jolly and angst-ridden at
the same time. It should be given out on street corners to unsuspecting passers-
by of all ages."
- The Face
Smiths-Speak:
"I'm still very upset about that. It was entirely against our principles, the whole
thing, it didn't seem to belong with us. There was even a question of a fourth
version which would have bordered on pantomime. It was called the Acton
version, which isn't even funny."
- Morrissey on the 12" remix of 'This Charming Man', Record Mirror,
2/11/84
"We didn't like the dance mix of 'This Charming Man' which they put out as a 12-
inch and we told them so but we're certainly not going around saying 'Rough
Trade have screwed us up'."
- Johnny Marr, Sounds, February 25, 1984
"Sire haven't promoted the group anyway. They released 'What Difference Does it
Make' instead of 'This Charming Man' totally against our wishes and of course it
will fail. I thought 'This Charming Man' the most obviously instantaneous release
imaginable."
- Morrissey, The Face, 1984
The line from "This Charming Man," "I would go out tonight but I haven't got a
stitch to wear." Was that written from experience?
"From total experience. For years and years I never had a job, or any money.
Consequently I never had any clothes whatsoever. I found that on those very
rare occasions when I did get invited anywhere I would constantly sit down and
say, 'Good heavens, I couldn't possibly go to this place tonight because I don't
have any clothes... I don't have any shoes.' So I'd miss out on all those foul
parties. It was really quite a blessing in disguise."
- Morrissey, Undress, 1984
"One of the lines in the song 'Accept Yourself' is 'When will you accept your
shoes?', and I find that so many people have this dilemma about shoes. If they
have the wrong pair of shoes it can totally destroy their entire life. Similarly if
people think their feet are too big, or that their nose is too big it can result in a
diminished social life for totally false reasons."
- Morrissey, Undress, 1984
"Of all our singles I think I like 'This Charming Man' best, just because the
rhythms are so infectious. Smith music really moves me."
- Andy Rourke, Record Mirror, September 8, 1984
"I remember writing it, it was in preparation for a John Peel single. I wrote it the
same night as 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' and 'Still Ill'."
- Johnny Marr on "This Charming Man", Guitar Player, January 1990
"I'll try any trick. With the Smiths, I'd take this really loud Telecaster of mine, lay
it on top of a Fender Twin Reverb with the vibrato on, and tune it to an open
chord. Then I'd drop a knife with a metal handle on it, hitting random strings. I
used it on 'This Charming Man', buried beneath about 15 tracks of guitar... 'This
Charming Man' was the first record where I used those highlife-sounding runs in
3rds. I'm tuned up to F# and I finger it in G, so it comes out in A. There are
about 15 tracks of guitar. People thought the main guitar part was a
Rickenbacker, but it's really a '54 Tele. There are three tracks of acoustic, a
backwards guitar with a really long reverb, and the effect of dropping knives on
the guitar -- that comes in at the end of the chorus."
- Johnny Marr on "This Charming Man", Select, December 1993
What Difference
Does It Make?
What Difference Does It Make?

Back To The Old House
These Things Take Time
Released January 1984
Yea-Sayers:
Single Of The Week

"Not so good as 'Charming Man' say some, but I'd say better. A wailing, wordless
hook from your man Morrissey hovers ghost-like over a rubbery rockabilly beat,
not marred one bit by Johnny Guitar Marr's springheeled periphery riffery. And
the lyrics cut you, too. Perfect in its detente of tough and tender... Give these
men a big, big hit."
- Paul Du Noyer, New Musical Express, January 21, 1984
Nay-Sayers:
"They're no fluke but hold hard. This is no 'Charming Man,' no not even his
shadow. What we have here is our man Morrissey harking back to look forward
and coming up with something not a million leg-pulls away from an earlyish
Jethro Tull B-side. The difference between 'What Difference...' and 'This Charming
Man' is, in fact, charm. It lacks it, spectacularly substituting a rocking pace for its
predecessor's lilting melancholy. Morrissey has trouble making his words scan the
lines, his big ideas scurry around for one little tune; a clumsy trait that is bound
to be touted as his trademark. Sloth posing as innovation? Too early to tell but
right now The Smiths' nearest allies are Aztec Camera in that they're both Nick
Heyward nicely out of tune. But is 'What Difference...' any good? I'm undecided -
I just wish it was great and it isn't."
- Unknown Reviewer
"What difference do the Smiths make? Not a lot, but this ringing resurrection of a
thinly disguised old R&B riff is ethereally addictive. The first Eighties band to be
sponsored by Interflora, the Smiths are the musical equivalent of cling-film -
suffocating and skin-tight but thoroughly see-through. They're nothing special,
but this'll be a minor hit nevertheless, especially with the Polydor sales force
behind it, and I can't wait for the Sandie Shaw team-up. Puppet on a string,
anyone?"
- Unknown Reviewer
Smiths-Speak:
"There's a couple of songs I don't like. In fact, I didn't really like them at the
time. Like 'What Difference Does It Make', I thought was absolutely awful the day
after the record was pressed..."
- Morrissey, Q, September 1992
"For me, almost all the records have been absolutely perfect, but I can't deny
that there are some that haven't aged so gracefully - 'What Difference Does It
Make?' ... I regret the production on that now. But that's the only regret,
although I might seem like the kind of person that has many regrets."
- Morrissey, Jamming!, December, 1984
"It was all right. I didn't think it was a particularly strong one. A lot of people
liked it and it got to No. 10. It followed 'This Charming Man' and was part of that
peak. It was all right. It went down great live, and that's when I liked it."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November/December 1992
"We used to have a version of What Difference Does It Make? which was a lot
more rumbly drum-wise, more of a jungley rhythm. John Porter listened to it and
said, 'Try it like this,' very much straight 4s. I thought, Hmmm, I don't really like
this, and Morrissey looked at me as if to say, 'No, I agree with you, Mike.' So, me
and Morrissey would be sitting on one couch, and Johnny and John would be on
the other, both grumbling away at the others. We tried it John's way and he was
bouncing around the room, like, 'Cool, sounds more like a single!' And of course
he was right — it turned out to be one of our biggest hits!"
- Mike Joyce, Mojo, March 2000
The Smiths
Reel Around The Fountain

You've Got Everything Now
Miserable Lie
Pretty Girls Make Graves
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
This Charming Man
Still Ill
Hand In Glove
What Difference Does It Make?
I Don't Owe You Anything
Suffer Little Children
Released in February, 1984
Yea-Sayers:
The coming of age of a major songwriting duo and a highly original new voice in
pop. Morrissey betrays a morbid fear of sex ("Pretty Girls Make Graves",
"Miserable Lie"), an ambiguous obsession with child killers ("Suffer Little
Children", "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle"), and a deeply romanticised
kitchen-sink fatalism. (****)
- Stephen Dalton, Uncut, 1998
Gladioli All Over

"And if you must go to work tomorrow
Well, if I were you I wouldn't bother'
Without being perjorative, there is something soporific about the sound of The
Smiths. It's so easy to lapse into their languid dreams without stopping to
question where precisely this man Morrissey should be placed in the infinite space
between heaven and pillow.
Just how clinical and how innocent is this seducer of our imaginations? How
genuine his successive (and often mutually exclusive) stances as corrupted and
corruptor, reformed literary libertine and celibate gay bachelor?
After contemplation of his flamboyant advances I've arrived at no conclusion as to
what precisely he bears before him or what exactly he is after. What remains at
the core of Morrissey's art is a mystique that has so far proved impenetrable - he
affords the odd insight, but there is never enough glimpsed to dispel his
fascination.
Consideration of The Smiths always ends up as attempted penetration of
Morrissey's singular charms, primarily because The Smiths in plural are as
average as their uncharismatic name suggests. Where Morrissey is a wielder of
the archaic art of the word, his cohorts are merely competent workers in the
grimy craft of pop. Musically The Smiths are little more than mildly regressive.
What saves them is Morrissey's rare grasp of the myriad distortions of the pastel
worlds of nostalgia. Much of the intrigue behind The Smiths is not what they have
to offer but the seductive manner in which Morrissey offers it - his beguiling
invitation to forget art and dance in a notion of animated camp. At this point we
come to his enigma - of the uncalculated versus the contrived.
This has its opening in the cold quivering reflections of the plaintive epic of 'Reel
Around the Fountain' - a picture of virtual classical proportions, with Morrissey's
world weary tones washing a grey tale of innocence lost. 'It's time the tale were
told,' he opens, 'Of how you took a child/And you made him old' - you have to
rouse yourself from the pleasant malaise that the lazy pace induces to recall that,
at the end of the song, nothing of 'the tale' has actually been revealed.
Throughout the LP he captures a set of fascinations that appeal to the current
mood - the only question is how many of them are indeed his own and how many
the result of long years' research in a rented room in Whalley Range. Too
frequently his philosophy of pop seems all too neatly prepared to appeal - the
quaint campaign against the synthesiser for example. The mass appeal lies
(unfortunately) in a form of traditionalism - so Morrissey offers the fictional
tradition of 'great pop' - complete this sentence in six letters. The Buzzcocks,
Orange Juice, The.......
Calculation, though, can offer an aesthetic of its own and The Smiths, like Culture
Club, weave an intricate web of insignia, delightful in its diversity, intriguing in its
attention to detail, but finally impenetrable.
From the sexy male cover to 'Hand in Glove' Morrissey has proved himself adept
at the gender identity game - another tradition of longstanding appeal.
Throughout the LP he plucks at the same strings of homoeroticism: 'I'm not the
man you think I am,' he intimates coyly on 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' concluding,
'I've lost my faith in Womanhood' - both of which are in fact snippets open to
entirely opposite interpretations.
When he breaks the genderless rule, it is with a slyness we might expect: 'into
the depths of the criminal world I followed her...," calling up a reference to
Cocteau's Orpheus films (a comparison not so obscure when you consider that
their star, and Cocteau's lover, Jean Marais was featured on the cover of 'This
Charming Man'). Where Cocteau's Orpheus is left unable to look at his wife
(perhaps he too had lost his faith in Womanhood), Morrissey ends with 'I need
advice because nobody ever looks at me twice'.
For every tendency in Morrissey's scheme of things, though, there is the
necessary balance, for the heaving tragedy of 'And "love" is just a miserable lie'
there's the flippancy of 'I know that wind-swept mystical air/It means I'd like to
see your underwear'.
It's more than just a question of balance, though, it's a problem of plausibility,
and Morrissey is very believable; how convincing his aura of deceptive simplicity,
how credible his imitation of the wide-eyed village boy adrift in the big city. When
he claims to be 'a country mile behind the world' you believe him, largely because
his view of the city is one visibly strained through early '60's films of late '50's
novels - a notion of reality three times removed.
'Still Ill', for example, is a drama of flawed perfection, flickering fading values in
dusty monochrome - Morrissey kissing beneath the iron bridge finds the fictional
Britishness of his obsession slipping through his fingers, 'But we cannot cling to
the old dreams anymore'.
What Morrissey captures above all is a notion of despair reflected perfectly in the
lacklustre sound of his cohorts, a death of the punk ideals that Morrissey is quite
old enough to have been closely involved in. In turn what distinguishes him from
a Weller is firstly his wit, and secondly the sensitivitiy to deal in despair without
resorting to preaching in desperation.
What does this suitor offer? A calculated plan, perhaps, but enough to haunt the
imagination. For the moment that's enough."
- Don Watson, NME, February 25, 1984
The Smiths will quickly and justifiably become giants. This, their first album, is as
fresh and colourful as the newly picked daffodils that wordsmith Morrissey likes to
wave about onstage. Counteracting just about everything else around at the
moment, without necessitating any hostilities, the Smiths seem to be responding
to a desire for frankness in music. Indeed, the very name is suggestive of their
down-to-earth approach.
Without the need for confusing or complicated lyrics, Morrissey manages more
than adequately to comment on life's little tricks and to expose its cruel
contradictions. Sometimes the songs may evoke particular sadness, but human
nature can often find humour in most tragedies and Morrissey has sufficiently
grasped this notion to enable him to install a new 'emotion' into modern music.
Labelled 'Sixties revivalists,' the tag is as uncomplimentary as it is inappropriate.
There was never a band in the Sixties that played like this. The only common
denominator (aprt from the flowers) is that, as with the great success stories of
that era, the Smiths could be capable of transcending generation as well as
gender. The marvellously melodic 'I Don't Owe You Anything' certainly suggests
that they may be destined for the dizziest of heights.
Compulsive listening, the songs are instantaneously enjoyable and yet endlessly
thought provoking. And while Morrissey's effortlessly novel deliverance of 'the
words' obviously warrants discussion, mention must also be made of Johnny
Marr's invaluable contribution in writing the music.
This album will be tremendously successful for them because they have dared to
make it so. With personal songs such as these, they left themselves vulnerable,
but the conviction with which they carried out the recording has ensured that it's
the listener who is due for the shock! And who knows, maybe Morrissey will be
able to make honesty a fashionable commodity.
- Mike Wrenn
Nay-Sayers:
Judging by reactions to an appallingly foul debut by the Smiths (voted 1983's

Best New Band by readers of Britain's pop music weekly, New Musical Express),
the rock press's stock may be plummeting to an all-time low. How else can one
explain English critics quoting Nietzsche to summarize the sexual politics of a
record that promotes pederasty (sample lyric: "I once had a child/It saved my
life... There never need be longing in your eyes/As long as the hand that rocks
the cradle is mine")? How else to understand Creem magazine citing one of the
songs as condoning child molesting, then rendering a final judgement on "The
Smiths" as ambiguous as the ambisexual lyrics this quartet generally deals in?
Forget the music, a watered-down cop of the R.E.M./Echo and the Bunnymen
style of jangly, "new psychedelic" guitar/bass/drums.
Ignore singer/songwriter Morrissey's canny self-promotion - he uses just one
name, presumably stolen from filmmaker Paul Morrissey, a scene from whose
Andy Warhol's Flesh graces the album cover. Neglect the fact that Morrissey can't
carry a tune. Skip the simple charms of the acclaimed single, This Charming Man,
which only proves no British band to be above plundering the Motown catalog for
a surging bass line when necessity so dictates. Instead, focus on a quotation from
Reel Around The Fountain. "Fifteen minutes with you," the singer tells us,
recalling the particularly apt Warholian dictum about stardom and the quarter
hour, "well, I wouldn't say no." When it comes to The Smiths, I would.
- Wayne King, High Fidelity, August 1984
"The frenziedly-awaited debut LP disappoints, thanks to elephants-ear production

(grey and flat), and ludicrously overblown expectations."
- Danny Kelly, NME, August 8, 1987
"I liked this record quite a bit initially. Lead singer Morrissey's memories of
heterosexual rejection and subsequent homosexual isolation were bracing in their
candor, and Johnny Marr's delicately chiming guitar provided a surprisingly warm
and sympathetic setting. The candor remains admirable: whether recalling the
confusion of early sexual encounters ('I'm not the man you think I am') or the
sometimes heartless exploitation of the gay scene, Morrissey lays out his life like
a shoe box full of tattered snapshots. And some of the Smiths' music (the U.K.
hits 'Hand In Glove' and 'This Charming Man' and the animated 'What Difference
Does It Make?' which reprises a venerable garage-punk riff) still works. But
Morrissey's sometimes toneless drone becomes irritating and the music is too
sketchy and restrained to counteract it. An intriguing curio, but not necessarily a
keeper."
- Unknown Critic, Rolling Stone
"What a great title, and the lyrics, just about a person realizing that the person
they're with is so codependent that it doesn't matter who picks up their hand - if
you're not there, someone else will fill your place."
- MTV's Matt Pinfield on "Pretty Girls Make Graves", Rolling Stone, 1998
Smiths-Speak:
"I really do expect the highest critical praise for the album. I think it's a complete
signal post in the history of popular music."
- Morrissey, Record Mirror, February 11, 1984
"I'm really ready to be burned at the stake in total defence of that record. It
means so much to me that I could never explain, however long you gave me. It
becomes almost difficult and one is just simply swamped in emotion about the
whole thing. It's getting to the point where I almost can't even talk about it,
which many people will see as an absolute blessing. It just seems absolutely
perfect to me. From my own personal standpoint, it seems to convey exactly
what I wanted it to."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, March 3, 1984
"All the elements of the Smiths are there. There's nothing lost, I'm sure of it. Our
producer John Porter was the perfect studio technician for us. He got some
amazing subtleties but at the same time we were putting some things down in
just a couple of takes. "
- Johnny Marr, Sounds, February 25, 1984
"I must say I was never really happy with 'Reel Around The Fountain'. I don't
think they ever really captured it. I always wanted to have another go at it."
- John Porter, Q, January, 1994
Does Whalley Range really exist?

"I'm afraid so. It's the little suburb of Manchester bedsit land and everyone who
lives there is an unrecognised poet or a failed artist. Anyone who wishes to
pursue their destiny ends up there and never gets out."
- Morrissey on the lyric from "Miserable Lie", The Face, 1984
Where did a song like 'Hand That Rocks The Cradle' come from?
"Well, that comes from a relationship I had that didn't really involve romance. So
if we're talking about romance, well, I don't really know that much about it. But
in other things, I'm quite capable of making an observation."
"I happened to live on the streets where, close by, some of the victims had been
picked up. Within that community, news of the crimes totally dominated all
attempts at conversation for quite a few years. It was like the worst thing that
had ever happened, and I was very, very aware of everything that occurred.
Aware as a child who could have been a victim. All the details... You see it was all
so evil; it was, if you can understand this, ungraspably evil. When something
reaches that level it becomes almost... almost absurd really. I remember it at
times like I was living in a soap opera..."
- Morrissey on the Moors Murders, inspiration for "Suffer Little Children",
The Face, May, 1985
"Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it
as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our
supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, 'Still Ill' and 'Suffer
Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs."
- Johnny Marr, Melody Maker, August 2, 1985
"Obviously most people who write do borrow from other sources. They steal from
other's clothes lines. I mentioned the line 'I dreamt about you last night and I fell
out of bed twice' in 'Reel Around The Fountain,' which comes directly from A
Taste Of Honey, and to this day I'm whipped persistently for the use of that line.
I've never made any secret of the fact that at least 50 percent of my reason for
writing can be blamed on Shelagh Delaney who wrote A Taste Of Honey. And
'This Night Has Opened My Eyes' is a Taste Of Honey song - putting the entire
play to words. But I have never in my life made any secrets of my reference
points. Just because there's one line that's a direct lift people will now say to me
that 'Reel Around The Fountain' is worthless, ignoring the rest of it which almost
certainly comes from my brain. Oscar Wilde... I've found so many instances
where he has directly lifted from others. To me that's fine. But because I'm so
serious about writing, people are so serious about tripping me up."
- Morrissey, NME, June 7, 1986
"...loss of innocence, that until one has a physical commitment with another
person, there's something childlike about the soul."
- Morrissey explains the meaning of 'Reel Around The Fountain', Rolling
Stone, 1986
"John Porter (producer) suggested getting that bloke Paul Carrack in on

keyboards to see what would happen, and I thought it really brought it alive."
- Andy Rourke on 'I Don't Owe You Anything', Select, April 1993
"That was one of the very first rehearsals, and he just came in and hit us with
that. It took a bit of getting used to. I remember taking a demo - before I'd even
joined the band, they'd done a demo with Si Woolstencroft who drums with The
Fall - and I took it home and played it to my brothers who were into the same
music as I was into, Neil Young and Bob Dylan and so on, and they were going,
'Ere, what's he singing about there?'"
- Andy Rourke on 'Suffer Little Children', Select, April 1993
"Even with the sleeve, you know, for 'The Smiths,' Johnny said to me, Uh, I've
got the cover of the new album. And it's a picture of a bloke going down on
another bloke. So I'm like, Great! Fan-ta-stic! Hey, mam, look what I've been
doing the last eight months! And I thought, well, how far do we want to take this?
Because of course it's porn but straight away it starts you thinking, and that's
what I mean when I say I maybe wasn't that clued in because Johnny and
Morrissey were classic music fans for many years, and I'm sure they'd already
been in Top Of The Pops in their heads, and they'd already thought about the
things that have to be done to be creative, instead of just going blindly ahead and
just falling by the wayside.
- Mike Joyce, Select, April 1993
"I didn't think it was the best debut of all time, I just thought it was the best
record out at the time. I haven't listened to it for ages. I know it's a great
collection of songs. It became the norm to criticise it. People echo what they've
heard in the press."
- Johnny Marr, Select, December 1993
"I think we probably did it on our first two gigs. I think we were writing better
stuff - that's the answer. It was always considered an album track. Maybe we had
a doubt about it at the time."
- Johnny Marr on why The Smiths ceased performing "Suffer Little
Children" early on, Record Collector, November/December 1992
Who did the Hindley laugh on "Suffer Little Children"?

"It was a friend of Morrissey's called Anna."
What was your opinion of the first album?

"I haven't listened to it in ages. I was happy that people were getting a chance to
hear us, because we were better than anyone else at the time and I just thought
I was happy to make a record. Just that it existed and the songs were there for
people to hear was enough for me. It wasn't until people started mentioning the
production that I noticed it, really."
How do you feel about the production?
"I think the only way that record could have got made was for John Porter to
come in and show us how to make a record properly, which is what he did. He
showed me how to make a record."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November/December, 1992
"Rolling Stone cite the first album as the hidden gem. That baffles me. I thought
it was so badly produced. And that matters if you're stood behind a mike singing
your heart out. A great glut of Smiths records were badly produced. I remember
a drive from Brixton to Derby where I listened on a Walkman to The Smiths' first
album which we'd recorded for the second time and I turned to Geoff Travis on
my right and John Porter on my left and said, This is not good enough, and they
both squashed me in the seat and said that it cost f60,000, it has to be released,
there's no going back.
I had two very moist cheeks and there's an anger there that has never subsided,
because The Smiths' first album should have been so much better than it was.
(Laughs) Oh, how boring!"
- Morrissey, Q, April 1994
"The thing that sticks in my mind is not really liking the sound of the record. It
wasn't anybody's fault, particularly - just time and budget limitations. Suffer Little
Children has certainly got the atmosphere that I intended, and Pretty Girls Make
Graves was probably good as it was ever going to be... whatever that means! ...a
lot of the album was actually recorded with a '54 Telecaster belonging to John
Porter. I used a Rickenbacker 360 12-string as well, and that was the guitar
which subsequently got all the attention, but in fact it was mainly the Tele, and a
bit of Les Paul. Overall, what I really didn't like about the records then was the
amp, the Roland Jazz Chorus - that's the fuckin' prime suspect. Hey man, it was
the '80s! They sounded fine to the player, but I think they failed out front. There
seemed to be [a] big hole in the sound..."
- Johnny Marr, The Guitar Magazine, January 1997
"'Reel Around The Fountain' was my interpretation of James Taylor's version of

'Handy Man'. I was trying to do a classic melodic pop tune, and it had the worst
kind of surface prettiness to it. But at the same time, Joy Division was influencing
everybody in England. That dark element -- it wasn't that I wanted to be like
them, but they brought out something in the darkness of the overall track."
- Johnny Marr, Guitar Player, January 1990
"What's going on in the rest of that picture is pretty interesting," says The
Smiths' drummer today. "You know, with another geezer. Morrissey's going, 'This
is the album cover,' and I'm like (tired resignation), Oh great, cool, whatever.
After the cover of Hand In Glove, this was like, Wa-a-a-it, hold on a minute. Very
cleverly he didn't tell me the picture was going to be cropped. I could imagine my
parents going (Mrs Doyle voice): 'Well, that's nice, Michael.' The local priest, all
my relatives..."
- Mike Joyce, Mojo, March 2000
Heaven Knows
I'm Miserable Now
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Suffer Little Children
Girl Afraid
Released in May 1984
Yea-Sayers:
"Probably the seminal Smiths single. Dead sad, dead funny."

- Dylan Jones, i-D, October 1987
"...I must be one of the small number of people who actually believe that The
Smiths are not the saviours of Western Pop as we know it. Apart from 'This
Charming Man', what difference have The Smiths made except to re-inforce how
boring and ordinary groups can be these days? You have to do more than dish
out a staple diet of Oscar Wilde, teenage angst, existentialism, and Sandie Shaw
infatuations to see this boy crumble. The ambiguity of their lyrics might well be
an applauding point but that's just a drop in the ocean compared to the straight
faced dourness of most of their music. That said, 'Heaven Only Knows' [sic]
cunningly re-dresses the balance. A jewel of a melody, a timeless arrangement,
the sheer languid charm of Morrissey's vocal performance, the deeper
suggestions of his words, the buried ideas, all add up to the proverbial shiver-
down-the-spine. It's a record like this that makes me start to understand the love
vested in them, even if the last time I saw Morrissey he had approximately half
his front lawn hanging out of his back pocket. And if you're about to complain
bitterly about the NME building them up to knock them down policy, forget it. I
never promised them a rose garden."
- Unknown Critic, New Musical Express
Regarding 'Suffer Little Children': "Another Rough Trade...? Confirmed

Smithshater though I be, credit where credit's due. A delicate and (dare I say it)
tender ballad concerning the activities of everyone's favourite love-story couple.
It's fascinating to hear how sensual Morrissey's voice can be when he's not
torturing us with those horrible whooping noises he makes. Buy it for the B-side;
the A-side sees Morrissey and his jangling friends complaining that they feel
'miserable tonight'."
- Unknown Critic
It's another Smiths single, isn't it? They're very good, I like their attitude and
approach, but they always seem so apathetic that I don't really feel like giving
them any sympathy. They turn apathy into a fine art.
This is a soft record, the sort of thing I can see Captain really liking. He loves
soft, pleasant music. Maybe when I'm feeling really depressed and on the point of
slitting my wrists, I'd find The Smiths very appealing, but now I'm happy they
don't appeal to me quite so much.
Why is he miserable? He doesn't say why in the lyric. He's just depressed. Next
time he gets in this frame of mind he ought to give me a ring and I'll cheer him
up.
This record is well put together and nicely produced and everything, and I think
The Smiths are on their way to making really good records, but this isn't it. They
haven't quite got it right yet. One day The Smiths will make a record that I'll love.
It will only sell one copy and that will be to me.
Morrissey has actually got a good voice, he's got a very wide range... but I'm
always wary of singers who try to croon. He does try, though. This record is just
very nice and its miserable at the same time - which is really, I suppose, what
makes The Smiths unique.
- Rat Scabies, Melody Maker, May 26, 1984
Smiths-Speak:
"When I wrote an ineffectual line such as 'I was looking for a job/ And then I
found a job/And Heaven knows I'm miserable now', that outraged people (which
pleased me)."
"There was all that fuss about 'Suffer Little Children' in the newspapers, all these
comments and opinions from people who knew nothing about the group and
nothing about music. I felt very sad and angry about that, so much just being
headlines. Nobody had approached me and there were long, inflated comments,
"Morrissey says this..." and "Morrissey wrote it for this reason...". All of it was
totally untrue and I couldn't understand why nobody had asked me. At one point,
someone from The Daily Mail rang up, giving me the chance to give my side of
the story. Of course, they weren't interested that I got on famously with the
parents of the victims. So, they wouldn't print the story. Well, that really upset
me."
- Morrissey on the "Suffer Little Children" controversy, Jamming!,
December, 1984
Did you anticipate the reaction to 'Suffer Little Children'?

"Yes, I did. Yes, I did anticipate it - and when it arrived, I wasn't ready for it in
the least. I was quite confused. I was very distressed by that but I was only
distressed because nobody would actually let me comment on it. It appeared in
national newspaper the length and breadth of the country - Morrissey does this
and Morrissey says that and Morrissey believes... and nobody asked me a thing.
Nobody knew what I believed or why the lyrics were there. So that was the only
distressing element. But I'm glad the record got attention, ultimately."
Were you alarmed at the way the sentiments of the song, the basic concept, the
basic sympathies of the song were so disfigured?
"Well, this is the world we live in. It's not a reflection of me, it really reflects the
absolute and barbaric attitudes of the daily press and so I don't really feel that I
was in the dock, I feel that they were really. And in essence they were just really
saying how narrow-minded and blunderous they were. Some of the reports in
newspapers in Portsmouth and Hartlepool - all the places that really count - some
of the reports were so full of hate, it was like I was one of the Moors Murderers,
that I'd gone out and murdered these children. Some of them were so full of hate
that one just had to do something, but not read them. It was incredible."
"Veiling the Moors Murders is wrong. We must bring it to the fore. If we don't
overstate things, they'll continue to happen. We don't forget the atrocities of
Hitler, do we? In the north, I was painted as a hideous Satanic monster, and the
word was that I had upset Ann West [Lesley Anne's mother]. In fact, I had not,
and have since become great friends with her. She is a formidable figure."
- Morrissey, Spin, 1986
"For me life was never easy, but it wasn't even acceptable until the release of
'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. I liked that record and good times seemed to
happen to me then. I'll look back on them as pleasant days. But before then I'd
never felt it. I was making records that though successful weren't really quite
clicking with me. It was like I'd still had this hangover from the years of
nothingness, of being on the dole, having to live in that horrible atmosphere of
communicating with the DHSS, people saying why are you writing this absurd
song. 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' seemed to me an enormous release... It
had got to the point where I was this totally separate character from the group. I
was never asked about them or the music. I'd feel there was always this desire to
create a caricature of me - a repressed priest, insane pseudo axeman, or
whatever... But with 'Heaven Knows...' everything fell into perspective. Previous
to that I was just running around trying to keep everybody happy."
- Morrissey, NME, December 22/29, 1984
"I think 'Girl Afraid' simply implied that even within relationships, there's no real
certainty and nobody knows how anybody feels. People feel that just simply
because they're having this cemented communion with another person that the
two of you will become whole, which is something I detested. I hate that, that
implication. It's not true, anyway. Ultimately, you're on your own, whatever
happens in life, however you go through life. You die on your own. You have to
go to the dentist on your own. It's like all the serious things in life are things that
you feel on your own."
"... we went to America to play Danceteria on New Year's Eve and Mike got ill so
we couldn't do the rest of the gigs, and 'Heaven Knows' was written in a hotel
room while me and Morrissey were waiting to go home. And I wrote the music for
'Girl Afraid' the day I got back, so really we were more concerned with what came
next. I don't really like 'Heaven Knows'. Well, I like it but less than the others. I
don't like the tune and the backing track. I don't like the rhythm or anything."
"I completed it when we came back from America, having been to New York where
we played that one gig at the Danceteria. I did that the moment I got back. I wrote it
in New York with Morrissey, put it on tape when we got back and within a couple of
weeks we moved to London."
William,
It Was Really Nothing
William, It Was Really Nothing

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
How Soon Is Now?
Released in August, 1984
Yea-Sayers:
"Not only is this a good record but it's good on the 7" (shock, horror). I haven't
got a clue what it's all about, but suffice to say the voice sounds as dextrous as
ever and thirty words go where twenty belong. This ambles along nicely but is
this guy sane? What's the betting the next one is called 'Mum I'm Just Going
Down the Shops'?"
- Unknown Reviewer
"Although he's written a lot of great solo songs, this song is nostalgic because it
reminds me of the time when we played with The Smiths, especially in Inverness,
1984.""
- Justin Currie (Del Amitri) on "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I
Want", Q, September 1992
Nay-Sayers:
"The Smiths are impossible to love unless you wish to mother Morrissey. There is
a wistful optimism about the music they make that is very easy to like a whole lot
but the main man-child's self-adoring ennui sticks in the craw once you realise
that this is what he is going to be doing on his death bed. Ennui gets a little
boring after a while."
- Tony Parsons, New Musical Express, August 25, 1984
"A simple cross-pollination of their earler singles brings us this short burst of
nothing much. Clifford T. Ward with his new haircut still handles the vocals (with
a different script to the rest of us) and the guitars wobble about. I shall probably
play it for weeks, unless I die (because when you're dead you can't play many
records really)."
- Unknown Reviewer
Smiths-Speak:
Morrissey, when asked if he thought "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I
Want" was the perfect Smiths song: "I think it was very close indeed, and hiding
it away on a B-side was sinful. I feel sad about it now although we did include it
on Hatful Of Hollow by way of semi-repentance. When we first played it to Rough
Trade, they kept asking, "where's the rest of the song?" But to me, it's like a very
brief punch in the face. Lengthening the song would, to my mind, have simply
been explaining the blindingly obvious."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, September 26, 1987
"I haven't managed to work out his exact angle on that one yet. Usually his lyrics
are very much black and white to me, but this one is taking a little bit longer.
'William' is quite a whimsical song really. I don't think it's broken all the rules in
pop music, but to start a song with a short verse and then follow it with three
choruses is quite good."
- Johnny Marr, on the gay implications of 'William,' Earsay, 1984.
"I recall that The Smiths made a record called 'William, It Was Really Nothing,'
which was only two minutes nine. And we were heavily chastised by the record
company for doing such a short song because Bronski Beat had released a record
that same week which was 13 minutes long. There's so much to fight against. It's
a terrible, terrible business. I have the bruises..."
- Morrissey, Select, July 1991
"I did 'How Soon Is Now?' on a portastudio. That, 'William, It Was Really Nothing'
and 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want', I did in a period of about four
to five days when I was living in a flat in Earls Court. That was done when we
needed a follow-up to 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. 'How Soon Is Now?'
was really a good one. Musically it was a perfect cross between a sweaty swamp
backing track and an intense, wired shock every few bars. I knew what I was
doing with those tracks. The priority was to do 'Please Please Please' and
'William'. Then we needed the extra track and just nailed that one."
Hatful Of Hollow

What Difference Does It Make? (Peel Session, May 31, 1983)
These Things Take Time (Jensen Session, July 4, 1983)
This Charming Man (Peel Session, September 21, 1983)
How Soon Is Now?
Handsome Devil (Peel Session May 31, 1983)
Hand In Glove
Still Ill (Peel Session, September 21, 1983)
This Night Has Opened My Eyes (Peel Session, September 21,
1983)
You've Got Everything Now (Jensen Session, July 4, 1983)
Accept Yourself (Jensen Session, September 5, 1983)
Girl Afraid
Back To The Old House (Peel Session, September 21, 1983)
Reel Around The Fountain (Peel Session, May 31, 1983)
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
Released in November, 1984
Yea-Sayers:
An audacious mid-price retrospective of BBC session tracks released mere months

after the band's debut and featuring superior versions of many of the same
songs. It also includes the superlative singles, "William, It Was Really Nothing,
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" and "How Soon Is Now", plus a cluster of
spine-tingling rarities such as "Girl Afraid". (*****)
Saucerful of Secret Sweeties
"Would you like to marry me? When Morrissey pops the (metaphorical) question,
what can you actually say to the Thin Boy? Pour scorn on his bewitching lines and
scoff in the face of his musical eloquence? Or submit and offer to buy the ring?
Before scrawling an answer in black ink across a bared chest, it might pay to
heed a tidily-packaged and atractively-priced (16 tracks for f3.99) assortment of
singles, B-sides and Radio One sessions. Similar in style to Elvis Costello's vital
'Ten Bloody Marys' compilation, 'Hatful Of Hollow' is a golden hour of The Smiths,
spasmodically spanning a period of 18 months from their early John Peel and
David Jensen broadcasts up to their most recent single 'William, It Was Really
Nothing'.
It is a patchy, erratic affair and often all the better for that. A song like the
maudlin epic 'Reel Around the Fountain' that was later fleshed out and cushioned
by the softer production on the debut album is included here in raw, less
'pleasant' form; 'Accept Yourself' and 'These Things Take Time' from the Jensen
session are thrillingly abrasive; 'Still Ill' and 'Girl Afraid' remind one of a dull,
prosaic competence which marked the band's musicianship in their early days;
the wistful 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want' and the dense,
relatively complex 'How Soon Is Now' illustrate the new heights to which they
have recently aspired.
But what difference does it make? The most staggering changes are not in
Morrissey's beguiling, ambivalent obsessions, which have remained similar
throughout, but in the flowering of Johnny 'Guitar' Marr, that chiming man, into
one of the era's truly great instrumentalists. Compare the monosyllabic flatness
of his early picking with the cascading mandolins that close 'Please Please Please'
and it will be clear just how much he has come on. His role in the band is now
worthy of at least equal billing with Morrissey's, a fact acknowledged on the
awesome 'How Soon', a track previously only available on the 'William' 12": with
the voice buried deep in a clammy, claustrophobic mix, Marr - adriotly supported
by the two unsung grafter Smiths - unleashes a barrage of multi-tracked
psychedelic rockabilly, his Duane Eddy twang destroyed in an eerie quagmire of
quivering guitar noise. Magnificent!
And so to the calculated mystique of Morrissey: the man-child has mastered the
knack of giving away absolutely nothing while appearing to be the most frank,
disarming, and explicit wordsmith currently working in pop. But, for all their
sexual ambivalence and lyrical unorthodoxy, his songs are universal in the
vulnerabilities and desires they seek to express. And it is that, as much as Marr's
unfettered brilliance, that has given this group the unmistakeable stamp of
greatness.
Pride of place here should perhaps go to the track never before available on vinyl,
the Peel session version of 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes', a sordid but
plaintive tale of a young mother getting rid of an unwanted baby in which
Morrissey's vivid observation of the woman's conflicting emotions does nothing to
detract from the impact of the gruesome tragedy.
Seeking splendour in simplicity and bringing magnificence out of misery, these
charming Smiths are vivid and in their prime."
- Adrian Thrills
It's a Fair Cap!

"Some would find it difficult to work up much enthusiasm for what is by any other
name a ragbag of Radio One session-recorded tracks topped and tailed with their
most recent singles, but as the lone voice of dissention amongst Smiths followed
at the time of the release of their self-titled album, I couldn't account for the
demise of their brittle beauty - captured on those Peel and Jensen patronised
recordings - and the rise of a no less rigorous but sadly less vigorous Smiths.
I found it merely churlish that they should leave the sublime 'This Charming Man'
off the album and shocking that they should let producer John Porter remix their
volcanic debut, 'Hand In Glove', for inclusion.
Instead, I stuck to my tape of the sessions, including the fiendishly good 'Back to
the Old House' (since a featured B-side) and 'Accept Yourself' - and marvelled at
the cutting clarity of these 'garage' productions that nevertheless allowed the
magnificent 'Reel Around the Fountain' to haunt and hurt in a way the 'official'
version missed by a mile.
Which is - surprise, surprise - where 'Hatful Of Hollow' comes in. At last gathered
together on vinyl where they truly belonged are these very same songs plus the
last two singles and B-sides, and it's the perfect stop gap/document depending on
your predilection for the Smiths.
Of course, we've learnt to laugh at the more salacious aspects of Morrissey's self-
pity and theatrical torture - and become blase in the presence of Marr's lithe
melodies - but then who can retain the shock of the new? Suffice to say, few have
matched the economy and excitement of the Smiths' patented dynamics.
And I find the liner photo particularly fetching for that very reason: it brings to
the fore the maligned but magnificent rhythm section of Joyce and Rourke.
Stodgy some say, but revealed in the frills-free (basic?) productions, those drums
and bass just keep turning; prodding and pricking the gossamer sheen of Marr's
guitar and the lacey skin of Morrissey's vocal.
Thoughtfully priced and luxuriously packaged, 'Hatful Of Hollow' should find a
place beside 'The Smiths' in every collection - and then we want to hear those
early Troy Tate-produced sessions and any stray collaborations with Sandie
Shaw, right?" (****)
- Bill Black, Sounds, November 17, 1984
Nay-Sayers:
Empty Promises
"The eminently quotable Morrissey said it himself. On the subject of Lloyd Cole,
he told Ian Pye: 'Lloyd is a tremendously nice person, much more fascinating
than anything he's ever put on vinyl...' I've no idea whether Morrissey can be
described as 'nice' or not - I'd suspect not - but just switch his name for Lloyd's
and you're close to my reaction to The Smiths. In other words, the things which
obviously go on in Morrissey's head from dawn til dusk and beyond are a damn
sight more interesting than Smiths records. I keep waiting for the exception, but
so far all I've come up with is 'Back to the Old House,' an affecting little piece
where The Smiths' formulaic modal melodies match neatly with a lyric where, for
once, Morrissey isn't trying to be Dorian Gray.
'Old House' makes an appearance on 'Hatful Of Hollow' which is something, I
suppose. The LP is a collection of Radio 1 sessions The Smiths recorded for John
Peel and David Jensen (forgive him, Lord), four sessions in all that, at the last
count, have been transmitted 12 times, according to the rather nicely-written
biog included here for the benefit of ignorant hacks. In addition, you get 'Heaven
Knows I'm Miserable Now' and 'William, It Was Really Nothing' plus B-sides
excluding 'Suffer Little Children'. That's caused quite enough fuss already.
For f3.99, it's a generously-filled package, always assuming, of course, you want
more Smiths in the first place. I can't for the life of me see why anybody would
want to own a copy of 'William, It Was Really Nothing' under any circumstances,
especially if they already had a copy of the almost identical 'What Difference Does
It Make?' 'Handsome Devil' is another job round the same chord sequence only a
little quicker, while 'Hand In Glove' (produced by the band themselves) appears
to have a few possibilities which remain stubbornly unexplored.
Perhaps I haven't been quite fair.
'How Soon Is Now?' features an ominous mechanical throb which gives The
Smiths a sinister quality somewhat removed from their usual Edwardian drawing-
room whisper, while 'Reel Around the Fountain' really deserves better than they
dull grey mix it receives here. Both it and 'Heaven Knows' recall uncannily the
fumbling guitars and fractured melodic musing of the lamented Bronte Sisters,
another band too clever for their own good.
Perhaps Morrissey should be read and not heard. Time he did the singles again,
come to think of it."
- Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker
Smiths-Speak:
"There seems to be a few aspects to it. We wanted it released on purely selfish

terms because we liked all those tracks and those versions. I wanted to present
those songs again in the most flattering form. Those sessions almost caught the
very heart of what we did - there was something positively messy about them,
which was very positive. People are so nervous and desperate when they do
those sessions, so it seems to bring the best out of them."
- Morrissey explains the reason for releasing "Hatful Of Hollow",
Jamming!, December, 1984
'This Night Has Opened My Eyes' is a Taste Of Honey song - putting the entire
play to words."
"At the time I wasn't too sure about Hatful Of Hollow being released - although
the radio sessions were great, I was keen for them to remain just being that. In
hindsight, I realised there were certain tracks - particularly Handsome Devil - that
had something the produced version just didn't. It's a very valid record."
How Soon Is Now?
How Soon Is Now?

Well I Wonder
Oscillate Wildly
Released in January 1985
Yea-Sayers:
Single of the Week

"Originally this appeared on the flip side of the 'William...' 12-inch, but now
assumes its rightful position as single. Morrissey and co have once again delved
into their Sixties treasure-trove, and produced a visceral power capable of
blowing the dust off Eighties inertia. The majestic ease of Morrissey's melancholic
vocals are tinted with vitriol, as they move through vistas of misery with plaintive
spirals around the pulse of Johnny Marr's vibrato guitar. The string's muted
strains conjure wistful signs that bridge the schism between crass sentimentality
and callous detachment. Each repeated phrase intensifies the hypnotic waves,
with results that outflank anything since 'This Charming Man'. Catharsis has
rarely been tinged with so much regret, and shared with so much crystalline
purity."
- Unknown Reviewer
"Nice mournful guitar I say, and I'm a non-fan. That being so I rang RT to trace
the origins of this 45 by their top act. It took 'em ten minutes to find out that it
comes from the 'Hatful Of Hollow' album. The Smiths are hot, Rough Trade are
not. Don't be surprised if they lurch toward Babylon on a major in '85."
- Unknown Reviewer
Interlude: Normal Business

"Whether Morrissey is questing romantic or bruised archangel is a matter I leave
to your own musing. I prefer to hear the work of J. Marr as the real spirit of The
Smiths. 'Hand In Glove', to these ears their one real masterpiece, could be about
legwarmers and stirrup pumps for all the difference it makes - with that crimson
flush of guitars and rhythm any words would do.
Marr's hand in 'How Soon Is Now' is again the real life of The Smiths, a tremolo
mantra (nicked from Can's 'I Want More') powering the song against The Odde
Fellowe's groaning and other tictacs of guitar trickery. Sounds like an acid song."
- Unknown Reviewer
Nay-Sayers:
Short Odds
"Oh worra rip-off! Correct me if I'm wrong, but as well as being on the last LP
wasn't this pained pulsating piffle on the last single too? You wouldn't mind so
much if the song was half-way decent, but it's just the sort of awesomely
yawnsome lament that gets dubbed 'hypnotic' by snivelling Smiffs apologists -
and that of course translates from sycophancy-speak as 'soporific'. Complete with
lyrics that rival 3-2-1 for their insight into the human condition, this maudlin
dawdling is nothing more than Leonard Cohen for the post-punk bedsit
generation. And let's not forget they've lifted that coming 'Meat Is Murder' slogan
from Conflict."
- Unknown Reviewer
"For the most part, Morrissey is the Hilda Ogden of pop, harassed and hard done-
by. I guess what seems like meat to one man sounds like murder to another."
- Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, February 9, 1985
Smiths-Speak:
"It's hard to believe that 'How Soon Is Now' was not a hit. I thought that was the
one..."
- Morrissey, Creem, 1987
"John Porter and Johnny pretty much did 'How Soon Is Now?' in an all-night
session in a studio. I remember really liking it. I think it took us a few weeks to
realise how good it was. Obviously it came out as a single in its own right later.
Maybe you could say we made a mistake not releasing that as the A-side (of
William)."
- Geoff Travis, Q, January, 1994
"'How Soon Is Now?' was the international hit that should have happened. It
would have changed everything. It was without question the most universal-
sounding Smiths record that anybody could identify with"
- Scott Piering, Q, January, 1994
"That's where it all, sadly, started to fall apart. We did it at Jam Studios in
Finsbury Park. Everybody was a bit hungover from the night before. I don't know
what had gone on. They had 'William (It Was Really Nothing)' basically together,
so we put it down very quickly. And Johnny played me a little chord sequence
which I thought was kind of interesting, but very pretty. And I seem to remember
saying to him, 'Play what you think is "That's All Right"' - you know, the old
Arthur Crudup tune. 'Play your impression of that.' So he did. So I said, 'Right,
now play your chord sequence two octaves down from where you've done it, and
let's bolt it on to this other part.' And that sort of happened. They did three takes.
It was a Saturday. I don't think Morrissey was there. I posted it, or somebody
posted it, through Morrissey's letterbox that night and then he came in the next
day with his book and sang possibly one or two takes. And it was done. I thought,
'Right, well, now we're starting to move into second gear. Now we've got
something that we can sell in America.
Now we've got a band that could be like R.E.M. are now.' We were all really,
really excited. In the evening I called Scott and Scott came down. He loved it. He
said, 'Yes! Fantastic!' He took the tape. Went back to Rough Trade. And Geoff
was kind of... he didn't really like it. Which rather deflated me. And subsequently
they just put it out as a fucking B-side. I mean, they murdered it."
- John Porter, Q, January, 1994
"And they've made several marketing disasters which have really been quite
crippling to us in personal ways. For instance, the release of the last single. 'How
Soon Is Now' was released in an abhorrent sleeve - and the time and the
dedication that we put into the sleeves and artwork, it was tearful when we finally
saw the record... And also we can discuss a video they made. It had absolutely
nothing to do with the Smiths - but quite naturally we were swamped with letters
from very distressed American friends saying, 'Why on earth did you make this
foul video?' And of course it must be understood that Sire made that video, and
we saw the video and we said to Sire, 'You can't possibly release this... this
degrading video.' And they said, 'Well, maybe you shouldn't really be on our
label.' It was quite disastrous - and it need hardly be mentioned that they also
listed the video under the title 'How Soon Is Soon,' which... where does one
begin, really?"
- Morrissey on Sire Records, Creem, 1985
"How Soon Is Now? was the one, though. I wanted to write a track with an intro
that you couldn't forget, something that you knew straight away was The Smiths.
In that regard it was very 'worked on'. I arrived at the studio with a demo of the
whole thing, apart from the tremolo effect - though that was bound to surface on
a Smiths track sooner or later, 'cos at that time I was playing Bo Diddley stuff
everywhere I went. I wanted it to be really, really tense and swampy, all at the
same time. Layering the slide part was what gave it the real tension. As soon as I
played that bit on the second and third strings, John Porter put an AMS
harmoniser on it. Then we recorded each individual string with the harmoniser,
then we tuned the B string down a half step and harmonised the whole thing. The
tremolo effect came from laying down a regular rhythm part (with a capo at the
2nd fret) on a Les Paul, then sending that out in to the live room to four Fender
Twins. John was controlling the tremolo on two of them and I was controlling the
other two, and whenever they went out of sync we just had to stop the track and
start all over again. It took an eternity. God bless the sampler, 'cos it would have
been so much easier! But it was just one of those great moments. When
Morrissey sang the vocal it was the first time we'd all heard it. John Porter said,
'Oh, great - he's singing about the elements! I am the sun and the air...' But of
course it was really, 'I am the son and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally
vulgar'... A great track."
"Initially the very notion of instrumentals was motivated by me. I suggested that
'Oscillate Wildly' should be an instrumental; up until that point Johnny had very
little interest in non-vocal tracks. There was never any political heave-hoing
about should we-shouldn't we have an instrumental and it was never a battle of
powers between Johnny and myself. The very assumption that a Smiths
instrumental track left Morrissey upstairs in his bedroom stamping his feet and
kicking the furniture was untrue! I totally approved but, obviously, I didn't
physically contribute."
- Morrissey, NME, February 13, 1988
"Singles-wise, my favorite is 'How Soon Is Now?'... 'How Soon Is Now' was in F#
tuning. I wanted a very swampy sound, a modern bayou song. It's a straight E
riff, followed by open G and F#m7. The chorus uses open B, A, and D shapes with
the top two strings ringing out. The vibrato sound is fucking incredible, and it
took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a
Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four
old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibratoing in time to
the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track,
recording it in 10-second bursts. This sounds incredibly egotistical, but I wanted
an intro that was almost as potent as 'Layla' -- when that song plays in a club or
a pub, everyone knows what it is instantly. 'How Soon Is Now' is certainly one of
the most identifiable songs I've done, and it's the track most people talk to me
about. I wish I could remember exactly how we did the slide part -- not writing it
down is one of the banes of my life! We did it in three passes through a
harmonizer, set to some weird interval, like a sixth. There was a different
harmonization for each pass. For the line in harmonics, I retuned the guitar so
that I could play it all at the 12th fret with natural harmonics. It's doubled several
times."
- Johnny Marr, Guitar Player, January, 1990
Meat Is Murder
The Headmaster Ritual

Rusholme Ruffians
I Want The One I Can't Have
What She Said
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
How Soon Is Now?
Nowhere Fast
Well I Wonder
Barbarism Begins At Home
Meat Is Murder
Released in February 1985
Yea-Sayers:
Expanding on the folk-pop classicism of their debut, this second studio album is
far more dynamic and diverse, allowing Marr to rock out with fiery panache while
Morrissey aims lyrical shots at the monarchy, carnivores, his former teachers and
other sitting ducks. (****)
"'Meat Is Murder' is brilliant, a catherine wheel of inspired language nailed to a

sometimes unnervingly evocative and beautiful guitar music."
Steak Your Claim

**** 1/2
"If 'How Soon Is Now' is the sound of a good thing spread thin, a needless and
mis-timed repackaging of a modest Diddleyesque doodle, then 'Meat' is
something for Smiths consumers to get their teeth into.
Running the gamut 'from Smiths-by-numbers aural heartburn to raucous rockouts
of truly non-Mancunian mayhem' (copyright G Bushell), the second album
'proper' from Rough Trade's very own Red Cross parcel screams LESSON LEARNT!
and NEW INFLUENCES MASTERED! Thus old and lazy accusations of tears-in-my-
Vimto Northern working-class self pity hitched to a one trick pony of a musical
backing must now be buried: this band have come a long way since their muted,
at times even moribund, debut.
If the Smiths' sound is a cathedral (ahem!) then messers Rourke and Joyce of
'the bass guitar' and 'the drums' respectively are at once the civilisation-deep
foundations and the breath-snatching flying buttresses, Kirby-kissing a precocious
guitar riff or buffeting the otherwise suave folksiness of a song like 'That Joke
Isn't Funny Anymore'.
Johnny Marr, for his sins, is in the pulpit and louder in the mix than ever before
with his screeching, preaching guitar. Bold enough to summon the ghost of Scotty
Moore for 'Nowhere Fast' or his bastard grandson Gary for the sub HM filing of
'What She Said', the magician Marr is equally happy hugging Morrissey's
voluminous skirts - with just a hand free to brush a mellow acoustic.
And what of the Whalley Ranger himself? Poor put-upon, passed-over Morrissey
divides his time between the confession box and the pews, inhabiting his curious,
luxurious netherworld where cars still boast leather upholstery and the air 'hangs
heavy like a dulling wine' ('Rusholme Ruffians'). He continues to act out the life of
a John Braine hero: heart beating fast beneath a crisp white shirt, simultaneously
warmed and wearied by small town mores.
Snapping out of it long enough to deliver a sermon on animal rights (the chilling
title track is topped and tailed with the sounds of a slaughter house going about
its business), Morrissey's proselytising endeavours to take the Smiths beyond the
cloisters of his own introspection in much the same way as 'Suffer Little Children'
did on the first album. But he'll never convince me that one man's nut loaf isn't
another man's baked nosepickings, if you see what I mean.
Incidentally, the only turkey on this album is the brave but lead-booted funk of
'Barbarism Begins At Home'. But there again, one man's meat is another
man's..."
- Bill Black
Eat to the Beat

"Life as a rock journalist is not all beer and skittles, you know. Occasionally we
are unchained from our Gold American Express cards and frogmarched to some
hellish place where work is to be done.
Just such a thing happened recently. A clutch of our whimpering number found
themselves chez those strange creatures from the Rough Trade record empire
(habitat: Habitat), an airy room refreshingly clear of the expected bongs and
scatter-cushions. Our purpose? Tressle tables groaning with all manner of
bloodless comestible - vindaloo pizza, Lymeswold quiche, non-brown rice, bean-
sprouts au Chinoise, Waldorf salad, prairies of lettuce, plutonium blancmange,
ideologically sound bread and copious beverages from approved nations - told
their own story.
We were to eat.
Furthermore we were to eat to the beat of'Meat Is Murder', the second LP proper
by Ye Smythes, that popular quartet from the distant Northern town of
Manchester.
Yes, we who have dedicated the previous 18 months of our lives to hyping this
crazy combo of cheeseplant and surgical rubberwear salesmen to the very
pinnacle of their profession were once more to provide a toothsome appetiser
print-wise a week or two before the inevitable deluge of in-depth analysis,
recrimination, half-time commentary, final score, soup-to-nuts and the bill. Bon
apetit!
Thus it was that our chomping was rudely interrupted by the sinister Outer Limits
voice of RT grand vizier Scott Piering over the PA claiming that 'Meat Is
Murder'succeeds beyond all expectations and would go numero uno sure as he
was standing here...
and of course he'd disappeared to the lav halfway through that last sentence,
leaving a tell-tale tape-recorder spinning in his wake.
My, how we laughed into our macrobiotic munchies!
The album? Bribery prevents me from revealing much more than that I think
Scott is spot on the money. Johnny Marr's music and production embraces Sun-
era rock'n'roll, quasi-HM, folk and psychedelia in a surge of energy and intensity,
firmly kissing off that wimp tag. The promise of 'How Soon Is Now' is here
fulfilled.
As for Morrissey, he dances the seven veils of self-revelation almost to the point
of shining clarity. 'The Headmaster Ritual', 'Rusholme Ruffians' and 'What She
Said' revisit old haunts as one might expect, whilst 'Barbarism Begins At Home'
and the title track mean it maaaaan...
The first rad-veg chart-topping LP? 'Twould be just desserts indeed."
- Mat Snow
Top of the Chops

"That natural Northern charm, bred in the back-to-backs and cobblestone
alleyways, shyly smiling, quipping couplets of love forlorn and bungled romance,
over those infectiously syncopated rhythms. All this can only mean one man...
Yes, George Formby.
However, it's not George we're here for, but a man who's declared an admiration
for the Lancashire minstrel and could arguably be seen as his successor. Steven
Patrick Morrissey and his popular Smiths band return with this their second
'proper' album, following last year's incandescent debut and the intermediary
'Hatful Of Hollow' compilation job. At the least, 'Meat Is Murder' equals its
illustrious predecessors. Given some growing time, it could even better them.
Lyrically, these nine new tracks display the Bard of Whalley Range at his most
direct. Disciplined and succinct, each song relates an affecting tale or makes a
point with killing precision. Musically, writer Johnny Marr contributes a clutch of
his best melodies yet, plus some of that captivating and thoughtful guitar work
which moves a number like 'How Soon Is Now' into major league greatness.
It's not as if the words and music sound 'made for each other': they don't. Of
course, they don't clash or contradict, they simply work independently of each
other. Morrissey's singing preserves a quality of solitude; the instruments and
voice operate in eerie detachment, but often to beautiful effect. Morrissey and
Marr don't so much sink their talents into one as give you two for the price of
one.
Thus the opener, 'The Headmaster Ritual': Marr constructs a lengthy, intricately-
patterned intro, vaguely Beatle-ish. Eventually, practically at random, the vocals
float forward to slap you about the head: 'Belligerent ghouls run Manchester
schools/Spineless swines, cemented minds'. Next, on 'Rusholme Ruffians',
Morrissey sounds pushed to keep himself abreast of a brisk, rockabilly-skifflebeat.
Both songs deal with the violence that runs in a malevolent undercurrent through
the album, spilling to the surface amid the abbatoir gore of the final and title
track 'Meat Is Murder'. It's as if the slaughter we inflict on animals is just the
crudest expression of the subtler thuggery employed in humans' everyday
dealings with one another. This, admittedly, is not very reminiscent of George
Formby.
Morrissey, though, walks through the mess with his sentimental vision intact.
'Rusholme Ruffians' is a story about 'the last night of the fair', a setting forever
redolent of sex and violence in the English teenage imagination. Sure enough, a
boy is stabbed, a schoolgirl falls suicidally in love with a greasy-haired speedway
operator. And Morrissey is the boy who walks home alone, but his 'faith in love is
still devout'.
'I Want The One I Can't Have' touches a common chord of poignant frustration;
this story is of a doomed infatuation for some local homicidal juvenile.
'What She Said' is bleaker yet, about the lost and lonely girl who smokes because
she's 'hoping for an early death'. The latter cut also boasts a storming guitar
attack your average metal guitarist would rip off his chest wig to emulate. I shall
expect a Johnny Marr pin-up pic in Kerrang! or cancel my subscription forthwith.
Over Mike Joyce's sombre, rolling drumbeat, 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' is a
plaintive acoustical lament, with Morrissey once more offering himself up for
adoption as patron saint of bedsit depressives, yet with a realism which defies
pastiche.
Side two starts with an example of Morrissey's knack of snapping you back to
attention with an arresting line. 'I'd like to drop my trousers to the world' he
declares, while the boys in the band avert their gaze and get stuck in to serious
rock'n'roll.
'Well I Wonder' and 'Barbarism Begins At Home' (the latter a savage swipe at the
taking of savage swipes at young children) are perhaps the plainest Smiths fare
on this record. Just occasionally, the group are Smiths by nature as well as name,
serving up standard rock with more efficiency than inspiration. Closing
'Barbarism', Andy Rourke's funkoid bass work-out is aimless in the context of an
otherwise tightly-paced LP.
But it does supply some breathing-space before the stark, climactic 'Meat Is
Murder'. Farmyard sounds and sinister mechanical noises bookend this chilling,
funereal essay on killing and eating animals. To a death-march tempo, Morrissey
compresses sadness and anger: 'Kitchen aromas aren't very homely... it's sizzling
blood and the unholy stench of Murder'. Pop propaganda has rarely come so
powerful.
What difference will it make? Not a sausage, so far as my diet goes I'm afraid,
yet the roast beef of old England will never taste quite so good again. I'm sure
that many wavering recruits to the vegetarian cause will be won over. Whatever,
on that track and the record as a whole, The Smiths' artistic achievement is
genuinely beyond doubt. As a unit, they've never sounded so sure, so confident,
while Johnny Marr is certain to emerge from the relative neglect that's been his
lot till now.
Naturally, the personality of Morrissey will remain basic to The Smiths' appeal.
We afford him the sort of license that's normally only extended to children and
idiots, sensing the presence of an innocence and simplicity that's been civilised
out of the rest of us, and a kind of insight also. The deaf-aids, the flowers, the
NHS specs, they're all the trappings of an artful vulnerability.
Turned out nice again, hasn't it? George Formby always said that."
-Paul Du Noyer, NME, February 16, 1985
Meat on the Ledge

"It would be tempting to say of The Smiths' singer and lyricist that heaven knows
he's miserable now, but that would barely do justice to the depth of emotion
Morrissey reveals on this dark well of a record. The Smiths' second studio album
is a brooding missive from a blackness that's quite sickening to contemplate. In
retrospect, the camp flamboyance of 'Charming Man' seems like the work of a
joyful recluse in comparison.
Even the songs here that appear more linked with the past than the present offer
some kind of defiance in place of the void that follows. 'The Headmaster Ritual' is
a beautifully turned piece of invective yet one wonders just why Morrissey is
bothering to attack such an easy and obvious target at this stage of the game.
For all its eloquence, we've heard this sentiment before; a cornerstone of
rock'n'roll rebellion, now mostly sanitized into entertainment, and this time round
lifted beyond the stock genre through lyrical excellence.
Its sister song, 'Barbarism Begins At Home', also stretches back, but again, while
it's easy to sympathise with the feelings expressed it occurs that the eccentric
who penned the words might not be so special were it not for his troubled
background.
It's a peculiar fact that the most interesting and charismatic people have
frequently endured such hardships, though I'm sure 'normal' mortals would
disagree.
Morrissey may despise the brutality of life but he's desperately fascinated by it,
and in many ways it's the source of his inspiration. 'Rusholme Ruffians' is a
brilliantly observed return to the monochrome atmosphere of Sixties realism, a
pet subject and one delivered with the energy of disgust, tempered only by an
increasingly rare expression of faith.
'This is the last night of the fair/and the grease in the hair/of a speedway
operator/is all a tremulous heart requires,' he notes bitterly before walking home
alone... as always. If the bright lights hold no attraction, for him at least, he does
find something inside to keep going. Well he did then.
With 'I Want the One I Can't Have' and 'What She Said' the master of melancholy
muses on the dazzling flux of fate and will. His earlier dilemma - does the mind
rule the bodiy or the body rule the mind? - is superceded by the trick of destiny.
She was drenched in philosophy, he recounts scathingly, but 'it took a tattooed
boy from Birkenhead to really open her eyes.'
Beyond the cameos and memories things begin to turn a shade heavier. Catch
words like alienation and ennui can't begin to describe this long and solemn sigh.
We've always know that Morrissey is something of an emotional flasher and
'Nowhere Fast' is a complete confession: 'I'd like to drop my trousers to the
world,' he declares. It's also close to an admission of deranged despair.
And the worst, or perhaps best, is still to come. If 'That Joke Isn't Funny
Anymore' flirts seriously with the notion of suicide, 'Well I Wonder' is virtually a
valedictory note; certainly the most moving and disturbing revelation on the
whole LP. Open yourself to this song and feel your throat dry and then close to
the point of choking. There's a sadness here that is truly overwhelming.
Ironically, after this, the title song seems weak, operating in a dimension that's
far less affecting. An anti-meat-eating song, it begins and ends with animal
noises which immediately sabotage its credibility. Sentiment replaces the imagery
of protest and the genuine becomes almost risible. Such Old MacDonald
foolishness was the last thing this piece needed, especially when it's one of
Johnny Marr's most dirge-like compositions.
Elsewhere the guitarist has developed the thrilling mix first unleashed on the
wonderful 'How Soon Is Now?', fusing psychedelia with his own style of ringing,
circular chimes. It's quickly apparent that his understanding of the instrument's
potential and beauty is second to none. Other references include garage punk,
early acoustic rock'n'roll, folk, and even funk! An eclectic spread that's
remarkably cogent and quite capable of matching the intensity of Morrissey's
pained lyrics. There is, however, a constant suggestion that both music and
words are very much separate entities, a product of the way The Smiths work, I
suspect, but a fault frequently saved by the quality of the vocals.
Morrissey hasn't quite steered clear of his own cliches - that particular style of
overtly romantic phrasing which has swooned its way through many a Smiths
song - but he has broadened his approach. His falsetto flights are especially
arresting: I never realised he could yodel, and sometimes the timbre of his voice
is so tender he might be crying.
The Smiths may have been misguidedly elevated to the level of gods by their
followers but their music is well beyond the trivial novelty we've come to know as
pop. 'Meat Is Murder' is not for the squeamish, but the real torture of this record
has little to do with the righteous accusations behind the banner sloganeering.
That phrase is just a useful handle that really belies the very personal and far
more unsettling account of a murdered soul.
Raw, bloody, and naked, the meat on the rack is Morrissey's.
- Ian Pye, Melody Maker
"Lead singer and wordsmith Stephen Morrissey (who goes by his surname
professionally) is a man on a mission, a forlorn and brooding crusader with an
arsenal of personal axes to grind. Drawing on British literary and cinematic
tradition (he cites influences ranging from Thomas Hardy and Oscar Wilde to
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Morrissey speaks out for the protection of
the innocent, railing against human cruelty in all its guises. Three of the songs on
Meat Is Murder deal with saving our children - from the educational system ('The
Headmaster Ritual'), from brutalizing homes ('Barbarism Begins At Home'), from
one another ('Rusholme Ruffians'). The title track, 'Meat Is Murder', with its
simulated bovine cries and buzz-saw guitars, takes vegetarianism to new heights
of hysterical carniphobia.
A man of deadly serious sensitivity, Morrissey recognizes emotional as well as
physical brutality, assailing the cynicism that laughs at loneliness ('That Joke Isn't
Funny Anymore'). Despite feeling trapped in an unfeeling world, Morrissey can
still declare, 'My faith in love is still devout', with a sincerity so deadpan as to be
completely believable.
Though he waves the standard for romance and sexual liberation, Morrissey has a
curiously puritanical concept of love. He's conscious of thwarted passion and
inappropriate response, yet remains oddly distant from his own self-absorption.
The simple pleasures of others make him uncomfortable, as if these activities
were the cause of his own grand existential suffering. Morrissey's uptight
romanticism wears the black mantle of a new Inquisition.
In contrast to Morrissey's censorious lyrical attitudes is the expansive musical
vision of guitarist and tunesmith Johnny Marr. When these two are brought into
alignment, the results transcend and transform Morrissey's concerns. The
brightest example is the shimmering twelve-inch 'How Soon Is Now?' (included as
a bonus on U.S. copies of Meat Is Murder). Marr's version of the Bo Diddley beat
and his somber, reptilian guitars propel Morrissey's heartfelt plea - 'I am human,
and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does' - into the realm of universal
compassion and postcool poetry. At this point, his needs seem real, his concerns
nonjudgemental, and his otherwise pious persona truly sympathetic."
- Tim Holmes, Rolling Stone
"Even though I happen to think that this group's debut disc was one of the best
albums of 1984, I'm afraid that they may be asking for trouble from the critics
with the title cut of their new set. 'Meat Is Murder' is an old-fashioned protest
song, in this case of most humans' carnivorous behavior towards their fellow
animals. This number includes actual mooing, among other tasty aural effects,
and just wait till the burger-chomping critics who found these lads too
'hypersensitive' last year get hold of that!
I dunno, maybe the Smiths were just too charmed by their album's eventual
cover photo - a snap of a Vietnam-era U.S. dogface with 'MEAT IS MURDER'
magic-markered on his helmet - and thus felt that they had to construct first a
song, and then an album, around that found concept. Speaking of concepts, title
songs often beget videos these days, and if the Smiths do their 'Meat Is Murder'
literally, they'll have to call up Bovine Equity and see if the old cow who graced
the jacket of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother is still available for cameos. The
audio-visual possibilities are udderly endless.
OK, now that my kidding's pre-deflected the most obvious critical sarcasm Meat
Is Murder will suggest, let's get down to the real meat - so to speak - of this
album. The best song pops up early on side one in 'Rusholme Ruffians'. (But they
couldn't name the album that, because then the many U.S. K-marts would file it
under 'R' rather than 'S', and how's Casey Kasem ever gonna get the news that
way?) Johnny Marr lays out 'Rusholme Ruffians' as one long Richie Havens-like
guitar strummer, always varied and textured enough to keep you alert and
tapping.
Andy Rourke's bass dips and swoops just like the carnival rides the song
describes; 'from a seat on a whirling waltzer,' Morrissey spins out his bittersweet
nostalgia for an adolescent visit to the last night of a county fair. This provincial
lad was assaulted with intense imagery he can't blink out of his mind's eye later:
'and the grease in the hair/of a speedway operator/is all a tremulous heart
requires'.
Ain't it the truth! You don't have to be gay (thought the provincial part doesn't
hurt) to understand just how randomly and fatally a sexual icon can strike your
naive sensibilities, and from then on you're serving at that altar. Maybe, maybe
not, because even as Morrissey has us convinced how unforgettable that greased
hairdo must be for him, he claims that 'the senses being dulled are mine.' In fact,
'Rusholme Ruffians', like several other songs on this album, has a really nice
chicken & egg ambiguity about the origins of the gayness that colors so many of
Morrissey's lyrics. Which came first back in the dread Manchester - this charming
boy's discovery that he was gay, or his sense that he'd always be an outsider in
any possible context the provinces could offer him? We're not sure, because
probably Morrissey isn't either. All he's certain of is the moment he recognized his
dualistic fate 'On the day that your mentality/catches up with your biolgoy,' as he
describes it in 'I Want the One I Can't Have' - and he goes from there.
Morrissey makes several stabs at understanding his own abnormal sociology in
the other songs on Meat Is Murder, especially in 'The Headmaster Ritual,' further
Manchester autobiography, this time populated by sadistic educators who are
both less sanguine than those recalled by the Kinks, and less fascist than those
vilified by the paranoid Pink Floyd. Morrissey may have an axe to grind, but the
song shines better out of its behind, out of his yodeling chorus and the instant-
addiction hooks of Marr's guitar. In a similar way, 'Barbarism Begins At Home'
cites current abused child theories, and then strikingly illustrates the point with
the sinister sensuality of I'll-tickle-you-until-you-cry guitar from the ever-astute
Marr - guitar that reprises again and again (each time you think it's over).
I'm not even going to bother making the by-now-cliched comparisons between
the Smiths and the Velvet Underground or Television. If you really want to meet
these guy's musical cousins, you'd do well to check out the much-neglected Soft
Cell. The Smiths share more than a U.S. record label with Messrs. Almond and
Ball; both feature a curiously exhilirating, deviance-inspired drone/whine about
the human condition, though Soft Cell express this with urban sythesizers, while
the Smiths choose real guitars and drums befitting their provincial realism. Or
you can trot out the ever-toney literary references: whenever I hear Morrissey
intone <'i am the son/and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally vulgar' in this
set's 'How Soon Is Now,' I inevitably think of another Midlands-bred sensitive son
of an overprotective mother, the amazing D.H. Lawrence.
Morrissey's not quite in that league yet, but as long as he can keep his lonely
stance perfectly aligned with Johnny Marr's guitar scrapings of the month, the
pop possibilities look excellent."
- Richard Riegel, Creem
Nay-Sayers:
"It makes a certain kind of sense to impose teen-macho aggression on your

audience - for better or worse, macho teens are expected to make a thing of their
unwonted hostility. These guys impose their post-adolescent sensitivity, thus
inspiring the sneaking suspicion that they're less sensitive than they come on -
passive-aggressive, the pathology is called, and it begs for a belt in the chops.
Only the guitar hook of 'How Soon Is Now,' stuck on by their meddling U.S. label,
spoils the otherwise pristine fecklessness of this prize-winning U.K. LP.
Remember what the Residents say: 'Hitler was a vegetarian.'" Rating: C
- Robert Cristgau, Creem
Smiths-Speak:
"I must say that the material on the second official LP, which we're recording
right now, is stronger than ever. We're still using the traditional, fundamental
instruments and keeping it very basic."
The title track of your new LP Meat Is Murder seems to be pretty direct.
"Hmm, yes, it is a direct statement. Of all the political topics to be scrutinised
people are still disturbingly vague about the treatment of animals. People still
seem to believe that meat is a particular substance not at all connected to
animals playing in the field over there. People don't realise how gruesomely and
frighteningly the animal gets to the plate..."
- Morrissey, NME, December 22/29, 1984
One memorable couplet from your new record: "A double bed, a stalwart
lover for sure/These are the riches of the poor."
"That came from a sense I had that, trite as it may sound, when people get
married and are getting their flat - not even their house, note - the most
important thing was getting the double bed. It was like the prized exhibit; the
cooker, the fire, everything else came later. In the lives of many working class
people the only time they feel they're the centre of attention is on their wedding
day. Getting married, regrettably is still the one big event in their lives. It's the
one day when they're quite special..."
- Morrissey on "I Want The One I Can't Have", NME, December 22/29,
1984
"When I wrote the words for that, I was just so completely tired of all the same
old journalistic questions and people trying, you know, this contest of wit, trying
to drag me down and prove that I was a complete fake. And I was tired of that
because it just seemed that, like, even the people within popular music, even the
people within the music industry, didn't have that much faith in it as an art form.
And they wanted to really get rid of all these people who are trying to make some
sense out of the whole thing. And I found that really distressing."
- Morrissey on "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore", Melody Maker, March
16, 1985
Where did the image come from on the cover of the LP? That makes a link
between war and, well, meat is murder.
"Yes, it does. And the link is that I feel animal rights groups aren't making any
dramatic headway because most of their methods are quite peaceable, excluding
one or two things. It seems to me now that when you try to change things in a
peaceable manner, you're actually wasting your time and you're laughed out of
court. And it seems to me now that as the image of the LP hopefully illustrates,
the only way that we can get rid of such things as the meat industry, and other
things like nuclear weapons, is by really giving people a taste of their own
medicine."
Several of the songs on the new LP seem to have a much more direct and
stronger narrative line than on the first LP... "Yes, they do. That's certainly there.
I didn't really have any intention of being misunderstood with the words on this
LP. A lot of people wrote about the first LP and they said things that were very
poetic and very interesting and absolutely inaccurate. So I just felt that on this LP
people should really know which hammer I'm trying to nail, as it were."
"The album 'Meat Is Murder' I still rate very highly but again stuff like 'Nowhere
Fast' could have been done better."
"Well, you know what stopped me from eating it were the lyrics for 'Meat Is
Murder'. The actual lyrics. Not so much him saying, 'What're you eating there?'"
"Do you remember when we played it at the Electric Ballroom? It was what we
first came on to when we were supporting The Fall, and Mozzer had been
knocking the red wine back (laughs) and we got out there - first song of the set,
support band, we've got to impress - and it was about 17 minutes long (Rourke
nods sadly). Mozz kept going into that middle bit (sings the yodelling bit). Fuckin'
on and on. Johnny kept coming over and looking at me, and every time he did it I
thought, thank God, he's going to stop it. We were knackered. I started using my
feet to save energy."
- Mike Joyce on the live debut of 'Barbarism Begins At Home', Select,
April 1993
"It's not stood up as well as 'Revolver' but there's some great songs on it.
'Nowhere Fast' is a great song. For a long time 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore'
was my favourite Smiths song, and it's still one of my favourites. 'Well I
Wonder''s on it too. They sum up the atmosphere of The Smiths at the time -
quite bleak."
"My favourite song on that LP now is 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore'. I think
Morrissey is incredible on that, the end is brilliant. 'Well I Wonder' I really like as
well. It's one of those things that a modern group could try and emulate but
never get the spirit of. It's so simple. 'The Headmaster Ritual' was a favourite of
mine for a long time just because I'm really pleased with the guitars on it and the
strange tuning... For my part, 'The Headmaster Ritual' came together over the
longest period of time I've ever spent on a song. I first played the riff to
Morrissey when we were working on the demos for our first album with Troy Tate.
I nailed the rest of it when we moved to Earls Court. That was around the time
when we were being fabulous."
"The Hatful Of Hollow Radio 1 sessions were really just banged out and ended up
sounding great, so I thought, 'Why use a name producer? We'll do it ourselves.' I
really like That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, the title track and The Headmaster
Ritual - as guitar pieces they took me a long time to do, and songs like that don't
come around that often. The nuts and bolts of The Headmaster Ritual came
together during the first album, and I just carried on playing around with it. It
started off as a very sublime sort of Joni Mitchell-esque chord figure; I played it
to Morrissey but we never took it further. Then, as my life got more and more
intense, so did the song. The bridge and the chorus part were originally for
another song, but I put them together with the first part. That was unusual for
me; normally I just hammer away at an idea until I've got a song. It's in open D
turning, with a capo at the second fret. Again, it was heavily overdubbed. It was
a very exciting period for me - realising I could hijack 16 tracks all for myself... In
hindsight, I wasn't happy with the overall sound. I think it's too thin. And
artistically, I think Meat Is Murder is the least successful of all The Smiths'
albums. Some of the songs are just played too fast. That's me - I'm terrible for
just speeding things up. Super hyper!"
"I've got an Epiphone Coronet with one pickup, and I string it with the high
strings from a 12-string set. It's a really zingy, trebly guitar. I used that on a lot
of things that people think are 12-string, like the end of 'The Headmaster
Ritual'... I wrote 'The Headmaster Ritual' on acoustic. It's in an open-D tuning
with a capo at the 2nd fret. I fancied the idea of a strange Joni Mitchell tuning,
and the actual progression is like what she would have done had she been an
MC5 fan or a punk rocker. I knew pretty much what every guitar track would be
before we started. There are two tracks of Martin D-28, and the main riff is two
tracks of Rickenbacker. I wasn't thinking specifically of the Beatles' 'Day Tripper' -
- even though it sounds like it -- but I did think of it as a George Harrison part.
The Rickenbacker belonged to Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music; I'm told that it was
originally owned by Roger McGuinn. All the guitars are in open tuning, except for
one of the chorus guitars, which is done on an Epiphone in Nashville tuning [the
four lower strings tuned an octave above standard pitch], capoed at the 2nd fret."
Shakespeare's Sister
What She Said
Stretch Out And Wait
Released in March, 1985
Yea-Sayers:
"Did I hear a yawn? Yeah, well I know what you mean. We're all sick of
Morrissey's tortured torso gleaming at us from every news-stand and of Johnny
Marr's televised metamorphosis into Keith Richards, but behind all the posturing,
the musical spell remains unbroken. 'Shakespeare's Sister' is a brief, brusque
Diddleybuzz, a determined disturbing of the air after the balmy psychedelic for
that was the beauteous 'How Soon Is Now'. It's just 129 second of our finest
band (still) in a cruising gear, another sliver of greatness. All this and Pat Phoenix
on the sleeve. The yawners want blood."
- Danny Kelly, New Musical Express, March 16, 1985
"Of late, I've found less and less to interest me about the whining anorexic who
fronts this band. It's different now. Marr's guitar here works double time,
everyone thrashes about and even Morrissey's usually vapid wait clutches
purposefully. The man, though, still remains languid despite the breathless pace.
What poise! Now, if his mum could just get him to keep his vest on..."
- Unknown Reviewer
Nay-Sayers:
"Their least spectacular single. Their finest cover star."

Smiths-Speak:
"'Shakespeare's Sister' - regardless of what many people feel - was the song of
my life. I put everything into that song and I wanted it more than anything else
to be a huge success and - as it happens - it wasn't. We can talk about
independents and majors till the end of the day - but ultimately, when you make
a good record, you want it to be heard."
- Morrissey, Record Mirror, August 3, 1985
Why did [Shakespeare's Sister] fail, commercially?
"There's no earthly reason why it should have. The height of suspicion surrounds
the fate of that record."
What do you suspect?
"Many things. I know for a fact it wasn't played on the radio. The record's merits
are irrelevant here. With our status it should have automatically had a high
profile, but it was blacklisted by the BBC because I denounced the BPI awards.
The sinner must be punished... I'm slowly edging away from certain issues... I
think Rough Trade released the record with a monstrous amount of defeatism.
They had no faith in it whatsoever. They liked it but they allowed it to dribble, to
stall. They didn't service it or market it in any way."
"Shakespeare's Sister... That has got one of the best rhythm patterns and
grooves I have ever heard. If Elvis Presley had had Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke
in his band he would have been an even bigger name. I'm sure of it."
"In The Smiths' song, 'Stretch Out And Wait', there is a line 'God, how sex
implores you'. To make choices, to change and to be different, to do something
and make a stand, and I always found that very, very encroaching on any
feelings that I felt that I just wanted to be me, which was somewhere between
this world and the next world, somewhere between this sex and the next sex, but
nothing really political, but nothing really threatening to anybody on earth and
nothing really dramatic. Just being me as an individual and not wishing to make
any elaborate, strangulating statements."
"We were on our way to the studio on Saturday and Morrissey said, 'Look, we
need a song,' and we put it together."
- Johnny Marr on the writing of "Shakespeare's Sister", Record Collector,
November/December 1992
Was the relative chart failure of "Shakespeare's Sister" a key point in your
relationship with Rough Trade?
"Not as much as people have made out. And a lot has been made out of it. It was
a disappointment for me. As a 7" single for the group at that time, it was quite
inventive. There was something about that riff that I always wanted to do. I just
flipped recording it. I really loved doing it. We didn't get much support from
Rough Trade on that one. As with 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', it was a valid 7"
single to own, but maybe not to play on the radio. But that's all right by me. I
was really happy to have certain songs on singles, like "That Joke Isn't Funny
Anymore", 'Shakespeare's Sister', 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' and 'Shoplifters Of
The World Unite', because they were radical rock singles and that suited me. I
was happy just owning it myself, like a lot of the audience were. The fact that we
didn't get onto 'Top Of The Pops' with those records is neither here nor there. I
actually preferred those to the ones that we did get on 'Top Of The Pops'."
That Joke Isn't Funny
Anymore
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Nowhere Fast (Live in Oxford, March 18, 1985)
Stretch Out And Wait (Live in Oxford, March 18, 1985)
Shakespeare's Sister (Live in Oxford, March 18, 1985)
Meat Is Murder (Live in Oxford, March 18, 1985)
Released in July 1985
Yea-Sayers:
"Morrissey trips out again on mellow folkiness. Try to get ahold of the 12" version
because the B-side boasts live versions of 'Nowhere Fast,' 'Stretch Out and Wait,'
'Shakespeare's Sister,' and 'Meat Is Murder' which ably surpass the recorded
versions. Johnny Marr plays with a plectrum plucked straight from heaven."
- Cath Carroll, New Musical Express, June 13, 1985
"Morrissey apparently responds to Daryll and Joe's 'It's Not Funny' on the
Smiths's 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore,' which features a bunch of live takes
including the guilt trip 'Meat Is Murder' on the B-side (Rough Trade import). Is he
trying to put my mother out of a job?..."
- Unknown Critic, Spin
The Boy With The Thorn
In His Side
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

Asleep
Rubber Ring
Released in September, 1985
Yea-Sayers:
"Another incisive little title in true Smiths stylee. And the jaunty toon is nothing
new either, with its guitar laden desire. The B-side's a more intriguing
proposition, with some fragile piano work drifting along."
- Unknown Critic
"The Smiths' new three-cut, non-LP single sounds more like a progress report
than a real 45; 'The Boy With the Thorn in His Side' and 'Rubber Ring' could be
nice, melodic Meat Is Murder album cuts, and 'Asleep' is a naively moving piano
and voice lullaby."
- Unknown Critic, Spin
The Smiths' 'Boy With The Thorn In His Side' finds Morrissey's crooning
(bordering on yodelling this time) wearing thin, but the guitars are a perpetual
marvel."
- Unknown Critic, Creem
Nay-Sayers:
"Stuck in the middle because that's how the record sounds. Seems like Morrissey
himself gives up on the song half-way through when he stops the words and uses
up the rest of the needletime with yodelling. If it's too much to expect a revision
of world music with every record, we could at least ask for something a little less
ennervating.
Turn over and drift off to 'Sleep' with Mo and a careful piano by his kinsman.
Perhaps they have already exhausted their mine. 'The Boy With The Thorn' is a
symptom of how a group try and slow up a brilliant start: its textures are sifted,
better judged than anything they did a year or so ago. But the economy and
energy are swiftly fading. It already seems unlikely that they will ever muster
another 'Hand In Glove'. And the best Smiths song this year is probably Lloyd
Cole's as yet unrecorded 'James'."
- Richard Cook, New Musical Express, September 21, 1985
Smiths-Speak:
"If you listen to The Smiths' The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, the rhythm part
from verse two onwards - that chick-a-chick part - it's pure Nile Rogers..."
"That was the first time I used a Strat on a record. I got it because I wanted a
twangy Hank Marvin sound, but it ended up sounding quite highlify."
Bigmouth Strikes Again

Money Changes Everything
Unloveable
Released in May, 1986
Yea-Sayers:
"The Smiths' self-mockingly-titled 'Big Mouth [sic] Strikes Again' is another

guitar-laden dazzler. How anyone can croon lines like 'Sweetheart, I was only
joking when I said/You should be bludgeoned in your bed' and convey warmth,
vulnerability, and irony at the same time is a continuing mystery. Also check out
the 12-inch's flip, a pretty ballad called 'Unloveable'."
- Creem
"The Smiths' 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' finds Morrissey making the unlikely claim,
'Now I now how Joan of Arc felt,' and moaning, 'I've got no right to take my place
in the human race.' Fortunately, guitarist Johnny Marr kicks ass, and the whole
group rocks harder than they did on the last album."
- Spin
"It's just a very good song. I like it greatly. It really is as simple as that."
- Brian Eno on "Bigmouth Strikes Again", Q, September 1992
Nay-Sayers:
"It's as disappointing as baked beans for Christmas dinner. OK, so the main parts
are all present and correct, but does the light of Sandie's life still expect us to
swallow it whole? 'And now I know how Joan of Arc felt,' he oscillates mildly. On
the evidence, Joan Collins seems more likely."
- Danny Kelly, New Musical Express, May 17, 1986
Smiths-Speak:
"Take 'Bigmouth' - I would call it a parody if THAT sounded less like self-
celebration, which it definitely wasn't. It was just a really funny song - whenever
I heard it on the radio it made me laugh and the same was true of at least half
The Queen Is Dead."
"With 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', I was trying to write my 'Jumping Jack Flash.' I
wanted something that was a rush all the way through, without a distinct middle
eight as such. I thought the guitar breaks should be percussive, not too pretty or
chordal -- I wanted a cheap, Les Paul sort of sound. The main riff is based on an
Am shape, with a capo at the 4th fret. I buried this one little guitar part in just
the right place, so it sounds like overtones of the main part, but it's really there.
On the first of the two breaks, I'm playing slide through an AMS harmonizer,
really high. For the second one, I used a Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty and a
Rickenbacker together, playing a regular Em shape, but it's sampled and
triggered off the snare drum roll. We credited the background vocals to 'Ann
Coates,' but that's a joke -- it's the name of a place in Manchester. It's really
Morrissey's voice, speeded up."
The Queen Is Dead
The Queen Is Dead

Frankly, Mr. Shankly
I Know It's Over
Never Had No One Ever
Cemetry Gates
Vicar In A Tutu
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Released in June 1986
Yea-Sayers:
LONG LIVE THE KING!
THINGS ARE not always as they seem. When The Smiths appeared on Whistle
Test a few weeks ago to promote the 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' single, even their
most committed fan would have been forgiven for thinking that our most eminent
jangling jewels were finally beginning to lapse into self-parody.
There on the screen was the Prince Of Pain, the finest furrowed pate in pop,
replete in the same old faded denims and that bloody awful hearing aid, bleating
on about how he felt like Joan Of Arc and had no right to take his place in the
human race.
Behind him, meanwhile, a four-piece band were coming on like the new Rolling
Stones, all rounded rock maturity and polished cocksure authority. With a crucial
third LP on the horizon, it was as if the skin of their beat had finally fully ripened;
as if they had defined and perfected their musical pitch and lost their hunger,
their need to grow.
But things are not always as they seem. If ‘The Queen Is Dead' arrives in a
climate of such doubt, with the above suspicions compounded by stories of
"personal differences" within the group and problems with their record label
without, it is pleasing to report that it is as exciting and direct a pop or rock
record as we are likely to hear this year - a challenging and often extreme piece
of work.
While their last LP left off with the torpid 'Barbarism Begins At Home' and the
meandering whine of 'Meat Is Murder', 'The Queen Is Dead' goes straight for the
jugular. In becoming what is basically a beat group again, The Smiths have
rediscovered much of the muscular tautness of their earliest session recordings,
the cuts immortalised on the 'Hatful Of Hollow' compilation.
The title track, prefaced with a few bars of Cicely Courtneidge's "take me back to
dear old Blighty", positively erupts into a quasi-rock anthem that Simple Minds or
U2 would probably be proud of. The Queen Is Dead' opens the LP with crashing
chords, rattling tom tom drums and a bassline that pumps like a car jack and
cranks like a spanner, Morrissey's singing scanning brilliantly to counterpoint the
beat. Smiths detractors will often belittle the man's larynx, forever cringing at his
whingeing. What they conveniently overlook is the great sense of timing and
phrasing he brings to his dramatic vocal delivery, his sense of the rhythmic beast
behind him never less than acute.
The Queen Is Dead' is, of course, at least partly allegorical, referring as much to
Morrissey's nostalgic yearning for a certain lost Englishness as to the redundancy
of the monarchy. The miserable undertow to the Morrissey muse is also
introduced in the nagging refrain "life is very long when you're lonely", as is the
sense of humour which provides an often black and farcical antidote throughout
the album: "And so I broke into the palace/With a sponge and a rusty
spanner/She said: ‘I know you and you cannot sing’/I said: ‘That's nothing, you
hear me play the piano’.”
The wit surfaces again on 'Frankly, Mr Shankly’, Morrissey's "fame, fame, fatal
fame” song. Couched as a letter or speech of resignation from a mundane job, its
humour is as much musical as lyrical, the "worker Smiths" Rourke and Joyce
etching out a deliberately hammy helping of cod skank ("reggae is vile",
anyone?), with an ironic nod to northern working club cabaret. If anything, the
track would perhaps have benefited from an even more exaggerated music hall
treatment.
But that is not to fault an unsung rhythm section who maintain an adroit peak of
sustained excellence. For all the tales of dissent in the camp, they remain a fine
bedrock vehicle for Morrissey's lyrical fancies and Marr's flowery colourings.
Any fears that The Smiths' considered return to insidiously catchy, unashamedly
beat roots is being made at the expense of their more melancholic, lilting moods
are dispelled on the haunting 'I Know It’s Over’. Six minutes that stand
comparison with the likes of 'Back To The Old House' and This Night Has Opened
My Eyes', the song is a languid lament that shows The Smiths' more poetic
leanings intact and far from crushed by their new beatbound power.
On an LP of only isolated lowpoints, the nadir of the first side - and indeed the
whole album - is the virtually impenetrable 'Never Had No One Ever' in which the
salty dog seems to think he is 'Sergeant Pepper' or at least an out-take of the
same. A slow, brooding melodrama with dippy psychedelic undertones, it is a
poor man's 'How Soon Is Now’, minus the latter's lyrical charm and alluring Bo
Diddley-esque backbeat.
The following track, in contrast, lies on consecrated ground. ‘Cemetry (sic) Gates'
is set in a graveyard, but its true target is the crime of plagiarism, a tactic just
occasionally employed by the songwriter himself ("talent borrows, genius steals"
is teasingly etched on the run-off groove of the 'Bigmouth' single). And, in
keeping with the tone of musical irony set earlier on 'Frankly, Mr Shankly', the
deft breeziness of the instrumentation - acoustic guitars double and treble
tracked in a jaunty cascade - wittily belies the grave subject matter.
With the exception of 'Meat Is Murder' - recorded and mixed, anyway, in 1984 -
last year was hardly a vintage one for The Smiths. Most worrying was a
discernible fall from grace concerning their position as the nation's most natural
and consistent singles band.
The group's first four singles - 'Hand In Glove', This Charming Man', 'What
Difference Does It Make' and 'Heaven Knows' - formed a staccato quartet of
practically unimpeachable greatness. For an opening salvo, perhaps only the first
four Sex Pistols singles - the only Sex Pistols singles - come close in terms of
their classic worth. But any comparison between that initial run of Smfths-on-45
with their four most recent efforts – ‘That Joke Isn't Funny', 'Shakespeare's
Sister', 'Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and the current 'Bigmouth' - illustrates
just how sharply the standards have fallen. Morrissey made his reputation as one
of the most concise contemporary pop songwriters largely on his skill in the
singles arena, a knack which he seems, at least temporarily, to have lost.
The inclusion, therefore, of the band's last two singles on this LP is not really the
inducement to buy that the sticker on the sleeve suggests: 'Bigmouth' finds
Morrissey at his most testingly wry, but is really little more than Smiths by
numbers; ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' (Ben Wan perhaps?) details a
familiar search for love in a looking glass world, but is a non-song by Smiths
standards.
Better looking by far - in its music, its message and its humour - is the racy 'Vicar
In A Tutu', a song that would have made a great single. A fanciful tale of
transvestism in the clergy that could have been culled from a Carry On film, it
reverberates with some superb quickfire couplets: "As Rose collects the money in
a cannister/Who comes sliding down the bannister?/The vicar in a tutu/He's not
strange/He just wants to live his life this way."
The music is spendidly souped-up rockabilly, guitar man Marr finally rubber-
stamping his metamorphosis from That Chiming Man to The Boy With The Twang
In His Strang. It sometimes seems as if he is delving further back into his
rock'n'roll roots with each successive LP. If last year's 'Rusholme Ruffians'
contained one unashamed reference to a vintage Elvis hit with a guitar riff lifted
straight from 'His Latest Flame', then 'Vicar In A Tutu' contains another, with the
rhythm and tempo of the track harking back to the manic skiffabilly of ‘That's
Alright Mama'.
And if Tutu' steals from the Sun sessions, the subsequent ‘There Is A Light That
Never Goes Out' hijacks a treasured Motown memory, that of Marvin Gaye's
'Hitch Hike' ("talent borrows, genius raids jukeboxes!").
Again, however, Marr's homage to rock history is executed with such fluent
aplomb that the 'musical quotation' dovetails delightfully with the tenor of the
song. The only odd thing is that Marr's musical obsessions should lie so obviously
in rootsy American pop while his singer's cultural ones are so blatantly and
quaintly English. When the two gel, however, they complement brilliantly, and
‘There Is A Light' is another pearl, the flute-like flutterings of Marr's string
arrangement providing the perfect curtain for Morrissey's latest paean to blessed
celibacy.
As an album with humour never far from its surface, it is fitting that ‘The Queen
Is Dead’ should conclude with the clipped, undulating frivolity of 'Some Girls Are
Bigger Than Others', a hypnotic musical travelogue that verges on the
transcendental: "Some girls are bigger than others/Some girls' mothers are
bigger than other girls' mothers." Again, the Morrissey muse and Marr's musical
setting collide marvellously, the track illuminated by some lovely slide guitar from
the latter. It would have made another classic Smiths single.
So ‘The Queen Is Dead' is an excellent record, let down only by one spot of neo-
psychedelic posturing and a couple of mediocre singles. Sure, the age-old
concerns are well to the fore, but they have never been so powerfully or
eloquently expressed. The man-child remains self-obsessed and often wilfully
miserable, but also self-deprecating and often very funny. The band's loyal
legions will love ‘The Queen Is Dead', but even the doubters should find
something in the uncanny catchiness of seven of these ten tracks - a good ratio
by anyone's standards these days.
Maybe the next LP, or perhaps even the forthcoming 'Panic' single, should be the
quantum shift in musical emphasis that some expected from this set. But, for
now, Britain's best band are sticking very agreeably to what they do best, simply
being The Smiths.
As Antony said to Cleopatra as he opened a crate of ale, some albums are better
than others.
- Adrian Thrills, NME, June 14, 1987
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

Writers: Steven Morrissey & Johnny Marr
Original/Definitive version: The Smiths
Available on: The Queen Is Dead (Rough Trade, 1986)
Other versions: Jeff Buckley, To Rococo Rot
"I didn't realise There Is A Light was going to be an anthem," said Johnny Marr,
"but when we first played it, I thought it was the best song I'd ever heard." An
impossibly affecting examination of unrequited love that also contains what Nick
Kent termed "an invocation of a double suicide", it still stands as Morrissey/Marr's
finest moment. It also contained a sly in-joke: it shares its staccato bridge in
common with both the Velvet's There She Goes and the Stones' version of Marvin
Gaye's Hitchhike.
- Mojo, August 2000, voting "There Is A Light..." the 25th Greatest Song Of All-
Time
"With this astonishing record the drama Queen proved he really was King. Only
Prince's 'Parade' was better in 1986."
The Smiths' third 'real' LP, and as they become firmly ensconced in popular
musical history, we're onto gatefold sleeves and wacky introductions courtesy of
Cicely Courtneidge. All, it must be said, pretty par for the course.
What's not par for the course is that this band is still getting better. "What?", I
hear you cry. "They all sound the same by now!" Well in a way, yes they do, but
the reason a small child goes back for its third chocolate milkshake is because it
tastes better than anything else in the shop. It's that simple!
Morrissey and Marr still can't quite get it together all the time, 'Never Had No One
Ever' and 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' bearing all the hallmarks of the
familiar Smiths' filler, where music and words hardly embrace.
But when they do, it's real tongues-down-throats stuff providing some of the
band's finest moments yet, most noticeably on 'Cemetery Gates', an absolute
classic and their best since 'This Charming Man', with Morrissey's chastisement of
plagiarism and fake wordSmiths, while Johnny Marr lays down layer upon layer of
the most beautiful clipped guitar playing you'll hear this year.
Even the peculiar 'Frankly Mr Shankly' makes sense on repeated hearing, its twee
beginnings again bolstered by a swooping Marrism which saves Morrissey's
modern George Formby outing from defeating itself. Perhaps the most welcome
inclusion here is 'I Know It's Over' where Morrissey finally gets around to
delivering a touching and sharp love song, and even though he's still only the
third party he'll cry if he wants to.
That Johnny Marr's talents continue to expand by the month is a sure sign that
there's a lot more to come from this band. He's still the best top and tail
merchant in the business - just listen to his work on 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'.
'The Queen Is Dead' is proof enough that this is still our most charming pop
group. With some of Morrissey's funniest ever lyrics ('Vicar In A Tutu', for
example) and Johnny and the band doing what they're best at, it all adds up to
more than a thousand shamblers could produce in a lifetime. (****1/2)
- Andy Strickland, Record Mirror, June 14, 1986
Despite escalating internal friction, this was the band's most confident and
coherent album yet, and it remains their most critically lauded. Full-sounding and
ambitious, every track is a treasure, though highlights include the acerbic jig,
"Frankly Mr Shankly", the swooningly beautiful "I Know It's Over", the deceptively
breezy "Cemetry Gates" and the roaringly romantic "There Is A Light That Never
Goes Out".
Arguably the best rock album of the Eighties. (*****)
National Anthems "This is neither the time nor the place to indulge in trivial
banter; suffice to say that The Smiths' peculiar career manoeuvres, which have
caused their audience much exasperation of late, are rendered utterly obsolete by
the splendour of The Queen Is Dead, the album which history will in due course
denote as being the key work in forcing the group's philistine opposition to down
chisels and embrace the concept of The Smiths as the one truly vital voice of the
Eighties.
By their third album (I'm not counting Hatful Of Hollow), most groups have
commenced losing thier grip on greatness - but not these young trojans. Indeed,
The Queen... is considerably more substantial than Meat Is Murder, deserting
the latter's occasional sixth-form conceits for a lyrical overview as wickedly droll
as it is devastatingly acute.
The whole of the first side is nothing less than perfection, commencing with a title
track of epic worth. Driven by a vicious drum tattoo, bonecrunching bass and a
snarling viper-like wah-wah guitar vamp, Morrissey unveils a lyric that mixes
verbal slapstick with withering insight to document the hideous reality that
currently exists as a sluttish excuse for dear old Blighty.
'Frankly, Mr Shankly' is an equally robust and adroitly worded piece of Morrissey
autobiography which finds him invoking the ghost of George Formby while Marr
and Co underscore the vaudeville with ingenious tension-and-release dynamics.
'Never Had No One Ever' is, at a guess, Marr's tribute to Raw Power-era
Stooges (with a nod to 'Heartbreak Hotel'), just as 'What She Said' was The
Smiths's musical homage to The MC5. His guitar orchestrations here are
absolutely stunning: each layer finally merging to create an utterly hypnotic
epilogue of a coda.
'Cemetry Gates' is the most pastoral effort here: a gorgeous loping gambol
backing up Morrissey's most elaborate and dexterously rhymed stanzas. After
such triumphs, side two is slightly disappointing to these ears, but there is a
reason for this. 'The Boy With A Thorn In His Side' should not have been included,
I feel ('Unloveable', the giveaway track with the 12-inch of 'Bigmouth' would have
been infinitely preferable), while both 'Bigmouth' itself and the potentially
remarkable 'There Is A Light' - both great songs - simply don't live up to the live
versions performed on the last series of gigs. The latter in particular suffers from
an arrangement utilising synthesised strings and the like, which simply detracts
from the thrust of the performance, making it sound camp, something Morrissey
and Co have to avoid at all costs. 'Vicar In A Tutu' and 'Some Girls Are Bigger
Than Others', sensibly restrained arrangement-wise, may well be lesser songs
but, constructed within their rightful limitations, sound absolutely stunning.
I've saved the best to last. Back to side one, track three. 'I Know It's Over' is
simply the finest piece of music The Smiths have produced. The song is
essentially about loss of innocence or, in my interpretation, of romantic idealism,
and is the first piece of music since Frank Sinatra's 'One For My Baby' to have
brought me to tears. Morrissey has always been pop's most underrated vocalist,
but here his performance is literally devastating. Marr, Rourke, and Joyce keep
things spartan, stripped back, gradually building until the climax affords them the
rein to almost explode. Yet Morrissey's voice is so totally in control of the
dynamics that they shine simply by underpinning his every inflection. The
performance and the song are stunning beyond words.
There's so much that I could write about this record, about The Smiths and why I
still fervently believe they stand head and shoulders above the rest.
Unfortunately, this context is way too limiting to properly express said feelings.
Suffice to say this group is the one crucial hope left in evoking a radical
restructuring of what pop could - nay, should - essentially be evolving towards.
The Queen Is Dead will help bury the one-dimensional misery-guts attitude so
beloved of the group's denigrators, while further displaying to all and sundry the
simple fact that this is essentially music brimming with valorous intent. The
Queen is dead, England in ruins, but here, in the marrow of this extraordinary
music, something precious and inately honourable flourishes. The thrill is here,
right enough."
- Nick Kent
Wilde Night "The Smiths maturing? The idea is intriguing. The possibilities for
improvement are there, but how's this going to affect frontguy Morrissey, you
might wonder. He's come on like an observant innocent from the start and his
honest petulance has been part of his appeal for his sizable cult audience, even
as it turns off others. His slightly larger/stranger than life image is part of what's
helped the Smiths rise above the pack of post-Orange Juice
hummable/strummables who've been showing up all over the British Isles during
the past few years. What if he should (shudder) grow up or what if he gets so
crazy he scares everyone away?
Well, if he walks the line between innocence and knowledge, acknowledging both
seriousness and silliness he'll be able to do more albums like this one. Real
emotions and outlandish notions are coupled in new ways here; lyrics and
melodies parry at cross purposes or play with listeners' expectations. The Smiths
certainly have a unique perspective, yet they're also part of the healthy heritage
of rock eccentrics; one can imagine a slab of prime period Ray Davies, liberally
seasoned with Cale and Cohen, being served up on a platter such as this.
Maturity affects different areas of the group in different ways. From a production
standpoint, the rhythm section has much more punch and presence than on last
year's Meat Is Murder, and the band as a whole sounds more forceful, even
when guitarist/co-writer/co-producer Johnny Marr is only strumming chords.
Now, Marr remains a master of melody - to say he gives good chord progression
would be giving him short shrift - as well as being among the most self-effacing
lead guitarists in rock. With these guys, you always hear the song first, not a
guitar lick. Since they're also pop magpies of the first order, you'll hear bits and
pieces of pop's past sprinkled throughout their arrangements as well, providing
oblique bits of fun and ironic reference points.
They mix it up all sorts of ways these days. The melody and mood of 'Cemetry
Gates' are upbeat, yet you're left asking yourself why Morrissey finds it so natural
to go to the graveyard to discuss poetry on a 'dreaded sunny day.' The absurdity
of authority is taken to task in an ultracivilized manner on the first two tunes, but
by the time we get around to side two's rockabilly-fueled 'Vicar in a Tutu,' their
lampooning has gotten downright loony.
Not even their trademark melancholia escapes without a tickle or two. Oh, it's left
alone with a gorgeous melody on 'I Know It's Over' but it's not allowed to take
itself too seriously on 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'.
'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' unites both their up and down sides,
adding several twists to typical teen gotta-get-outta-the-house traumas. After
insisting that, 'it's not my home, it's their home,' the passenger/singer steps
aside as the drummer quotes the break in 'Hitch Hike,' only to return with this
jaunty chorus: 'And if a double decker bus/Crashes into us/To die by your
side/Such a heavenly way to die.'
Right. Well, it's strange. It's catchy. It's cute. And it's the Smiths. But if it's
maturity, hey, can senility be far behind?"
- Michael Davis, Creem
"How about those Smiths, huh? Their last LP, Meat Is Murder, debuted at
Numero Uno on the British charts and guess who they bumped? Boss
Springsteen! What, some skinny British vegetarian taking on Max Weinberg's
snare drum? You've got to be kidding.
But Meat, with its Celtic guitars, skiffle rhythms, Anglicized rockabilly, and music
hall bellowings was straight 'Born in the U.K.' material. The songwriting was
everything you liked about the British Empire - Mungo Jerry, Gilbert and Sullivan,
Tommy Steele, and Poly Styrene - all layered under the gab and whine of a
Manchester eccentric. Then, after Meat conquered the Isles, the Smittys crossed
the ocean for an uneventful American tour during which lead singer Morrissey
railed against the insufferability of both the human condition and various record
executives.
Now, the Smiths are back with a new LP, The Queen Is Dead, and the group
has a few more quid to spread around the studio. As a result, Johnny Marr's
musical contribution is beautifully documented. The guitar-synth arrangements
are thematic ('Never Had No One' [sic]), subtly shaded ('The Boy With the Thorn
in His Side'), and often exciting ('The Queen Is Dead' and 'Some Girls Are Bigger
Than Others').
No doubt for some the enjoyment stops with Marr. Morrissey's operetta-style
delivery and polemic lyrics have lost a few listeners. But before you snap on the
vocal eliminator, let's give the guy a chance. The sound of his chosen vocabulary
sits well atop the Marr concoctions. His wordplay is excessive, but that's what
they're into over there in England. If you sift through the early writings of Oscar
Wilde, you end up with a few gems at best. Ditto for Morrissey on Queen: 'As I
climb into an empty bed/Oh well, enough said' ('I Know It's Over'); 'I never had
no one, ever' ('Never Had No One' [sic]); 'And now I know how Joan of Arc felt/As
the flames rose to her Roman nose/And her Walkman started to melt' ('Bigmouth
Strikes Again').
Now, I'm not saying he's John Lennon, and I'm not saying he's the Monkees. But
you gotta admire a guy who can rhyme 'rusty spanner' with 'play pianner' and
who can espouse the beauty of a double-decker bus collision. The only place
where the Big M falters is his deathbed recollection on 'I Know It's Over'. This
kind of testimonial is best left in the more experienced hands of an Alan Vega.
But Queen is a successful outing. It's memorable in a minor-league way and if
nothing else it demonstrates that most admirable trait about the Smiths and
about Brit rock in general - the wonderful breeding and development of those
two-headed songwriting units. There's something inspiring about these UK teams
- Lennon and McCartney, Lennox and Stewart, Jagger and Richards, Godley and
Creme - these bonded mates who seem to weather thick and thin for the sake of
the song. That's why even the breakup of Wham! had its sad side. Over here in
the USA, it's more like every man for himself. So if the Smiths put you uptight,
loosen up and give 'em a little room to breathe. Remember, they're different over
there in England."
- Rich Stim, Spin
"Ya gotta say this about the Smiths' hyper-romantic bard Morrissey - he's not
afraid of criticism. On the title track of his band's third and most accomplished
album, he breaks into the Royal Palace only to be told by her Majesty, 'Eh, I know
you, and you cannot sing.' In the Kinks-like music hall refrain 'Frankly, Mr.
Shankly,' Morrissey takes his own writing to task: 'I didn't realize wrote such
bloody awful poetry.' For confessions like 'Bigmouth Strikes Again,' 'Vicar In A
Tutu' and the single, 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side,' the singer/songwriter
deflates his own pretensions by playing the divine fool.
After an impressive debut and eccentric successor (Meat Is Murder, the Smiths
figure to follow fellow arena-rockers U2, Simple Minds and Tears For Fears into
the big time.
The Queen Is Dead melds polish with power, and despite Morrissey's modesty
about his vocal ability, his nasal plaints are developing into a distinctive croon.
From the slow, dreamy ballad 'I Know It's Over,' to the sing-song twang of 'Vicar
In A Tutu' and the jaunty nursery rhyme verse of 'Frankly, Mr. Shankly,' he
exhibits an expressive range previously only hinted at.
If Morrissey is one of rock's more evocative voices, his partner, guitarist and
musical director Johnny Marr, has turned into a composer adept at building the
perfect mise-en-scene to surround it. Morrissey's otherworldly mournfulness is
reflected in the lush backdrops of the mostly instrumental 'Never Had No One
Ever' and the life-after-death celebration of 'There Is A Light That Never Goes
Out' (the LP's next single).
What I like best about the Smiths is that people either love 'em or hate 'em. Too
many of the latter trip over Morrissey's effete politics and droning fatalism, and
miss the pie-in-the-face sensibility that has defined U.K. popular culture since
before the Beatles injected rock. For the rest of us, Morrissey's antic disposition
(the vicar in the tutu, the boy with the thorn in his side) is displayed with such
unabashed gusto, it's impossible not to smile, even as he stands on the edge of a
bottomless precipice.
'So easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind,' he
sings to his critics in 'I Know It's Over'. Turning to his public he asks, 'And if they
don't believe me now, will they ever believe me?'
Well, they should. The Queen Is Dead. Long live the Smiths."
- Roy Trakin, Musician
"'Has the world changed/Or have I changed?' Morrissey asks on 'The Queen Is
Dead,' the opening cut on the Smiths' third U.S. album, and for once it's not a
rhetorical question. Not that he's forsaken his hobbies or anything: this LP has
songs about being buried alive, picknicking in cemeteries, Mom, Oscar Wilde, and
the comforts of total isolation. There's no mistaking Morrissey's Edith Piaf-on-the-
dole vocals or Johnny Marr's wall o' guitars, but the Smiths sound different
somehow - self-assured instead of self-obsessed.
It's hard to imagine Morrissey poking fun at himself, but here's the same self-
righteous lettucehead of Meat Is Murder singing a song called 'Bigmouth Strikes
Again'. As pedaled guitars stretch and yawn (wah-WAH) through tumbling drums,
Morrissey comes clean, acknowledging how an articulate wit can slip into
glibness. He seems to have opened his eyes a bit, or at least the windows of his
bed-sit.
'The Queen Is Dead' parodies media fascination with the royal family over
bombastic guitar bursts and an aggressive bass line, while 'Frankly, Mr. Shankly'
is a lark, an ambitious gofer's resignation set to a light, Kinks-like shuffle. 'Vicar
In A Tutu' has a countrified steel guitar wildly inappropriate to Morrissey's very
English diction, but that twang does render the song's central image indelible: a
preacher raging behind the pulpit in full drag. What would Johnny Cash make of
that?
As expected, Morrissey dons his misery-goat costume for 'I Know It's Over' and
'Never Had No One Ever' (except for Mom, natch). But when he's at his most
pretentious, pitting Wilde against Keats and Yeats in a battle of the bards on
'Cemetry Gates,' Morrissey sounds clearer and more melodic than ever before,
wafting unlikely lines to high heaven. Like it or not, this guy's going to be around
for a while."
- Mark Coleman, Rolling Stone
"The Smiths? Aren't they that depresso band with that miserable moaner
Morosey? Nay, sweetness, these are The Smiths with the gorgeous guitar of
Johnny Marr ('The Boy With The Thorn In His Side,' 'Bigmouth Strikes Again,'
everything else). This is Morrissey, with a voice able to leap from a sob to a
yodel, singing poetry - not mere lyrics - that is funny, sarcastic and yes,
miserable. But The Smiths handle their heartbreak so delicately, you're
surrounded by the feelings, rather than Kleenex, of this stark raving beauty."
- Suzan Colon, Star Hits
"Also coming from across the pond, and also reasonably controversial, are the
Smiths, whose new album The Queen Is Dead is without a doubt the best thing
they've ever done. The Smith's [sic] Morrisey [sic] may be one of the world's
more unloveable, holier-than-thou, militant vegetarians, but this asexual snob
can sure sling a lyric. On 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side,' he may even have
written a chartable single - that is, if the dear man approved of such fascist
atrocities as hit singles."
- Pulse
"After disliking their other albums instantly, I was confused enough by my instant
attraction to table the question, especially since I had no stomach for the
comparisons I knew the answer would entail. And indeed, I still can't stand the
others. But here Morrissey wears his wit on his sleeve, dishing the queen like
Johnny Rotten never did and kissing off a day-job boss who's no Mr. Selleck. This
makes it easier to go along on his moonier escapades, like when he reveals that
looks and fame don't guarantee a good social life. Which gives you time to notice
the tunes, the guitars, the backup munchkins."
-Robert Christgau, Creem
Smiths-Speak:
"Of course, there were times when things were going well... when we finished The
Queen Is Dead; I think that was the best LP we ever made."
- Johnny Marr, NME, June 24th, 1989
"The Queen Is Dead was quite a haphazard process. It was recorded all over the
place. It was a few tracks done here, then a break, and we did some more tracks.
It's turned out to be, you know, like you see in the press, one of the best albums
of all time, yet at the time we were doing it, we didn't know we were heading off
into this huge masterpiece. It seemed to be quite relaxed."
- Stephen Street, Q, January, 1994
"Will the new stuff be radically different? Yes. There is the single which will
probably be 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and then the album which we
have pretty much got in hand and which will undoubtedly shock a lot of people.
Well, let's hope so. From a purely personal point of view there will be a move
away from the old jingly-jangly guitars of old. Everyone knows I can do that. I
know I can do it, probably better than anyone else and by that I mean guitar
playing with hooks and melodies. That doesn't mean that there will be less guitar
playing on the album. By no means! It just means I will be playing different kinds
of stuff, stuff very much in the R & B groove, not unlike the groove of, say,
'Shakespeare's Sister'."
- Johnny Marr forecasts 'The Queen Is Dead', Melody Maker, August 2,
1985
"I didn't want to attack the monarchy in a sort of beer monster way but I find as
time goes by this happiness we had slowly slips away and is replaced by
something that is wholly grey and wholly saddening. The very idea of the
monarchy and the Queen of England is being reinforced and made to seem more
useful than it really is."
- Morrissey on "The Queen Is Dead" New Musical Express, June 7, 1986
"Yes... fame, fame, fatal fame can play hideous tricks on the brain. It really is so
odd, and I think I've said this before - God I suddenly sounded like Roy Hattersly
- when one reaches so painfully for something and suddenly it's flooding over
one's body, there is pain in the pleasure. Don't get me wrong, I still want it, and I
still need it but... Even though you can receive 500 letters from people who will
say that the record made me feel completely alive - suddenly doing something
remarkably simple like making a candle can seem more intriguing in a perverted
sense than writing another song. But what is anything without pain?"
- Morrissey on "Frankly Mr Shankly", New Musical Express, June 7, 1986
"The whole idea of womanhood is something that to me is largely unexplored. I'm

realising things about women that I never realised before and 'Some Girls' is just
taking it down to the basic absurdity of recognizing the contours to one's body.
The fact that I've scuttled through 26 years of life without ever noticing that the
contours of the body are different is an outrageous farce!"
"On The Queen Is Dead, 'Never Had No One Ever', there's a line that goes 'When
you walk without ease/on these/the very streets where you were raised/I had a
really bad dream/it lasted 20 years, seven months and 27 days/Never had no one
ever'. It was the frustration that I felt at the age of 20 when I still didn't feel easy
walking around the streets on which I'd been born, where all my family had lived
- they're originally from Ireland but had been here since the Fifties. It was a
constant confusion to me why I never really felt 'This is my patch. This is my
home. I know these people. I can do what I like, because this is mine.' It never
was. I could never walk easily."
"It was always about ten, 15 minutes long. It just happened in the studio, didn't
it? It was like a Beatles mad 'I Am The Walrus' metal jam... That track was done
right at the end of the sessions, wasn't it? Mozz didn't even have a title for the
album at that stage..."
- Andy Rourke on "The Queen Is Dead", Select, April 1993
"'Vicar In A Tutu' was another one. Johnny had this riff, where he and Morrissey
had worked on it I don't know, but Morrissey's looking through the window and
we're playing away there and Mozz is going (look of extreme satisfaction). Yep,
again, again, yep, this is it, this is the one. But that song's all over the place, all
over the place."
Andy Rourke: "I think if we'd had a string quartet at the time we would have used
it. But the fact that there was a keyboard there at the time... We just made it
sound as real as possible. Didn't we give it a jokey name?"
Mike Joyce: "Orchestrazia Ardwick. No, hang on that was 'Strangeways' (Smiths
fact: it was The Hated Salford Ensemble, actually)... 'The Queen Is Dead' is my
favourite album actually because around that time we were so fuckin' tight.
Johnny was never out of the studio. I think he worked hardest on that album out
of everything we did."
- Select, April 1993
"'The Queen Is Dead' is more memorable because we took it on tour to America

and round Europe and exciting, whereas 'Strangeways' we never got to tour with.
I'm sure it would have worked with an audience."
- Andy Rourke, Select, April 1993
So, 'The Queen Is Dead'. Your supposed masterpiece. You're not so sure, are
you?
"No, it's not that. It's the way that people just follow popular press opinion
without listening for themselves. It might be the best thing we did. But if you're
talking about that, you've got to look at 'Louder Than Bombs' cos we were a good
singles group. Singles were very important to us. But 'The Queen Is Dead' made
me ill. I was working impossible hours, I never saw daylight. But I had to get
totally absorbed in it. I knew exactly what I had to do to make that record and it
was a matter of putting myself on the edge, getting into insane mental states.
The most recent Smiths track which I've listened to was 'Never Had No-One
Ever,' and I'd forgotten how good it was. But that came from the mad self-
absorption that we were into . I knew at that time that I had to make what was
to me a great piece of art. To me there was no difference between the pressure I
was under and the pressure Charlie Parker or Keith Richard or Lenny Bruce was
under. Which might sound pretentious for someone who's supposed to be a
down-to-earth Manchester lad, but I've never been that down-to-earth. I don't
care too much for being down-to-earth."
"The song 'The Queen Is Dead' I really like. I used to like the MC5 and The
Stooges and it's as good if not better than anything The Stooges ever did. It's got
energy and aggression in that kind of garagey way. I didn't realise that 'There Is
A Light' was going to be an anthem but when we first played it I thought it was
the best song I'd ever heard. There's a little in-joke in there just to illustrate how
intellectual I was getting. At the time everyone was into the Velvet Underground
and they stole the intro to 'There She Goes' - da da da-da, da da-da-da, Dah
Dah! - from the Rolling Stones version of 'Hitchhike,' the Marvin Gaye song. I just
wanted to put that in to see whether the press would say, Oh it's the Velvet
Underground! Cos I knew that I was smarter than that. I was listening to what
The Velvet Underground was listening to."
"If we needed some songs fast, then Morrissey would come round to my place
and I'd sit there with an acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder. 'There Is A Light
That Never Goes Out' was done that way, and so was 'Frankly Mr Shankly'."
- Johnny Marr, Record Collector, November/December, 1992
"It was really tough. I knew we were working on something really good. There
was a feeling in the studio that we were at an important point in our career. It
was so difficult. It polarized my life. I remember one time when Andy was in the
studio in the live room, trying to play a bass part, and I was coaxing and coercing
him into doing what I wanted and needed. The phone rang, and it was a guy, Jay,
from Rough Trade, saying that Salford Van Hire had been on to him and they
were going to press charges because one of the roadies had not brought the van
back from a previous session and it was scratched. I was dealing with Jay on the
phone, dealing with Andy on the other side of the glass, and meanwhile I was
trying to come up with the middle eight for the song that we were working on. I
was having to take care of that side of the group far too much. What I do
remember about 'The Queen Is Dead' was that it was the first time I started to
disappear. At the end of each day, I would disappear and work on the next day's
recording - honing songs and overdubs on my own. Mike and Andy and the
roadies would party and have a good time or go somewhere."
Did you consider "The Queen Is Dead" to be your finest achievement?
"I did at the time. Now I say you can't ignore our singles entity. In order to do
that, maybe you have to take 'Louder Than Bombs'. You can't just say, 'Listen to
"The Queen Is Dead" if you want to know about that group'.
You have to know about our singles philosophy.
The title track of "The Queen Is Dead" was obviously influenced by the Stooges
and the MC5.
"Yes, I just traced it back. It was Morrissey's idea to include 'Take Me Back To
Dear Old Blighty' and he said, 'I want this on the track'. But he wasn't to know
that I was going to lead into the feedback and drum rolls. It was just a piece of
magic. I got the drum riff going and Andy got the bass line, which was one of his
best ever and one that bass players still haven't matched. I went in there with all
the lads watching and did the take and they just went, 'Wow'. I came out and I
was shaking. When I suggested doing it again, they just said, 'No way! No way!'
What happened with the feedback was I was setting my guitar up for the track
and I put it onto a stand and it was really loud. Where it hit the stand, it made
that note of feedback. I did the guitar track, put the guitar on the stand, and
while we were talking, it was like, 'Wow, that sounded good'. So I said, 'Right -
record that!' It was going through a wah-wah from the previous take, so I just
started moving the wah-wah and it was getting all these different intervals, and it
definitely added a real tension. I loved Morrissey's singing on that, and the words.
But it was very MC5. Morrissey has a real love for that music as well. I remember
him playing the Ramones as much as he played Sandie Shaw."
Were there any other tracks on "The Queen Is Dead" or moments that particularly
struck you?
"Morrissey's vocal on 'I Know It's Over' - I'll never forget when he did that. It's
one of the highlights of my life. It was that good, that strong. Every line he was
hinting at where he was going to go. I was thinking, 'Is he going to go there? Yes,
he is!' It was just brilliant."
"I know that some things we did are not as good as they're remembered. 'The
Queen Is Dead' is not our masterpiece. I should know. I was there. I supplied the
sandwiches... And the way I feel about The Smiths and the way Johnny feels are
in accordance. We both sit down and think about 'The Queen Is Dead' and a giant
question mark appears."
"I'd done the rhythm track for The Queen Is Dead, and left the guitar on the
stand. The wah pedal just happened to be half open, and putting the guitar down
made the guitar suddenly hit off this harmonic. We were back at the desk playing
back the rhythm track and I could still hear this harmonic wailing away, so we put
the tape back onto record while I crept back into the booth and started opening
up the wah-wah, thinking 'Don't die, don't die!' Eventually I opened up the pedal,
and 'Wooooohhhhhh!' Kept it going, too. Great accident... Sonically we got it
right, but it was a very dark album that came out of a very dark period. I
remember, when I was a kid, bands used to describe album environments as
being very womb-like, which always fascinated me as an idea... now I know!
Once was enough, making an album like that - I was really putting myself out on
the edge. I know that sounds very humourless, and we did have a good time
making it, but it was a bit like that. We had no manager, so me and Morrissey
were trying to run the whole band, plus we were still on an independent label, but
out of all that adversity we still managed to make this great album. A song like
Never Had No One Ever could only have come out of that mindset - fucked-up."
"When we signed with Rough Trade we were being hailed as The Great New
Songwriters, and I was on the train coming back thinking, 'Right, if you're so
great - first thing in the morning, sit down and write A Great Song.' I started with
Cemetry Gates' BM to G change in open G..."
"The Queen Is Dead is certainly the best LP we made, the most focused from
start to finish. It was a dark point in my life but creatively, it made for something
really brilliant. I try to take care of myself and live in the real world, but some of
my best work has been produced when I wasn't in the real world. Pop music isn't
worth killing yourself for, but when you do something extra-special, it's almost
worth it... For the frenzied wah-wah section on 'The Queen Is Dead,' I was
thinking '60s Detroit, like the MC5 and the Stooges."
Panic
Panic
Vicar In A Tutu
The Draize Train
Released in July 1986
Yea-Sayers:
Smiths of the Week

"Just when you thought it was safe to write off The Smiths as the ultimate albums
band, here comes 'Panic' to re-establish Morrissey and Marr as undisputed
champions of pop's most vital artform. As well as being throughly superior to the
rest of this week's crop, 'Panic' should also finally knock the dour bastards myth
on the head once and for all. The very thought of Morrissey ever getting involved
in anything more dangerous than a nosebleed is funny enough, but when he
brings the young lad in at the end for the 'hang the deejay' chant, it's impossible
not to join in and echo the sentiments of anyone who has ever once attended a
youth club disco. 'The music that they constantly play says nothing to me about
my life,' croons Mo, but a few blasts of 'Panic' and that particular situation will
soon be put to rights. Johnny Guitar hasn't sounded as damned EMPHATIC since
'Hand In Glove' and with 'Vicar in a Tutu' and a ludicrous instrumental funk
workout on the 12-inch, it sounds as if The Smiths are back with a vengeance.
Brillliant."
- Unknown Reviewer
"This is the first Smiths single that uses a different tune and manages to avoid
both ropey introspection and clever-clever adolescent poetry. Now it seems my
goading has borne fruit."
- Steven Wells, New Musical Express, June 26, 1986
Smiths-Speak:
"The influence of T-Rex is very profound on certain songs of The Smiths i.e.
"Panic" and "Shoplifters". Morrissey was himself also mad about Bolan. When we
wrote "Panic" he was obsessed with "Metal Guru" and wanted to sing in the same
style. He didn't stop singing it in an attempt to modify the words of "Panic" to fit
the exact rhythm of "Metal Guru". He also exhorted me to use the same guitar
break so that the two songs are the same!!!"
- Johnny Marr, Les Inrockuptibles, 4/21/99
"'Panic' came about at the time of Chernobyl. Morrissey and myself were listening
to a Newsbeat radio report about it. The stories of this shocking disaster comes to
an end and then immediately we're off into Wham's 'I'm Your Man'. I remember
actually saying 'what the fuck has this got to do with people's lives?' And so 'hang
the blessed DJ'. I think it was a great lyric, important and applicable to anyone
who lives in England. I mean, even the most ardent disco fan wouldn't want to be
subject to that stuff would they?"
- Johnny Marr, New Musical Express, February, 1987
Didn't some say 'Panic' was slightly similar to T Rex's 'Metal Guru'?
"Well, it was whispered somewhere in the corridors of the British Isles, I can't
remember where, but... I don't know, everything has its reference points, I
suppose. Like the clothes we wear have their reference points... I thought the
song was extremely funny, I really did. And I thought it was extremely funny to
hear it on national daytime radio on the few occasions it was actually played in
the mish-mash of monstrous morbidity... I think it was quite amusing -- a tiny
revolution in its own sweet way."
- Morrissey, Record Mirror, 2/14/87
"I liked the film for 'Panic' that was made by Derek Jarman. It had a nice intensity
about it."
- Morrissey, Creem, July, 1987
"I was... asked to write words for... 'The Draize Train', which I thought was the
weakest thing Johnny had ever done. Geoff Travis came to see me one day with
the tape of it and said, 'It's the best thing Johnny's written and it's a Number One
single if you put words to it'. But I said, 'No, Geoff, it's not right'. So, yes, there
was pressure to write lyrics, but I thought they were better as they were."
"I've got an Epiphone Coronet with one pickup, and I string it with the high
strings from a 12-string set. It's a really zingy, trebly guitar. I used that on a lot
of things that people think are 12-string... I also used it on the studio version of
'The Draize Train,' along with two Rickenbackers. I was working with Alan Rogan,
the famed English guitar technician. He said, 'Well, if you want a Pete Townshend
sound, I'll bring down two of Pete's guitars.' I don't know whether Pete knows
about that!"
"To those who took offence at the 'burn down the disco' line I'd say -- please
show me the black members of New Order! For me, personally, New Order make
great disco music, but there's no black people in the group. The point I'm making
is that you can't just interchange the words 'black' and 'disco', or the phrases
'black music' and 'disco music'. It makes no earthly sense... 'Panic' came about at
the time of Chernobyl. Morrissey and myself were listening to a Newsbeat radio
report about it. The story about this shocking disaster comes to an end and then,
immediately, we're off into Wham!'s 'I'm Your Man'.
I remember actually saying 'what the fuck has this got to do with peoples' lives?'
We hear about Chernobyl, then, seconds later, we're expected to be jumping
around to 'I'm Your Man'... And so -- 'hang the blessed DJ'. I think it was a great
lyric, important and applicable to anyone who lives in England. I mean, even the
most ardent disco fan wouldn't want to be subjected to that stuff, would they?"
- Johnny Marr, NME, February, 1987
Ask
Ask
Cemetry Gates
Golden Lights
Released in October 1986
Yea-Sayers:
"The guitars fill my head with a rising, golden bliss that never peaks or bursts.
And then - major shock, this - enter Morrissey with something approaching a pro-
sex statement: 'If there's something you'd like to try/Ask me/I won't say no/How
could I?', although 'If it's not love/It's the bond that will bring us together' must
be the chastest plea to be molested ever. 'Nature is a language/Can't you read
it?' How is it that so many can be so fascinated by the state of one man's, er,
physical being? With its chugging beat and Kirsty McColl harmonies, this is
perhaps their closest approach to commercial lusciousness. I prefer their
moments of reproachful, avenging misery myself, like 'How Soon Is Now' - this is
a little unfraught, a bit too sunny. But then, as someone who can be brought to
tears by 'The Queen Is Dead', I'm beyond impartiality and detachment. Pop has
always been about such infatuated, mad allegiance. 'Ask' is unavoidably Single Of
The Week. Out in a fortnight."
- Unknown Critic
"The word is gnomic. Perhaps I should join all you thousands in pondering those
inscrutable epigrams. 'Ask' sounds lovely in the kinda-folk, kinda-high-life manner
we know and love so well and that's enough for me."
- Mat Snow, New Musical Express, October 18, 1986
"I don't know... is this one of those skinny white English junkie bands? Am I hip
enough to like this? Ooooooh, nice chorus: 'If it's not love, then it's the bomb that
will bring us together.' Gee, I'd sure like to hang out with these guys - I bet
they're a laugh a minute.
On a scale of one to ten, I'd have to say this record is swell."
- Weird Al Yankovich, Guest Reviewer, Star Hits
Nay-Sayers:
"No, Morrissey, you tell me. I've never been able to figure out why you and your
merry men did so well. 'Ask', your latest, hovers reasonably, but when it
dissolves into silence, why is there no feeling of warmth left behind, nothing to let
me know that I've spent a couple of minutes in your presence? I think Smiths
records are lonely places to be. I'm not frightened or impressed by the solitude
they conjure up, just bored."
- Unknown Critic
Smiths-Speak:
"... it was quite crucial to release a single that was a slight antidote to 'Panic',
because if the next single had been a slight protest, regardless of the merits of
the actual song, people would say, 'Here we go again.' That's why we put out
'Ask'. The idea there is... Well, restraint is a decent thing really, but it's nice to
throw caution to the wind as well -- to jump in at the deep end."
- Morrissey, Record Mirror, 2/14/87
"Yeah, that [recording 'Golden Lights'] was another low point. Those are the two
low points of our recording career, certainly. They're really inferior, and don't
deserve a place alongside our own material."
- Johnny Marr discussing "Golden Lights" and "Work Is A Four Letter
Word", Record Collector, November/December 1992
"On 'Ask,' Craig Gannon and I are playing Martin acoustics. I play the G-Am-C-D
progression on a Rickenbacker 330. The highlify part is played on a '63 Strat. I'm
also vamping on a G harmonica through a Urei Boom Box, an early '70s piece of
outboard gear that we also used a lot on guitars, as well. It's like one of those
vulgar 'loudness' buttons on a hi-fi. It pushes things slightly out of phase, but
gives them a bottomy, dense sound., It's a big chrome box with one knob:
'intensity.' Hey, maybe one of the readers can write in and tell us about it."
Shoplifters
Of The
World Unite
Shoplifters Of The World Unite

Half A Person
London
Released in January, 1987
Yea-Sayers:
"The Smiths return to the reverb-of-doom guitars of the mighty 'How Soon Is
Now' for the murky 'Shoplifters of the World Unite,' while the flip's 'Half A Person'
sounds like it's mocking Morrissey's miserabilism and is quite pretty as well."
- Creem
"'Shoplifters...' is the last oasis on The Smiths' journey, a great record (maybe
their last?), a big hit, and, almost inevitably, site for further aggravation... One
publicity-starved Tory MP decides that the record - an attack on plagiarism -
actually encourages real-life supermarket-looting, and calls, in the House of
Commons, for its withdrawal."
Nay-Sayers:
"This record might be the stuff of tragi-comedy, but the funereal tune with
cumbersome guitars and world-weary singing kills any irony that may be hidden
in the lyrics."
- Michele Kirsch, New Musical Express, January 31, 1987
Smiths-Speak:
"I've played 'Shoplifters of the World Unite' on this tour too. It's one of my all
time favorite songs, a great song that means so much to me."
- Morrissey, RTE Guide, January 19, 1996
"Very, very witty single and a great moment for the Smiths in England. I think it
was probably the best days of our career. It was just a very funny time and a
time of very sparky rebellion, and this song, more than any, I think, exemplifies
that. I like it."
- Morrissey interviewed by Richard Blade, KROQ, July, 1997
"Me and Morrissey would just disappear. Some of my favourite songs came about
that way, like 'Half A Person'. We just locked ourselves away and did it. In the
time it takes to play it, I wrote it. Morrissey was great in that respect. He knew
when I was going to play something good."
"You can hear Nils Lofgren's influence on me in the solo on Shoplifters Of The
World Unite. That's all done with false harmonics, which is a steel player's
technique: you touch the strings with a right-hand finger an octave higher than
where you're fretting, and then pluck the string with your thumb."
"I like the [guitar break] in 'Shoplifters' -- that was the first time I used
harmonizing layering. People have said it sounds like Brian May, but I was
thinking of stacked Roy Buchanans."
Sheila Take A Bow
Sheila Take A Bow

Is It Really So Strange?
Sweet And Tender Hooligan
Released in April 1987
Yea-Sayers:
"An adequate rather than a particularly inspired Smiths single that still shreds the
rest of the week's pop dross. With Candy Darling on the cover, this is, as always,
the sleeve of the week."
- Donald McRae, New Musical Express, April 18, 1987
Nay-Sayers:
"...their poorest seven-inch to date."

- Danny Kelly, NME
"Not their finest hour, though it can hardly be described as dull."

- Dylan Jones, i-D
Smiths-Speak:
Interviewer: Do you have a particular Camp Hall of Fame or heroes?

"Yes I do. Candy Darling, she was the cover of 'Sheila Take A Bow'. To be able to
inflict Candy Darling on the record buying public was a perfect example of my
very dangerous sense of humour."
- Morrissey, NME, 2/25/89
Louder Than Bombs
Is It Really So Strange? (Peel Session, December 17, 1986)

Sheila Take A Bow
Shoplifters Of The World Unite
Sweet And Tender Hooligan (Peel Session, December 17,
1986)
Half A Person
London
Panic
Girl Afraid
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby
Ask
Golden Lights
Oscillate Wildly
These Things Take Time
Rubber Ring
Back To The Old House
Hand In Glove
Stretch Out And Wait
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
This Night Has Opened My Eyes (Peel Session, September 21,
1983)
Unlovable
Released in May, 1987

Yea-Sayers:
Originally a US-only, double Best Of drawn from the two UK compilations, plus
the bonus of the stomping glam single, "Sheila Take A Bow", the elegaic "Half A
Person" and the hilarious North/South travelogue, "Is It Really So Strange?",
Rough Trade gave this a domestic release to combat overpriced imports flooding
the shops. (****)
"This well-sequenced double album collection of new recordings and single sides
previously unavailable on a U.S. LP is the ultimate Smiths statement, as it
compiles most of their peak moments. For the uninitiated, 24 reasons to go on
living. For the fans, a reminder of why you have."
- Spin
"Oooooooooh people are rude and nobody loves me and you don't believe me and
it's raining outside and no one understands me and don't eat that burger it was
somebody's baby once and people don't care and my dear cat just threw up on
me and go ahead and kick me and I'm too shy to make friends so I'm going to sit
in here and rot and die, thanks, and nobody will ever find me 'cause they never
knew I was alive in the first place (moan... groan) and I'll have a little whine with
my dinner and ask me something before we all blow up and Lord, if it wasn't for
the 27 [sic] little gems on this Smiths double album of real rare b-sides, singles
and a few shiny newies, I might get depressed or something!"
- Suzan (sigh) Colon, Star Hits
How Will The The Thermos Survive?

"More musique maudit from the muezzin of melancholia. 'So if you have five
seconds to share/Then I'll tell you the story of my life/Sixteen, clumsy, and shy,'
mourns Morrissey, who captures the awkward angst of adolescence better than
any songwriter currently working within rock 'n' roll. Call 'em morbid, call 'em
pale, Morrissey and sidekick Johnny Marr have made the Smiths the leading
contenders to follow U2 into the Next Big Thing arena sweepstakes.
Which would be gratifying on any number of levels, not least of which is
Morrissey's doomed, hyper-romantic bard, a high-low brow blend of Shelley and
Keats, Reed and Morrison and Laurel and Hardy. There's more gloom und doom
here, boys and girls, but there's giggles aplenty too. What else can you say about
a guy who sings, 'I was looking for a job, and then I found a job/And heaven
knows I'm miserable now...why do I give valuable time/To people who don't care
if I live or die?' That he loved the Beatles, Bach and Beethoven? And he's fully
prepared for martyrdom?
How do I love the Smiths? Let me count the ways. 'Louder Than Bombs' is a
double-album which gathers some of the band's U.K. singles and B-sides together
with seven brand-new songs, but it stands as an epic work, coming as it does on
the heels of last year's magnum opus, The Queen Is Dead. Rock or racist, gay or
straight, fey or faking, the Smiths are a thinking fan's rock band. Morrissey is a
postmodernist Hamlet, deciding whether he should live or die, and somehow the
thought process becomes a slapstick meditation on the healing nature of art. 'Oh
yes, you can kick me/And you can punch me/And you can break my face/But you
won't change the way I feel.'
The set includes such controversial U.K. smashes as 'Shoplifters Of The World
Unite,' 'William, It Was Really Nothing' and 'Panic,' the latter of which has been
criticized as an anti-black diatribe on the basis of its anthemic chorus, 'Hang the
D.J.,' which, come to think of it, is not such a bad idea in this age of tight radio
playlists.
But the Smiths are not all Morrissey's sublime wordplay and mock morose
mindset. There's guitarist/co-songwriter extraordinaire Johnny Marr, who creates
a thick stew of multi-textured but sharply defined melodic pop to cushion his
sidekick's prickly persona. Check out the lush, shimmering cover of the 1965
obscurity 'Golden Lights' (credited to one Twinkle) or the hypnotic, onomatopoeic
instrumental, 'Oscillate Wildly,' to see what Johnny can do on his own. Marr does
more with less than any musician this side of Peter Buck and Bob Mould.
The bottom line is still how you feel about the troubled troubadour himself,
though. People either love Morrissey or can't stand his celibate, asexual longing,
finding it insufferably pretentious. In the tradition of all great rock 'n' roll (in my
book anyway), the Smiths make you draw the line and come out fighting. I'll take
'em over the P. Furs, Cure, Cult, New Order or any other current anglobands
vying for the Yankee dollar and the vast teenage wasteland. Who said we won't
get fooled again?
After all, how can you not embrace a guy who croons, 'Shyness is nice,
but/Shyness can stop you/From doing all the things in life/That you'd like to...
Ask me - I won't say "No - How could I?"' I second that emotion. There hasn't
been a poet who articulated teenage heartache so effectively since Smokey
Robinson. Would I lie to you?"
- Roy Trakin, Creem
Smiths-Speak:
"Obviously Geoff was staunchly against it because he thought it was a personal

letter addressed to him."
Well? Was it a personal letter addressed to Geoff Travis?
"I never said it was a personal letter addressed to him. That's just a very very
cruel assumption on your behalf."
- Morrissey on 'You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby', NME, February 13,
1988
"... singles were one of the most important things that brought us together, a
love of the classic 7" pop format. Those were the records I grew up with. A huge
facet of what we were about was missed out on, because singles culture is so
ineffectual in America. But I thought Louder Than Bombs, the singles compilation,
was great."
Girlfriend In A Coma
Work Is A Four-Letter Word
I Keep Mine Hidden
Released in August 1987
Smiths-Speak:
"The very last Smiths' sessions at Streatham we recorded two songs that turned
up as B-sides: 'Work Is A Four Letter Word' (a cover of a Cilla Black song), and
one called 'I Keep Mine Hidden' which was the last song Johnny and I wrote
together and the last song The Smiths recorded together. Now when I play The
Smiths - which I do a lot - that song is always the first I play. And it's the one
that makes me feel the happiest."
- Morrissey, The Face, March 1990
What are you memories of the final Smiths session in Streatham?

"It was utter misery. The group were really falling to pieces. We'd finished
making the record and I thought, 'Right, now for the first time, I can have a
couple of weeks way from the group'. That's all it was. I wanted to get away and
I felt we should all have taken a holiday. I told Morrissey he needed a holiday.
The band put what I thought was really unfair pressure to come up with two B-
sides for 'Girlfriend In A Coma'. I fought against it. I felt I'd worked far too hard
to be put in that position, coupled with the fact that Morrissey had decided he
didn't want to work with Ken. That was OK. That was a problem I could have
dealt with. I just felt round the corner it was never ending. It was like I was never
going to be allowed to come up for air.
What did you think of the songs you recorded then?
"I wrote 'I Keep Mine Hidden', but 'Work Is A Four Letter Word' I hated. That was
the last straw, really. I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs. That's
the main thing."
"Morrissey had this song, 'I Keep Mine Hidden', which was basically Morrissey
saying, 'I'm sorry, Johnny. I'm a complete fuck up but please forgive me.' With
lots of specific references, it was a very direct song."
- Grant Showbiz, Uncut, 1998
Strangeways,
Here We Come
A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours

I Started Something I Couldn't Finish
Death Of A Disco Dancer
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
Unhappy Birthday
Paint A Vulgar Picture
Death At One's Elbow
I Won't Share You
Released in September 1987
Yea-Sayers:
"Maybe as good as 'The Queen Is Dead', but probably not better. ('Paint A Vulgar
Picture' — aka 'Dear Prudence' and 'Death Of A Disco Dancer' — aka 'Strawberry
Fields' though, are classics.)"
- Dylan Jones, i-D, 1987
A solid and mature album recorded as The Smiths disintegrated. Marr's doomed
ambition to escape the band's perceived indie status is evident in the
experimental grandiosity of "Death Of A Disco Dancer" and "Last Night I Dreamt
That Somebody Loved Me". Morrissey is on champion acid form, trashing record
company politics in "Paint A Vulgar Picture" and broaching yet another pop taboo
with the gorgeous "Girlfriend In A Coma".
A bold and bittersweet swansong. (****)
Just why did such a formidable percentage of Eighties youth, saturated by
synthesiser drivel and the thundercloud of Thatcherism, seek shelter and much
emotional solace in a fistful of gladioli, the complete works of Oscar Wilde and a
conspicuously unnecessary pair of National Health spectacles? Those kitchen-sink
survivors - who bought the records, wore the glasses, and devoted solitary
weekends fanatically memorising passages from A Taste Of Honey - are quick to
remind the culturally parched that aside from being the greatest pop group this
century, The Smiths were very much a way of life.
It's a testament to the talent and vision of The Smiths that they inspired such
idolatrous worship from as ruthlessly committed a fanbase as pop music has ever
spawned - and achieved a status that even the most modest critic would be
compelled to term "legendary" - in less than five years and just four studio
albums.
Their eponymous debut in 1984 was compositionally flawless, yet the general
consensus was that The Smiths was not the generation-defining platter it perhaps
could have been. 1985's Meat Is Murder was a confident step forward, the
record's inflammatory sentiments and lyrics hinting towards the more
sensationalist set-pieces to follow - but it was 1986's The Queen Is Dead that
finally propelled The Smiths into an orbit unique within the tired, unchallenging
climate of mid-Eighties pop. From its opening charge on the palace gates to the
anthemic fantasies of falling under the wheels of a 10-ton truck, the album
proved conclusively that, as a lyricist, Morrissey could juggle deadpan wit with a
soul-chilling self-deprecation, while - as composer, arranger and co-producer -
Johnny Marr was pop's Michelangelo in an age of timid Tony Harts.
In early 1987, the group entered the studio to record their fourth album. But
between its reportedly smooth, tantrum-free recording and its eventual release
that autumn, without warning The Smiths imploded, almost overnight.
From the moment "Girlfriend In A Coma" had the dubious honour of being
previewed the very evening Radio One announced Marr's split from the group, the
ensuing album was cursed with the adverse status of a bitter, cryptic postscript to
a brief but glorious career.
Consequently, the album became a focus of lamentation for the group's obsessed
and grieving fans. Reviews became post-mortems, critics looking for clues to
explain The Smiths' unexpectedly premature demise. Which meant that whatever
hopes the group may have had for the way the album would be received were
eclipsed at a stroke by the bewildering void left by their own sudden
disintegration.
The record's typically fatalistic lyrical motifs suddenly acquired a dramatic new
significance: the multiple references to death, not least in two song titles, the
requiem strings on "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me", Morrissey's
entrance as "The ghost of troubled Joe" - surely, these were all coded references
to the band's imminent and apparently inevitable end.
But though the wailing and gnashing of teeth was deafening that autumn, the
mourning masses really ought to have stopped for a moment to consider exactly
what they'd been so generously bequeathed. For if The Smiths' split was the
cause of much funereal breast-beating, the album that followed in its immediate
wake was, by contrast, glorious and intoxicating.
Far from being hopelessly maudlin (anybody whoever accused The Smiths of
being miserable was desperately lacking anything approaching a sense of
humour), the album possesses a playful spirit of self-parody, coy lyrical double-
entendres and mischievous in-jokes - there's the obvious "Stop Me If You Think
You've Heard This One Before", for instance, Morrissey's "It's crap I know" aside
during the rockabilly chainsaw farce, "Death At One's Elbow", the line, "You just
haven't earned it yet baby", itself a previous song title, slipped into "Paint A
Vulgar Picture", and the closing lullaby, "I Won't Share You".
Familiar themes are revisited with deft maturity, not least in "Last Night I Dreamt
That Somebody Loved Me" - two minutes of distant, tortured jeers and
reflectively sombre piano before all hell and its orchestra breaks loose in a
dramatic, Walker-esque climax. Morrissey is the heir of nothing-in-particular once
more - older, world weary and rapidly losing the fight.
As far as unknown pleasures go, Strangeways' best kept secret is "Death Of A
Disco Dancer" - as ambitious a record as The Smiths ever made, with a lush John
Barry score sliding into the psychedelic bedlam of "Venus In Furs", and Morrissey
spotlighting the fragile myth of the blossoming rave scene with a politely
condescending "Very nice". It was unlike anything they'd previously attempted,
but still definitively and unmistakeably The Smiths.
"Paint A Vulgar Picture" is the album's other late milestone. An indictment of the
music business and its mercenary imperatives, it is funny and cruelly honest.
Given the circumstances of its release on Strangeways, it's not surprising it was
subject to perhaps over-zealous scrutiny at the time. The shrewd - even
unscrupulous - marketing of extra tracks and "tacky badges" remains a legitimate
target for such bravura satire, but the song's most damaging blows are aimed at
those on the extreme right of fandom's diverse political spectrum, the kind of
character Morrissey knew and knows only too well. His tone here is both that of
sympathetic agony aunt and wicked, wicked mockery, the track ending with his
(quite purposely) audible wretching. Tucked between the more epic numbers are
songs no less striking. From the decidedly glam "I Started Something I Couldn't
Finish", with its infectious "Typical me" refrain, to the acid-tongued "Unhappy
Birthday" and the military two-step, piano-led opener, "A Rush And A Push And
The Land Is Ours", Strangeways is indeed the most diverse collection The Smiths
ever assembled.
Asked in 1994 to comment on Johnny Marr's remark that Strangeways was their
best album, Morrissey gave a typically Wildean reply. "Well, it is," he said. "We're
in absolute accordance on that. We say it quite often. At the same time. In our
sleep. But in different beds."
When The Smiths split, there were those for whom it seemed not much less than
the end of the world as they knew it. And the reputation of Strangeways has
suffered as a result of such over-reaction. The album is too often seen as "an
epilogue", the last wheezing gasp of an exhausted band.
Don't you believe it!
The musical inspiration that originally aroused such gladioli-waving mass hysteria
was never more impressive, never more realised, never more accomplished than
on Strangeways, Here We Come, an album whose considerable qualities were so
frustratingly overlooked in the anguished vortex of late 1987.
It's The Smiths' masterpiece.
- Simon Goddard, Uncut, October, 1997
"For a band that reportedly hated each other when they made it, the Smiths
managed a surprisingly cohesive farewell statement on Strangeways Here We
Come. They sure haven't cheered up, as titles like 'Unhappy Birthday,' 'Girlfriend
In A Coma,' and 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' make clear. But
Morrissey can see the dark humor in the misery, and his world view has grown
from self-pity to real compassion."
- Pulse
Tomb It May Concern

"'Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He
cometh up and is cut down like a flower. He fleeth as it were a shadow, and never
continueth in one stay' (Anglican Funeral Service).
The Smiths are, after all the speculation, finally heading the queue for the Crem.
Look at the pit they dug themselves: signed to deadly EMI; Johnny Marr - the
decade's most original rock guitarist and musical keystone of the combo - had
done a runner, and Mike Joyce followed, while bass player Rourke struggled on
with his drug problem. Surely the odds stacked against them creating another
flawed Meat Is Murder, let alone an LP of universally-acclaimed quality like The
Queen Is Dead?
Predictably, in these circumstances, Strangeways... finds Morrissey with one hoof
heavily into his sarcophagus. From the opening line of the positively raunchy 'A
Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours' - 'I am the ghost of troubled Joe' - it
seems as if he's determined to give his fun 'n' money-lovin' critics as much ammo
for derision as humanely possible. He even seems to relish calling a song 'Stop
Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before', in the face of those who
perpetually take the piss out of him and reckon that every Smiths song sounds
the same.
To my ears the major criticism of Morrissey has been that he's a miserable
defeatist who encourages negative, rather than positive, responses from his
admirers. There's some truth in this, as revealed here in 'Death Of A Disco
Dancer' and 'Death At One's Elbow', the weakest links on 'Strangeways...'. The
first is overlong (like 'Barbarism...') and, despite Marr's ingenious plinky-guitar
crescendo, totally predicatable: 'love, peace and harmony/love, peace and
harmony/Oh very nice, very nice, very nice, very nice/but maybe in the next
world'. The second is fast and furious and as much of a slim self-parody of The
Smiths' best as 'Sheila...' and 'Shoplifters...' were.
But it's the weird balance of Morrissey's mortal humour with Marr's beatific
melodies that establishes The Smiths' final greatness. Mozzer as the jilted,
unrequited lover, 'The one you left behind' who spoils the party with 'Unhappy
Birthday' wishes: 'drink, drink, drink, and be ill tonight'; Mozzer as the
'hairbrushed and parted' provocateur of 'I Started Something I Couldn't Finish', a
classic pop song that seems to echo - believe it or not - the treasured oeuvre of
T.Rex, Mud and The Glitter Band!; Mozzer as the emotionally dithering laddo in
'Girlfriend In A Coma'.
The point, of course, is that pop is a confidence trick; it pretends it's a world of
harmless entertainment and yet continually bombards us with the we're-having-
a-good-time-and-there's-something-seriously-wrong-with-you-if-you're-not
philosophy; a world where 'people who are weaker than you and I/they take what
they want from life' ('A Rush And A Push...'). In response The Smiths tackled
bloody serious subjects in tandem with addictive tunes; Morrissey could turn
spina bifida into a Top Ten hit and probably will.
Those who believe that Steven Patrick Morrissey should address himself to the
political affairs of this nation will again be disappointed. Lyrically he fails to allude
to Roy Hattersley's girth or the indignity of Labour, and instead continues to mine
that seam of fatal realism. Excuse me, but Saul Bellow observed that 'Ignorance
of death is destroying us. Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to
see anything.' And it often seems that Morrissey's philosophy and humour (like
Woody Allen's) arises from a similar obsession with the inevitability of turning
one's toes up, of popping one's clogs. Hence the emphasis on life's priorities like
love, sex, laughter and bicycles.
'No, don't mention love/I can't take the strain of the pain all over again.' Love,
sex and death remain constants in The Smiths' Strangeways... songs. The
universal appeal still stems from Morrissey's comic, deliberate ambiguity about
who he can and can't have: 'I grabbed you by the gilded beans/That's what
tradition means.' He's sexy and risque but never crude or sordid; he wears his
heart on his sleeve, I see no reason why he should have to make clumsy public
proclamations about his sexual preferences.
In the same way that he took time out on Meat Is Murder to propound
vegetarianism and on The Queen Is Dead to satirise his own Wilde-like
plagiarism, on Strangeways... it's Rough Trade that get the treatment.
'Paint A Vulgar Picture' is a bitter attack on the label's exploitation of the band's
success - 'At the record company party/on their hands a dead star' - and on its
marketing ploys: 'satiate the need, slip them into different sleeves, buy both and
feel deceived', 'please the press in Belgium'. Morrissey also deprecates his own
status as 'spokesman for a generation', pokes fun at his fawning fans' alarmingly
close identification with him and his beliefs ('I walked apace behind you at the
soundcheck, you're just the same as I am'), scoring a direct hit on people like
me.
Morrissey's assured us that 'it's impossible for anybody to change me as an
individual, and it's certainly impossible for a record company to change me'. Thus
The Smiths had sentenced themselves to that Strangeways of pop, that long-
term institution, EMI; a multinational which seemed to celebrate news of the split
with the tell-tale comment, 'essentially we now have two acts for the price of
one'.
Whether Morrissey or Ferry-sidekick Marr can thrive in this new environment
remains to be seen but, listening obsessively to 'Strangeways...' I can't help
feeling that this is a once in a lifetime partnership, a uniquely complimentary
marriage of talents that's developed from a long-established friendship.
Coming to Strangeways... I was half prepared to put the boot into The Smiths. I
was sure that mid-production upsets - the breakdown in communication between
Mozz and Marr (the absence of Marr's beloved B-side instrumentals from the last
four singles and Marr's remaining close to sacked Smiths manager Ken Friedman)
- would tarnish its quality. But Strangeways... contains two of Morrissey/Marr's
greatest moments since the Fab Four's inception.
There's the warm Mersey acoustics of the final track 'I Won't Share You', which
beautifully echoes both 'Back To The Old House' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
And, outstandingly, there's 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' -
which builds from atmospheric solo piano and madding crowd noises, then
explodes into Morrissey's most emotional unloveable vocals, and reaches a 'Wild
Is The Wind' falsetto climax coupled with a thousand violins. It's as great as 'I
Know It's Over'.
I don't think there's any point in comparing The Smiths with their pop
contemporaries; a couple of dodgy singles aside they remained above and
beyond the rest, ploughing their own furrow (digging their own grave?), setting
their own standards. I passionately hoped this was not to be their last breath, but
nevertheless, in case you haven't guessed by now, Strangeways, Here We Come
is a masterpiece that surpasses even The Queen Is Dead in terms of poetic, pop,
and emotional power.
Yes, very nice, very nice, very nice, very nice..."
- Len Brown, New Musical Express, September 12, 1987
"'This story is old - I know/But it goes on,' bleats Morrissey on the Smiths' fifth
album. Perhaps it will, but not in this form. Recorded last spring, before guitarist
Johnny Marr left the band (followed in turn by Morrissey's announcement that he
would pursue a solo career), Strangeways, Here We Come stands as the Smiths'
unexpected swan song. Ironically, it also stands as one of their best and most
varied records: much like R.E.M. on Document, this is the sound of a band
unbuttoning its collective collar despite the problematic artsiness of its lead
singer.
If you've ever considered Morrissey a self-obsessed jerk, Strangeways, Here We
Come isn't likely to change your mind. He's still indulging in angst chronicles like
'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me,' which is saddled with a turgid,
string-drenched melody to boot. But throughout the album, Morrissey keeps
returning to the themes of death and parting ('I Won't Share You,' 'Death at
One's Elbow'), almost as if he had seen the breakup coming, and dishes out bitter
indictments like 'If you should die/I may feel slightly sad' ('Unhappy Birthday').
And in 'Paint a Vulgar Picture,' a bittersweet elegy to a dead rock star, Morrissey
makes the mistake of putting down record-company marketing ('Reissue!
Repackage!/Reevaluate the songs/Double-pack with a photograph') on an album
that has a merchandising address printed on its inner sleeve.
Morrissey is much more effective in 'Death of a Disco Dancer,' which pinpoints
Marr's importance to the band, as it builds from his scraping-fingernail fret work
to a cacophony of guitars and keyboards. Throughout Strangeways, Here We
Come, Marr - who's credited with strings and saxophone arrangements as well as
guitar and piano - continually conjures up rich, Gothic frameworks for Morrissey's
ornate phrasing.
Bright acoustic guitars add a folksy grace to 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and 'Unhappy
Birthday,' and a pumping piano turns 'A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours'
into a demented tango. In the album's most propulsive number, 'Stop Me If You
Think You've Heard This One Before,' Marr and the Andy Rourke-Mike Joyce
rhythm section whip up a frenzied brew that amply compensates for Morrissey's
tale of rituals of self-punishment following a failed love affair. Marr's piercing solo
at the end of the song not only is one of the record's emotional highlights - it also
proves it's best the band split up rather than attempt to replace him."
- David Browne, Rolling Stone
Nay-Sayers:
"An inconclusive, and frankly disappointing full stop to this decade's most brilliant
career. Strangeways saw The Smiths lose touch with their distinctive musical
style. Morrissey, picking at the scabs of familiar emotional cuts, was unable to do
anything but run on the spot."
- Unknown Critic
"This is the Smithses [sic] last album as a group. What killed them? Was it
mizzable yet oddly detached songs like 'Girlfriend In A Coma,' 'Paint A Vulgar
Picture' and 'Unhappy Birthday'? Is it because the song titles are longer than the
actual songs, i.e. 'Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before' - ironic,
ain't it, since it's the only song that vaguely resembles the kind of good work that
the Smiths used to do - and a few more I don't even have to mention.
All this is fine and dandy - after all, one of The Smith's [sic] best tricks of old was
weird novel-length titles and clever word play. However, the ingenuity of a dog
playing dead gets a little boring after a while, and so does the constant WHINING
of lines like 'I was delayed, I was waylaid/An emergency stop/I smelt the last ten
seconds of life/I crashed down on the crossbar/And the pain was enough to make
a shy bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder.' But will it make him shut
up?
On The Queen Is Dead, Morrissey somehow painted melancholy little vignettes of
life that were very touching. How is it that most of the songs on Strangeways
seem false, spiteful and sort of bitchy? Surely internal strife must have affected
them, but certainly not in a depressingly constructive manner. Some of the songs
don't even sound as though they were written together. And I never thought it
was possible, but Morrissey's usual moany, groany voice and Johnny Marr's
(somewhat) cheery guitar work, a combination that was so endearing on The
Queen Is Dead, now just seems really trite and uncomfortable and untogether -
something like that monthly pain they talk about on TV. This is not exactly the
way I wanted to remember them."
- Suzan Colon, Star Hits
Smiths-Speak:
Why "Strangeways, Here We Come"?

"Because the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if I was in prison 12
months from now. Really it's me throwing both arms up to the skies and yelling
'whatever next?'. Strangeways, of course, is that hideous Victorian monstrosity of
a prison operating 88 to a cell. I don't have any particular crimes in mind but it's
so easy to be a criminal nowadays that I wouldn't have to look very far. Life is so
odd that I'm sure I could manage it without too much difficulty.
Strangeways perfects every lyrical and musical notion The Smiths have ever had.
It isn't dramatically, obsessively different in any way and I'm quite glad it isn't
because I've been happy with the structure we've had until now. It's far and away
the best record we've ever made."
"It was the first time the group played it together and we just switched the tape
on and didn't take it terribly seriously. And I just fell onto a piano and began to
bang away. We kept the tape because it had some unnameable appeal."
Interviewer: "And people kept the piano away from you after that?" Morrissey:
"People kept away from me after that!"
- Morrissey on "Death Of A Disco Dancer", Sounds, June 18, 1988.
"On Strangeways, you got the impression that Johnny didn't know what Morrissey
had prepared for it. We were putting the backing tracks down totally blind, just
making sure the key was OK with him."
- Stephen Street, Q, January, 1994
"I still think Strangeways, Here We Come is the best record. I get really pissed off
with this critical cliche, like, they've swept Strangeways under the carpet."
- Grant Showbiz, Q, January, 1994
"I feel at the moment that almost anything absurd can happen. And if I ended up
in Strangeways I wouldn't be at all surprised."
- Morrissey, Q, 1987
"It's a very uplifting record, even if the titles lead one to consider it a rather dour
record. I don't know how far my judgement is valid - being an obviously
immensely depressed person - but it's not really morbid."
- Morrissey, Q, 1987
"The stuff we've just done for the new album is great, the best we've ever done.
I'm really proud of it."
- Johnny Marr, post-split, NME, August 7, 1987
"I'll tell you one thing about 'Strangeways' - I don't think there'll ever be, and I
don't think there ever was, a band that would put an LP of songs like that
together. Because, you know, what is it? Is it rock? Is it pop? Is it rockabilly? I
mean, you put 'Death Of A Disco Dancer' on a jukebox, it's not gonna get played
very often, is it?"
"Oh, I mean, the pressure was really on Johnny to write a better album than 'The
Smiths,' 'The Queen Is Dead' or 'Meat Is Murder,' every one of them. It had to be
the best album ever written by The Smiths. And the pressure was on Morrissey to
come up with a killer lyric.
And I was boozing a lot - brandy, we were all drinking a lot of brandy. I don't
mean in the bathroom - gargle, gargle - there was none of that shit going down.
(Andy laughs) Maybe there was, alright. He's laughing cos he caught me one
morning. But, yeah, there was a lot of pressure on Johnny. And that's why
'Strangeways' to me sounds like a total white-knuckle ride. We were very tense.
But we were playing together really well, better than we'd ever played before. I
wish we'd toured 'Strangeways...'"
How was the intro to 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' done?
Andy Rourke: "It's the sound effects of a crowd noise from the BBC sound effects
library, isn't it? I think it was a strike or something, outside a pit." Mike Joyce:
"Good intro, that, isn't it? When it all goes, Baaah... That's a pop-in, though. We
didn't all go (quietly) one-two-three-four. It's just spliced in."
- Select, April 1993
"... to me 'Strangeways' is like the heaviest album to listen to. You don't put that
one on when you fancy some nice easy listening."
"'Strangeways' suffers because it was our last record, so people think there were
arguments and horrors in making it, but there weren't. Morrissey and I both think
it's possibly our best album. That and some of 'The Queen Is Dead,' which
accepted opinion says is our masterpiece. That might be true, but 'Strangeways'
has its moments, like 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Love Me'. Last time I
met Morrissey he said it was his favourite Smiths song. He might be right. Over
the last few years I've heard 'Girlfriend In A Coma' in shops and people's cars,
and I'm always surprised by how good it sounds. 'Unhappy Birthday' I really like."
"I think my singing has got better, it's changed over the years. I think it was at
its best around Strangeways, Here We Come which was due to extensive touring
and really pushing your voice beyond the boundaries, and that really helped."
"They are great songs. You know, occasionally, as I'm rolling out pastry, I find
myself singing 'Death Of A Disco Dancer'."
- Morrissey, Melody Maker, August 9, 1997
Q: Johnny Marr said recently that Strangeways is [your masterpiece].

"Well, it is. We're in absolute accordance on that. We say it quite often. At the
same time. In our sleep. But in different beds... Strangeways Here We Come
which, as you might know, was our last studio album, said everything eloquently,
perfectly at the right time and put the tin hat on it basically."
"Actually, it's my favourite Smiths album. We split after we recorded it and they
were good sessions. One or two of the songs are acoustic-led (Girlfriend In A
Coma and Unhappy Birthday) which I really liked - now that was an organic
record. I wanted the electric guitar parts a lot less layered and with a lot more
weight, which you can hear on I Started Something I Couldn't Finish. The stuff
that wasn't acoustic was mainly led by my 355 12-string; in fact, a lot of the
songs - I Started Something..., Paint A Vulgar Picture and Stop Me If You've
Heard This One Before - were written on that guitar. It gave a really big sound. I
wanted to make sure my main guitar parts really counted and stayed on the
record.
Often, before, I had changed the main foundation at a later date, but that didn't
happen with Strangeways."
"Yeah, it was a big deal! I had to make everyone leave the studio, bring in a few
candles... no, not really. The song just suited it. I always thought that if you
played a guitar solo it should be something people could whistle... mind you,
since then I've recorded solos that even Roger Whittaker would have problems
whistling."
- Johnny Marr on his first guitar solo (Paint A Vulgar Picture), The Guitar
Magazine, January 1997
"No, it wasn't about Rough Trade at all. So I was a bit confused when Geoff
Travis, the Rough Trade big boy, despised it and stamped on it. It was about the
music industry in general, about practically anybody who's died and left behind
that frenetic fanatical legacy which sends people scrambling. Billy Fury, Marc
Bolan..."
- Morrissey on "Paint A Vulgar Picture", NME, February 13, 1988
"I desperately desperately wanted ['Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One
Before'] to be released. Rough Trade sent white labels along to Radio One but
they said they would never under any circumstances play it because of the line
about mass murder. They said people would've instantly linked it with Hungerford
and it would've caused thousands of shoppers to go out and buy machine guns
and murder their grandparents. I think Rough Trade should've released 'Death Of
A Disco Dancer' instead just to be stroppy."
"With the Smiths, I'd take this really loud Telecaster of mine, lay it on top of a
Fender Twin Reverb with the vibrato on, and tune it to an open chord. Then I'd
drop a knife with a metal handle on it, hitting random strings. I used that on
"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" for the big "doings" at the
start... Musically, the production was my responsibility. But to be fair, it was a
50/50 thing between Morrissey and me. We were completely in sync about which
way we should go for each record. But we started to lose that near the end of the
last LP, which was another signal to me that we should stop. The White Album
was the strongest influence on us towards the end, things like 'Cry Baby Cry' and
'I'm So Tired'... The solo on 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' was done on a Strat. I was
really pleased that the first solo as such on a Smiths record was one you could
sing... I liked the melody at the end of 'Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before,'
but it just felt a little too accomplished. I wanted it to sound like a punk player
who couldn't play, so I fingered it on one string, right up and down the neck. I
could have played it with harmonics or my teeth, or something clever, but the
poignancy would have gone out of the melody."
I Started Something
I Couldn't Finish
I Started Something I Couldn't Finish

Pretty Girls Make Graves (Troy Tate Demo)
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (Live In London,
12/12/86)
Released in October 1987
Nay-Sayers:
"This is a fairly pointless bit of posthumous whingeing with some horrible guitar
playing from Johnny Marr. Morrissey ought to get himself a string section and
stop swanning about pretending to be Melvyn Bragg."
- Ben Thompson, New Musical Express, November 7, 1987
Last Night I Dreamt
That Somebody Loved Me
Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Rusholme Ruffians (John Peel Session, August 9, 1984)
Nowhere Fast (John Peel Session, August 9, 1984)
William, It Was Really Nothing (John Peel Session, August 9,
1984)
Released in December 1987
Yea-Sayers:
"...So what is there left to say? Only that The Smiths were one of the few bands
who got better as time went by, and if you fail to be moved by songs like "Last
Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me", then you are missing out on a
beautiful experience."
- Smash Hits
(contributed by Bruce N Trombley)
"I still rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there
with Bryan Ferry."
- David Bowie, naming "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"
his favorite Morrissey song, Q, September 1992
Nay-Sayers:
"A single taken from The Smiths' worst LP, 'Last Night' reaches no new ground
whatsoever. A melodramatic, almost operatic, intro slides into an average
Morrissey-Marr number that is two and a half minutes long and a ton too light.
The Queen is clearly dead here and Johnny Marr's not looking too bright either."
- Neil Taylor, New Musical Express, December 9, 1987
Smiths-Speak:
How did you feel about the poor B-sides - old mixes and live tracks - on
the last Rough Trade singles?
"I approved in the sense that I believe Smiths records should be heard. Quite
obviously there weren't acceptable B-sides and quite obviously there was no
acceptable reason for a CD and cassette single, but they occurred nonetheless.
It's difficult because I wanted those songs to be heard, the death of The Smiths
was far too convenient. If there was yet another opportunity to infest the
airwaves I thought it should be done."
Rank
The Queen Is Dead

Panic
Vicar In A Tut
Ask
Marie's The Name (His Latest Flame) / Rusholme Ruffians
Rubber Ring / What She Said
Is It Really So Strange?
Cemetry Gates
London
I Know It's Over
The Draize Train
Still Ill
All tracks recorded live at the National Ballroom in Kilburn, October 23, 1986
Released in September, 1988
Yea-Sayers:
"Recorded two years earlier on their final tour, this Kilburn National live set
captures The Smiths in their troubled, pre-split period with extra guitarist Craig
Gannon on board. A polished, hard-rocking stack of tunes mostly culled from The
Queen Is Dead, but the overlapping twin guitars iron out much of Marr's vituoso
elegance." (****)
"Live LP's rarely work. 'Rank' does. It captures The Smiths during their most
creative period, playing their music with speed, passion and ferocity - three
qualities the band possessed that were so often overlooked.
For those of you seeking a reformation it will only make matters worse and it's a
recording of rare raw talent."
- NME, naming 'Rank' the 22nd best LP of 1988
"In Manchester this summer, the first Smiths convention in held, efforlessly
attracting thousands of the faithful. In London the New Musical Express tirelessly
trumpets ever emergent possibility of a Smiths reunion, each wafer of dubious
information a certain sales booster. From elsewhere in the country, the Daily
Mirror finds and runs a news-story in which a mother blames The Smiths for the
suicide of her teenaged son ('He jumped in front of a train... There were Smiths
records in his collection").
Little over a year after their exeunt, this force that we call The Smiths and their
journey into the annals of immortality and cultural infamy continue ever upwards,
categorically unstoppable. Their parting left a chillingly large hole in the pop
landscape - one no rival act has shown even the vaguest dint of flair in helping to
fill, and one, more urgently, that our Morrissey is having difficulty in supplanting,
with his rather 'speculative' solo work this year. This is understandable, really.
The Smiths were a phenomenon, after all, and like all other departed of their ilk,
their very absence orchestrates an ever-spiralling 'appreciation' of the same.
Further orchestration will doubtless ensue with the availability this September of
Rank, the much-anticipated live album, recorded almost two years ago during the
group's final tour. First and foremost, like all The Smiths' records, Rank is a
'statement'. I mean, who else in this age of compulsory technology would dare
release, as their one and only live album, an undoctored tape of a single live
show already broadcast on BBC Radio 1? Some may accuse them of sloth and
abject indifference to the desires of their fans (more later), yet The Smiths have
always been committed to presenting their music in as 'unadorned' a way as
possible, and Rank, after all, simply takes that attitude to its 'warts and all'
conclusion.
So - what's it like? Well, it's good enough, good enough. Rank, you see, is
mostly, unabashedly, hard rock, a fact that will undoubtedly surprise many
detractors who never heard them live.
By 1986, the Morrissey-Marr partnership, having already well-founded The
Smiths' archetypal plangent style, seemed bent on usurping a more orthodox
rock backdrop for Morrissey's lyrical persona to niftily subvert. This was apparent
from much on The Queen Is Dead album and, particularly, the release of 'Panic'.
The former's title track kicks off proceedings (after an opening salvo of Prokofiev
piped over the PA as introduction) as a bracing exercise in punk clamour, Johnny
Marr's scowling wah-wah guitar inflections underscoring Morrissey's scathing
political burlesque of a lyric. This is immediately, noticeably bravura, not that silly
shallow stuff which begat the term 'rockist', but the real article; music hard,
charged and self-possessed, answerable only to themselves.
This sets the tenor of the whole album, though judged individually, some tracks
are less convincing than others.
'Panic', 'The Boy With The Thorn...', 'What She Said' - all have received better live
airings, whilst 'Still Ill', the only inclusion from the first album, seems to drag
slightly. Rank's ascendant moments level all this out. 'Rushole Ruffians' and
'London' both hail from the band's most boisterous canon of music-making, yet
here the twin measures of force and focus (Marr's high-energy guitar pop savvy;
Morrissey's blunt idiosyncratic rhymes, naked hectoring persona and stabbingly
acute imagery) merge into performances of epic substance. On 'Rusholme' the
music seems to spin faster and faster, an aural Ferris wheel giddily threatening
the same mindless violence its lyric details, whilst on 'London' it hurtles along like
the train in the lyric, running on fearful uncertainties and portents of doom.
Rank's downside occurs when one searches for examples of the group's more
classically plangent approach.
There's a fine 'Cemetry Gates', the noble failure of 'I Know It's Over' (the studio
version will never be equalled) and, best of all, 'Ask', here presented as the
joyous pop 'La Bamba' for the Eighties.
It's here that serious grievances have to be aired. The Smiths were one of rock
music's greatest live groups, whose ability to achieve a genuinely thrilling
poignancy this live relase only hints at glancingly. What this record lacks is the
vital dimension of mystery and depth, that ultimate virtue in The Smiths
equation.
It's this absence that rankles far more than the fan's disappointment at being
seen-off with a live broadcast most of us have long since taped and filed away.
The point is this: The Smiths were the greatest rock band of the '80's because
they seemed to function on sixteen cylinders when everybody was tootling along
on four. Rank will do the job of topping the LP charts over here for a while to
come and, I'll wager, it will finally truly break them in the States, because this is
good bracing rock music loaded with cranky visions and authentic weirdness, and
there is nothing musically in the air to remotely threaten its worth. In other
words, Rank is The Smiths at eight cylinders.
It's an indictment of Rank that they've not allowed themselves to do better, yet
still some testament to their greatness that at half their strength, they still sound
so right."
- Nick Kent, The Catalogue
"The last two Smiths albums were a compilation and a studio swansong, both
disappointments; so we weren't holding our breath for yet another posthumous
release. But the live LP, Rank, turns out to be a spirited finale, and will probably
be the LP I'll reach for to remember the Smiths. Material includes their two best
later singles ('Ask' and 'Panic'), and Johnny Marr cuts loose more than he ever did
in the studio. But the real surprise is how enthused Morrissey sounds, breaking
away from his trademark droll monotone. Listen to the impromptu take on Elvis
Presley's 'Marie's the Name (His Latest Flame),' and tell me he's not having fun."
- Pulse
Stinging
"Perhaps it's appropriate that the group which was for ever going on about death
in one form or another should have waited until after its own before releasing a
live album. Ticklish ironies aside, Rank serves as a superb epitaph, greatest hits
compilation and concert memento all rolled into one. And sporting as it does one
of those Morrissey-designed archive photo sleeves, bears the unmistakable
imprimatur of The Smiths themselves: this is not a record company milk-the-
myth enterprise.
It comes just as it was originally recorded at the National Ballroom, Kilburn in
October 1986 for a Radio One live transmission, and has a stingingly bright
sound. It also finds a band capable of wobbly moments on stage (and a singer
with a notoriously approximate way with a tune) in well-nigh note perfect form.
Best of all though is the way it belatedly answers the Smiths' detractors. Because
by no stretch of anyone's imagination can this swirling, churning rush of guitars
and vocal larks be written off as weedy, miserabilist indulgence for the
emotionally starved inhabitants of bedsitters and suburban bedrooms.
In fact it shows just how clever The Smiths were in having their cake and eating
it. As long as Morrissey was beguiling those of more delicate, '80's-ish
sensibilities with his camp send-up of traditional rock posturing, Johnny Marr had
carte blanche to be as rock'n'roll in as many different ways as he damn well liked.
It was a strikingly successful reconciliation of polar opposites and if The Smiths'
studio productions tended to weight the scales in favour of Morrissey's cod-
operatic celebration of cemeteries and hospitals, the brisk 14 track recital here
redresses the balance in favour of Marr's guitar - and the presence of sometime
fifth member Craig Gannon, playing another, obviously helps as well.
The opener on side one, 'The Queen Is Dead,' shows the way. With Marr dishing
out the power chords and Morrissey epitomising powerlessness with a selection of
mock roars, sqaueaks and howls, the song devolves into a sort of modernist
thrash boogie with a sly, satirical vocal topping. And though there is plenty of
intricate picking elsewhere, on 'Vicar In A Tutu' and'Ask' for instance, and
Morrissey is allowed to stretch out in his glum aria 'I Know It's Over,' what we
basically have here is tough post-punk rock of stature and wit.
The material contains a few surprises. There's a neat medley tie-up of 'Rusholme
Ruffians' and the Elvis classic 'His Latest Flame,' a furious Marr instrumental 'The
Draize Train' and a couple of B-sides. But most of the names here are familiar
ones - as befits a memorial. So, farewell then The Smiths, there will be dancing
on your grave for a while yet." *****
- Robert Sandall, Q
Smiths-Speak:
"This was recorded by the BBC for the Auntie Pong Show and bits of it were
broadcast... in... the late Sixties... or whenever it was. It is used because it is
available and good... very good, although there were brighter moments."
- Morrissey, The Catalogue, 1988
"It's very good so I'm quite pleased... none of those songs will ever be heard
again."

The Smiths Critical Discography - Various

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THE SMITHS

Released May 1983

This Charming Man

Released November 1983

Single Of The Decade

"Taking things seriously; intelligence is not an awkward, obscure thing which is

What Difference Does It Make?

Released January 1984

Single Of The Week

Reel Around The Fountain

Released in February, 1984

Gladioli All Over

Judging by reactions to an appallingly foul debut by the Smiths (voted 1983's

"The frenziedly-awaited debut LP disappoints, thanks to elephants-ear production

Does Whalley Range really exist?

"John Porter (producer) suggested getting that bloke Paul Carrack in on

Who did the Hindley laugh on "Suffer Little Children"?

What was your opinion of the first album?

"'Reel Around The Fountain' was my interpretation of James Taylor's version of

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

"Probably the seminal Smiths single. Dead sad, dead funny."

Regarding 'Suffer Little Children': "Another Rough Trade...? Confirmed

Did you anticipate the reaction to 'Suffer Little Children'?

William, It Was Really Nothing

Released in August, 1984

William, It Was Really Nothing

Released in November, 1984

An audacious mid-price retrospective of BBC session tracks released mere months

It's a Fair Cap!

"There seems to be a few aspects to it. We wanted it released on purely selfish

How Soon Is Now?

Released in January 1985

Single of the Week

Interlude: Normal Business

The Headmaster Ritual

Released in February 1985

"'Meat Is Murder' is brilliant, a catherine wheel of inspired language nailed to a

Steak Your Claim

Eat to the Beat

Top of the Chops

Meat on the Ledge

"It makes a certain kind of sense to impose teen-macho aggression on your

Released in March, 1985

"Their least spectacular single. Their finest cover star."

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

Released in July 1985

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

Released in September, 1985

Bigmouth Strikes Again

Released in May, 1986

"The Smiths' self-mockingly-titled 'Big Mouth [sic] Strikes Again' is another

The Queen Is Dead

Released in June 1986

LONG LIVE THE KING!

THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

"The whole idea of womanhood is something that to me is largely unexplored. I'm

"'The Queen Is Dead' is more memorable because we took it on tour to America

Released in July 1986