Smiths Record Mirror

IT'S TIME THE TALE WERE TOLD...

Johnny Marr's departure signals the end of the first chapter in the history of the Smiths. As Morrissey, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce prepare to carry on without him, this month will see the release of their fourth studio LP, ‘Strangeways Here We Come', Nancy Culp, who spent nine months as the group's press officer in 1984, looks back on their glittering career

In the present climate of overnight pop success stories, the Smiths’ rise to fame looks positively Rip Van Winklean in comparison. But back in late 1983, when they burst forth on ‘TOTP’, in a shower of gladioli, with the vital This Charming Man’, they were proclaimed as being something of an overnight sensation.

Yet the Smiths were formed back in 1982, at a time when the charts were dominated by Dollar and their ilk. It took them precisely one year to break the hold.

Right from the start, there was a strong myth perpetrated about the strange Stretford lad Morrissey and his band. Legend has it that an 18-year-old Johnny Marr — then working in a clothes shop — first met Morrissey when the former turned up uninvited at the latter’s bijou Whalley Range residence, which he shared with various members of experimentalist band Ludus. Johnny, intrigued by Morrissey’s strange reputation, hammered on the door until he was let in. Once inside, he motormouthed his way into a songwriting partnership which has produced some of the most touching, funny and musically refreshing songs of this — perhaps of any — decade.

After roping in old schoolfriend Andy Rourke on bass and veteran of several dead end bands Mike Joyce on drums, the simply named Smiths were born.

Their debut gig was on October 4, 1982 at Manchester’s Ritz club, supporting Blue Rondo A La Turk. Blue Rondo were that year’s hipper than hips, and have long since faded into obscurity. Yet just seven months later, after riding out the bidding war indulged in by bloodhungry majors, the Smiths were snapped up by Rough Trade (although technically, they never actually signed to them until 1985).

Their first single, ‘Hand In Glove’, appeared in May 1983. With its rolling guitars and mountain top vocal, it tore itself a place in the indie charts, becoming something of an anthem for the group. Immediately, the press went mad for them, and they were championed by various journalists as the new musical saviours.

Wider commercial success, not to mention their unbridled use of the now cliched flowers, came with This Charming Man’. Morrissey’s florid and sometimes grammatically liberal use of words was to become his hallmark, not only in his lyrics but also in interviews. He ranted vociferously against the traditional road to success, about sex (or rather about the lack of it) and about relationships, you name it — Morrissey was there making dramatic statements on the subject.

With This Charming Man’ the press onslaught reached full tilt. Come January 1984, with the release of the haunting ‘What Difference Does It Make?’, you couldn’t pick up a pop paper without being treated to the expostulations (Morrissey liked words like that) of music’s first public agnostic, celibate vegetarian.

The debut album, spartanly entitled The Smiths’, was greeted with elaborate verbal garlands. Even Morrissey himself, on a live ‘Tube’ programme, proclaimed it as being “A complete signal post in the history of popular music".

With hindsight, this debut album is still exciting, even if at times John Porter’s usually sympathetic production becomes heavy and laboured. ‘Suffer Little Children’ and ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves' sound particularly leaden in comparision to the heady surge of ‘Still Ill’ or ‘Miserable Lie’. Shame, too, that the stage favourite, ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’, didn’t make it onto this LP, since it would have added a much needed lighter touch to the proceedings.

So, 1984 was to be the year for the Smiths. ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ gave way to the sparkling ‘William, (It Was Really Nothing)’, until their piece de resistance, ‘Hand In Glove’, the long mooted single with Sandie Shaw, shot the band into the charts yet again. Giving her a boost and them even more credibility, it proved once and for all that the songwriting team of Morrissey/Marr could produce stuff worthy of more traditional interpretation.

Looking back, it’s hard to fully describe the band’s impact on the drab scene of 1984. It was left to them and, to a lesser extent, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, to liven up the weekly charts. From the hearing aid homage to Johnny Ray to the daffs in the back pocket; from the full blown monster of a tree in the baggy jeans to that finest hour when Morrissey ripped off his baggy shirt during ‘William’ to reveal the words ‘Marry Me’ scrawled by yours truly across that oft bared chest in my black eyeliner pencil. Yep, whenever the Smiths appeared, it was always an event.

In the long wait between the first album and its successor 'Meat Is Murder’, which wasn’t released until February 1985, a collection of B-sides, rare tracks culled from Peel/Jensen sessions and 12 inch bonus tracks were released. 'Hatful Of Hollow' arrived at the tail end of '84, and was a sort of ‘Best Of. In it, the ingenious Smiths finally developed into the big time boys we know today. Clad as ever in an immaculately tasteful (Morrissey designed) sleeve, it featured one of the band’s most innovative tracks, ‘How Soon Is Now?’. Running over seven minutes, this hypnotic, seductive song was eventually released as a single after topping John Peel’s Festive 50. It didn’t do quite as well as some of its predecessors, though, perhaps because it was something of a departure from the formula.

At last, though, 'Meat Is Murder' arrived. Self produced, it is in some ways the epitome of the Smiths’ sound, taking Johnny’s versatile guitar style and Morrissey’s various lyrical fetishes to their logical conclusion. It is curious, though, to hear a grown man singing about being beaten up by teachers as if he’s only just stepped out of senior school. Having said that, the lyrics are some of his best.

‘Meat Is Murder' is a hard-hitting LP, dealing with violence in various guises. The title track is Morrissey's pro-vegetarian soapbox par excellence, which simply dares you, amidst the dying screams of cows, to take one more bite of that McDonalds.

The tail end of ’85 saw a clutch of fine singles, from a band whose sound was rapidly veering towards downright pop. Having mastered the colourful, jingly-jangly guitar style which inspired a million shamblers, Johnny started to bring in more classically flavoured instruments to augment the sound, not dissimilar to the way Andrew Loog Oldham had revitalised the Stones. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’ emerged; a historical crossroads for them since it was accompanied by their first ever video.

Originally, Morrissey had ranted loud and long against those of his contemporaries who felt the need to prop up their songs with elaborate promos. And, however basic their debut video may have been, a lot of fans felt that the Smiths' lust for stardom had overtaken their early high ideals.

By now, the Smiths had transcended the usual indie band expectations. They were the first to be regulars on ‘TOTP’. and they sold out huge tours and vast amounts of records without signing to a major (although their records were sold by the London Records Strike Force and they had Ferret And Spanner, top pluggers, working for them).

Yet all of this occurred with the minimum of professionalism on their part — the band having become notorious for blowing out gigs, tours, TV shows and interviews at the last moment. In some ways, it’s a wonder that they survived with such an attitude. But they have something which few others have — an almost indefinable quality and charisma.

October 1986 heralded the arrival of their third studio album. The Queen Is Dead’. It was accompanied by the usual hysterical press acclaim and unprecedentedly long and verbose interviews with the man whose ability for spinning tall tales was matched only by his ability to believe them himself. If it’s time the tale were told ... you’ll sure as hell never get it from the sugary lips of Steven Patrick.

The Queen Is Dead' — a characteristically self-deprecating and humorous title if ever there was one — veered from the sublime There Is A Light’ to the ridiculous music hall romp of ‘Frankly Mr Shankly'. At this juncture, the Smiths were attracting a far wider audience — large sections of earlier Smiths devotees having left them behind for newer fads. Musically, the album strives for a diversification from previous records and largely succeeds, even if the good old formula is still lurking around underneath all the orchestral bluster!

The Queen Is Dead’ was accompanied by a tour in which the by now seasoned veterans of US touring showed an alarming tendency to rock ’n’ roll overkill. They were also having numerous line up increments, namely featuring their on/off relationship with second guitarist Craig Gannon. Craig was also brought in when Andy Rourke’s heroin problems became particularly problematic. Around the same time, Mr Marr was increasingly seeking the company of some of rock’s older vanguards, his prodigious talent at long last receiving its due recognition.

Early in 1987, after a seemingly endless state of dissatisfaction with good old Rough Trade, the Smiths jumped contract and signed to EMI for an alleged one million pounds. But they remained contracted to RT, so went on to release Panic’, ‘Shoplifters Of The World Unite’ and ‘Sheila Take A Bow’ before the final single, ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’, put the light out on that relationship.

No one could say for certain why the always precarious relationship between the Smiths and RT finally broke down. Probably, it was a case of both sides having irreconcilably different ideas on how to achieve their goals.

Once again, in the interim between studio albums, a second best-of collection entitled The World Won’t Listen’ was released. But, not long after its appearance, and just before the release of their last studio album for RT, ‘Strangeways Here We Come’, Johnny Marr announced his intention of leaving the group.

It had been rumoured that, during the recording of ‘Strangeways’, relations between Morrissey and Johnny had deteriorated beyond repair. Johnny had taken on a personal manager, choosing the very same man who Morrissey had sacked as their representative the previous year. Increasingly, too, Johnny had worked with other artists, such as Bryan Ferry and Keith Richard. The two of them were obviously growing apart.

Morrissey says he is determined to carry on with the Smiths, bringing in a new guitarist. But the conundrum remains; how do you replace the irreplaceable? Undoubtedly, it will mean a new musical direction for the Smiths, and Morrissey, being the almost irrationally cautious person that he is, will probably take some time before choosing someone else who he feels comfortable writing songs with.

But, if he has enough faith in himself and the remaining members, there’s no reason why the Smiths shouldn’t continue. Then again, no one would be surprised if, in three months time, he blew the whistle on the group and went solo. Morrissey is possibly the most professionally perverse person you’re ever likely to encounter!

Whatever the future may hold for Morrissey, Mike, Andy and Johnny, the fact remains that the Smiths have produced some of the finest songs ever to emerge on vinyl. No one will ever be able to take away the fact that they are one of the most important — and idolised — bands to emerge in the history of music.

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF MORRISSEY

Of all the pop people held up as a 'mouthpiece for a generation' Morrissey is perhaps the one whose tongue is most silver, whose patter is most sweet. Unless, of course, as 'That's Life' would say, you know better...

THE SMITHS

"We're working towards a perfect race."

"Our lyrics have been translated into other languages, often completely erroneously, but that doesn't matter because if people can translate the words but still find something poetic in them that's fine — they can do what they like. People would come up to me in broken English and say 'obviously this song means la di da, la di da', and they would be completely off the mark, but it didn't matter because their eyes were full of emotion and they were excited and their hearts were all a-flutter and so I thought, 'yes, that's exactly what it means'."

BEING DRUNK

"I'm quite happy when I'm drunk, which seems quite obvious, although not in my case. I'm quite uncontrollable really, but I've never really done any strange things. I wanted to but I always had such terrible timing."

PHOTOS

"I don't believe that I'm terribly photogenic and they always come out with some aura of disfigurement. I hate 'rock group' photo-sessions and I hate plain photo-sessions. Within me I always have the urge to do something, not outlandish, but extraordinary. I'd like to be photographed wearing virtually nothing, lying on the rocks somewhere."

LETTERS TO rm

"I'm sure they'll crop up one day. I'm sure there's some spineless swine out there chuckling away waiting to show them to the world. I was a mere infant at the time. I had this friend who lived in Birmingham and we had this pact to see who could get the most letters in the music papers. Each of us had three pseudonyms as well as our own names. At the end of each month we'd compile a chart to see who was getting the most letters printed. I was unshakeably in the lead — I think at one point I had something like 57 and he had 26. Then he began to play tricks and send letters in under my name about the most embarrassing things, like 'bring back the New Seekers!'. So the whole thing turned very sour for me because I didn't like my name accompanying the New Seekers revival."

HIMSELF

"I think people need to have their imagination stirred. I'm sure everyone has some somewhere — deep down in the recesses of their mental innards or whatever. I just think it needs stirring. And I'm a very good stirrer, you know."

"I never watched 'Blue Peter', which probably explains a great deal. It always seemed too pompous for me. All that origami and making battleships out of old matchboxes and your mother's bed-sheets. I was never intrigued by that."

"I never really grew up, that's basically my problem."

GIRL GROUPS

"I wrote a book about them once but it's still on top of the wardrobe. I don't really feel any need to unleash that at the moment. I think it would be really too much for the British public to bear if I foisted yet another angle of my personality on them.

"I was always fascinated by that whole syndrome — he says trying to sound very scientific. It always surprised me that they were always called 'girls' anyway because most of them were of a considerably advanced age. Yet female singers all down the line — all down the history of music — are always called 'girls'. Even people like Olivia Newton John are called girls, even though she's thundering towards her forties.

"I found that extraordinary because there was never such a term as 'boy' groups. I mean, no-one would turn round and call Paul McCartney a 'boy' singer would they? It would be a serious insult.

"The book was primarily about people like the Marvellettes, the Shangri-las... the obvious ones. I was always highly motivated by female voices. I thought they were more passionate. They had more range and more scope and they were allowed to take risks with the words that they sang — and I liked that."