Smiths There's a Bignose Who Knows, NME

THERE'S A BIGNOSE WHO KNOWS

• Lights! Camera! Charles Hawtrey! Action! Are you the kind of busy kid who hasn’t time to get his library ticket renewed? Don’t worry. Get educated in the perverse, as NME goes round MORRISSEY’S house, raids his bookshelves, peeks in his diary, borrows loads of videos and doesn’t give them back in order to present a triv-crammed jamboree of Moz ephemera. Yes, 100 things you always wanted to know about Moz but didn’t dare to “ask” (Geddit?) The men who started something they couldn’t finish: STUART MACONIE, DAVID QUANTICK, LEN BROWN

“If you must write prose and poems, then the words you use should be your own, don't plagiarise or take on board / 'Cos there's always someone, somewhere with a big nose who knows." - The Smiths, ‘Cemetry Gates’

But do we know very well how The Smiths got their name? Possibly (see below). One of the abiding joys about being a Smith-head was always the hours of fun to be had in public libraries and watching old videos, picking up the scraps of dialogue and literary/celluloid in-jokes that Moz cast behind him. A paper chase that the average Transvision Vamp fan would find themselves sadly denied.

Moz may have thought we were trying to catch him out but, in reality, there continues to be tons of innocent fun in staying one Albert Finney film ahead of him. And so, for any other poor benighted trainspotters out there, we present a selective map of the Moz scrapbook. Join us now as Bigmouth strikes again. And again and again...

‘Girl Afraid’ (collected on the compilation ‘Hatful Of Hollow’) takes its name from a book written by the ‘novelist’ Bette Davis plays in the Hollywood classic Rich And Famous. It’s also rumoured to be the title of a book briefly glimpsed in the film Sleuth.

‘Alsatian Cousin’ is the opening track on ‘Viva Hate’. In Alan Bennett’s play Forty Years On, Bennett’s character has the following line: “I was distantly related to the Woolf family through some Alsatian cousins.”

Forty Years On also contains the line “One generation treading on the toes of the next - that’s what tradition means." which turned up (slightly altered) on ‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ from ‘Strangeways’.

Poetry writing employer Mr Shankly of the song ‘Frankly Mr Shankly’ is not, as widely assumed, the late Liverpool manager Bill, but poetry writing undertaker Mr Shadrack in the film Billy Liar. Both song and film concern a young man's desire to leave his humdrum job and ‘go down in history’. Moz also had an old schoolteacher called Mr Shankly.

Morrissey is seriously besotted with Shelagh Delaney and her play A Taste Of Honey, written by the Salford teenager in the late '50s. In the song ‘Reel Around The Fountain’ he quotes dialogue such as "I dreamt about you last night and I fell out of bed twice” and “ You're the bee's knees but so am I”. Moreover, the song ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’ from ‘Hatful Of Hollow' is practically a musical version of the play and contains the quotes “Wrap her up in the News Of The World, dump her on a doorstep,” and “The dream is gone but the baby is real”.

Owners of ‘November Spawned A Monster’ may be interested in the following snatch of Taste Of Honey dialogue. Asked when her baby is due, Rita Tushingham’s character replies, “October or November... I’m worried it might be born dead or daft.”

Shelagh Delaney may be the subject of Smiths single ‘Sheila Take A Bow’. If so, why has he spelt her name wrong? Because he can’t spell! Cemetry (as in ‘Cemetry Gates’) is properly spelt cemetery. Also, experts at the NME have serious doubts about the legitimacy of the word ‘prophesise’ as featured in ‘What She Said’. And sorry to carp, Moz, but where are the Grasmeres, where hopes may rise in ‘Panic’? Perhaps you mean Lake Grasmere in Lakeland? Or do you mean the suburb of New Zealand's southernmost city, Invercargill?

‘Late Night Maudlin Street’ appears to be an amalgam of two separate elements. Late Night On Watling St is a collection of short stories by Bill Naughton. More interestingly, Maudlin Street is the name of the secondary modern in Carry On Teacher.

‘Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together’ is (as well as a track on ‘Viva Hate’) the title of a French art film that no-one except Morrissey has ever seen.

Emlyn Williams’ excellent study of the Moors Murderers, Beyond Belief, provided much material for the formative Moz. Not only the subject matter of the song ‘Suffer Little Children’, but specific lines (“Lesley Anne and your pretty white beads / Oh John, you’ll never be a man") and, arguably, The Smiths’ monicker. (Myra Hindley’s neighbours and in-laws are The Smiths’ of the book). “Hindley wakes” in the song ‘Suffer Little Children’ is a pun on the Grade Fields film Hindley Wakes.

‘Suedehead’, Moz’s first solo record, takes its title from a book in Richard Allen’s unspeakably violent Skinhead series. Other titles include Dragonskins and Mods Rule. The books were required beiow-the-desk reading for youngsters bored with Sven Hassel in the early 70s.

The Smiths song ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ takes its name from a phrase of Virginia Woolf’s in her essay on woman writers, A Room Of My Own, an address to the ladies of Girton College. It’s since been used as the title of a feminist collection.

‘William, It Was Really Nothing’ is a tribute to Associates singer William ‘Billy’ Mackenzie, according to reliable sources.

The snatch of dialogue at the beginning of‘The Queen Is Dead’ features Cicely Courtneidge singing “Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty” from the movie of the Lynn Reid Banks novel The L-Shaped Room. The lines about breaking into the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner concern the antics of one Michael Fagin, who broke into the Queen’s bedroom in the early ’80s.

Solo classic ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’ seems to be a wry borrowing from John Betjeman’s ‘Slough’, Moz’s “Come, come nuclear war’ echoing the late-Poet Laureate’s “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough".

‘Little Man, What Now?’ is the name of a German book by Hans Fallada and a post-war film. Morrissey’s song of the same name concerns a minor celebrity appearing on Denis Norden’s dole-ite favourite, Looks Familiar. Rumour has it the forgotten child star is Jack Wilde.

Morrissey is quite interested in James Dean! He even wrote a book about him called James Dean Is Not Dead that no-one can find! (Stop press! Owlish Books Ed Stephen Dalton has a copy and is open to offers.) Also, the video for ‘Suedehead’ is filmed in Dean’s birthplace in Indiana. AND the line “Will the world end in the daytime or will the world end in the nighttime...?” comes from Rebel Without A Cause.

Sandie Shaw wrote a song about Moz entitled ‘Steven, You Don’t Eat Meat’.

Morrissey has often used the pseudonym ‘Sheridan Whiteside', the scabrous critic in the hysterically funny The Man Who Came To Dinner.

Readers, did you know that Morrissey is from Manchester? And he has peppered his oeuvre (Ooh! Missus!) with references to that fine city. ‘Manchester’ itself is mentioned in ‘Headmaster Ritual’ and ‘Suffer Little Children’. Whalley Range (his former home) in ‘Miserable Lie’, Rusholme in ‘Rusholme Ruffians’, Southern Cemetery in ‘Cemetry Gates’, the famous Church Of The Holy Name on Oxford Road in ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’.

Other Mancunian artefacts: the ubiquitous Salford’s Lads Club on Coronation Street, the famous road sign by Victoria Station (now stolen) featured on the ‘Strangeways’ sleeve, and ex-Coronation Street actor Cheryl Campbell (Suzie Burchill) in the vid for ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’.

The nickname Moz was invented by the NME in the now-defunct T-Zers column. Fact!

Morrissey proteges have included The Primitives, James, Raymonde, Easterhouse, Bradford, Lloyd Cole and George Formby.

Smiths / Morrissey covers include: ‘Work Is A Four Letter Word’ - Cilia Black, Twinkle - ‘Golden Lights’, ‘Skinstorm’ -Bradford, ‘East West’ - Herman’s Hermits, ‘His Latest Flame’ - Elvis Presley, ‘That’s Entertainment’ - The Jam and ‘What’s The World’ by James. Songs performed live include ‘Needle In A Haystack’ - The Velvelettes, ‘Cosmic Dancer’ - T Rex and The New York Dolls’ ‘Trash’.

Smiths songs covered by other artists include ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ - Dream Academy, ‘Jeanne’ - Billy Bragg, ‘Hand In Glove’ - Sandie Shaw, ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ - Bernard Manning, ‘Panic’ -The Nolan Sisters, ‘Money Changes Everything’ - Bryan Ferry and ‘Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ - Sinead O’Connor.

The single ‘Last Of The International Playboys’ concerns the infamous (but loved on their manor) Kray Twins. Reggie Kray has heard the song and claims to like the lyric but has reservations about the tune.

‘You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby’ was a remark made by Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis to Moz, when our hero claimed to be disappointed with promotion.

‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’, a witty indictment of record company mores, takes its title from a line of Oscar Wilde’s verse.

Frankly, the Oscar Wilde connections are too numerous and tenuous to list in their entirety, but he did always carry a gladioli!

Oh, and the run-out groove of ‘The Queen Is Dead’ reads “Talent borrows, genius steals", another Wildeism.

‘Hairdresser On Fire’ is rumoured to be based on the Orton-Halliwell play The Boy Hairdresser, and not Mane coiffeur Andrew Berry, as often thought.

Carry On films are ever close to Morrissey’s heart. In Carry On Cleo, Sid James as Anthony opens a bottle of beer and remarks, on seeing Amanda Barrie, “Oohh I say!” This episode appears in ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’. “The ghost of troubled Joe,” as mentioned in ‘A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours’, is reputedly a reference to Carry On Jack. Carry On stalwart Joan Sims appears in the ‘Ouija Board, Ouija Board’ vid. Moz made desperate efforts to persuade Charles Hawtrey to appear in a video. The reclusive star refused.

Morrissey claimed in an NME exclusive that the ‘International Playboys’ are himself, David Bowie and Howard Devoto.

Bizarre Morrissey/Charles Hawtrey link! Charles Hawtrey’s Dad - also called Charles Hawtrey - was one of the bastards who shopped Oscar Wilde at his trial.

The video for ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ features footage from ’60s cult classic The Leather Boys and not Taste Of Honey, as often thought.

‘I Know Very Well How I Got My Name’ refers explicitly to a moment of true-life drama in Morrissey’s youth when he dyed his hair gold and it went green and manky.

‘Sweet And Tender Hooligan’ contains the line “In the midst of life we are in debt’, which is a pastiche of a wise old saying from The Bible.

‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before’ received zero airplay because it was released in the week of the Hungerford massacre and contained an unfortunate reference to planning a mass murder.

Morrissey is a vegetarian. This led to him being pelted with sausages by over-eager fans bearing the legend ‘Meat Is Murder’ at a Smiths concert.

On the live LP ‘Rank’, Morrissey uses ‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ to uncover his spot-on Frankie Howerd impression.

B-side ‘Lucky Lisp’ is a crap pun on Cliff Richard’s single ‘Lucky Lips’.

‘Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others’ ends with Moz crooning the title of Johnny ‘Poetry In Motion’ Tillotson’s minor hit, ‘Send Me The Pillow You Dream On’.

Morrissey is a committed geographer. Among the places he has recorded in song are Luxembourg, Newport Pagnell, Birkenhead, Dublin, Dundee, Humberside, Carlisle, Birmingham, Bengal, Alsace-Lorraine, Sloane Square, Earl’s Court, Piccadilly and, on occasion, Manchester.

Further Morrissey references abound in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Le Petit Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery. We did go to the library to have a look at them but they were both out

YOU JUST HAVEN’T EARNED IT YET, UNCREDITED BABY

THOSE SMITHS COVER STARS IN FULL

45s

‘Hand In Glove’ (Uncredited bloke’s arse. It gets better, honest)

‘This Charming Man' (French film actor Jean Marais from Cocteau’s Orphee)

’What Difference Does It Make?’ (cult actor Terence Stamp and, on later pressings. Sir Moz himself) 

‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ (pools winner Viv ‘Spend spend spend’ Nicholson)

’ William It Was Really Nothing’ (Charlie Bubbles star Billie Whitelaw on later pressings) 

‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ (Coronation Street star Pat Phoenix)

That Joke isn’t Funny Anymore' (uncredited baby)

‘The Boy With The Thorn in His Side’ (author Truman Capote) 

‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ (James Dean)

'Panic' (Man In A Suitcase Richard Bradford)

‘Ask’ (top actress Yootha Joyce. A later version featured actor Colin Campbell in The Leather Boys)

‘Shoplifters Of The World Unite’ (Elvis Presley)

‘SheilaTake A Bow’ (Warhol star Candy Darling)

Girlfriend In A Coma’ (playwright Shelagh Delaney)

‘I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish’ (actress Avril Angers) 

‘Last Night I Dreamed Somebody Loved Me’ (British rockabilly idol Billy Fury)

ALBUMS

‘The Smiths’ (Warhol star Joe Daiessandro)

‘Hatful Of Hollow' (playwright Joe Orton)

‘Meat Is Murder’ (Still from The Year Of The Pig)

‘The Queen Is Dead’ (French film star Alain Delon)

‘Strangeways Here We Come' (Richard Davalos)

‘The World Won’t Listen’ (Assorted Teds photographed by Jurgen Vollmer)

‘Rank’ {Champions star Alexandra Bastedo)

‘Louder Than Bombs’ (Shelagh bloody Delaney again)