The Miracle of the Smiths

Robin C:

>>> mid-80s Smiths fandom as I see it was the *last breath of Hoggartism*

In large part, yes, this is right. Maybe the M thing about 'illness' (hearing aids etc) stuck out, though? Also re. gender - cos M was 'sexually ambiguous' - and Hoggart's book doesn't have much place for that. (This is the puritan vs bohemian split in M, if you like.)

>>> I don't know whether the Pinefox will agree with me, but I find it their strangest, weirdest, most pathological single, their most passionate yet their most doomed.

Yes - kind of. But like you, I don't think that detracts from its enjoyable fascination. A strange thing, rarely mentioned, is that it's VERY SHORT!

Suzy:

>>> A few years later, of course, the clubs were in thrall to dance music which did say something to people about their lives.

Well - different perspectives here, surely. From the POV of dance fans (or whatever) in 1986, dance music presumably *did* say what they needed; just like (I imagine) it does for dance fans now. It doesn't for me, of course - but you knew that.

Dods: I like the points re. rockism (personally I *love* guitar solos, of course).

>>> The echo of the provincial towns sounds rather quaint now, I can't imagine anyone else singing the praise of Carlisle when you've got the delights of London or NYC to write about.

Well. Just you wait. One day.

>>> It isn't that nobody would write about provincial towns now but that provincial towns *just aren't like that anymore*: even compared to 15 years ago, they are as given over to hedonism as anywhere else and totally unresponsive to any remaining echoes of puritan socialism

Hold on - there seems to be an assumption developing re. M's attitude to provincial towns (which as said in past I find fascinating - the towns, I mean, not the attitude). I don't see it that way. I think he is just *listing* for PANORAMIC EFFECT: it's ALL ENGLAND APOCALYPSE.

>>> The other thing is the provincial towns Morrissey loves may have existed at some point, but they had already disappeared, or were disappearing, by the time Panic was written.

But those towns are still there! Yes, they've changed - but for the better *as well as* the worse, I'd guess (like most things: dialectics as usual).

Back to 'strangeness': this is still the key thing for me. Robin C pinpoints an aspect of it re. the children's choir - an element of sinister otherworldliness, or whatever. Plus, the comic (and retro) eccentricity of Marr's *music* (cf Nitsuh earlier) as well as the unseemly violence of the lyric (M as embarrassing ranting party guest - back to Nitsuh earlier, again)...

It would be interesting to know if 'Panic' could ever have gone another way - if there were more elaborate lyrical drafts that spelled things out more fully (a la 'Queen Is Dead'). But I'm clutching at gladioli, I know (I know, I know...).

Billy: the other Mancunian axis that comes to mind as more representative of genuine latter-day (i.e. post-Thatcher, or rather *irrevocably-changed-by-Thatcher*) Northern working-classness is the Roses / Mondays (the Mondays especially) wing which was in the ascendancy as Morrissey's solo career declined (held back, as I saw it, by long gap between first two proper solo albums causing loss of momentum: instructive that none of his four 1991 singles, from the Our Frank era, made even the Top 20 whereas the first four solo singles all went Top 10). For some reason (and I was actually thinking about this before I knew this thread existed!), I associate "Madchester Rave On" outselling "Ouija Board Ouija Board" five to one in Manchester HMV with the fall of Communism and the emergence of MTV Europe: not only concurrent, but a similar, definitive (or so it seemed) victory of hedonism over any remaining hints of, perhaps foolhardy, ideological conviction.

Provincial towns already changing rapidly by 1986 - well, exactly, kind of strengthens my argument that the central theme of "Panic" is nostalgia and longing. This is, also, its central fascination.

Pinefox: shortness of "Panic" something that occured to me earlier. I personally relate it to the classicism / nostalgia of the song: write a song that evokes provincial towns as they perhaps were around 1963 and make it the length of pop songs of the time (during the British New Wave cycle of films from 1958-63, it wasn't unknown for songs of less than two minutes in length to make Number One: Adam Faith's "What Do You Want?" springs to mind).

The towns are still there, of course, and what is fascinating is just how much they have changed, as anyone who makes a habit of visiting places that feature in old films, TV series, photographs etc. will know. One of the great fascinations of modern Britain is comparing the general informality and hedonism of these places *now* (main exception that comes to mind: Winchester, especially in winter) with images of how they once were. Peter Hitchens was, perhaps for the only time in his life, spot on when he said that traditions can be destroyed just as effectively when you leave the buildings there but chip away at the ideas and feelings that gave them meaning, as when you tear down the buildings themselves. This is the key to how Manchester - and, I suppose, provincial Britain generally - has evolved in contradiction to and refusal of Morrissey's vision of it.

Strangeness: exactly. Listening to "A Rush And A Push ..." and "Death of a Disco Dancer", what comes out is how great they are *as sound*. I'd previously concentrated on Morrissey's words, but what stands out now is how great a *band* they were. For the first time, "Disco Dancer" sounds to me quite as apocalyptic as the title track of "The Queen Is Dead", an epic melodic grind for long after Moz himself is unheard.

There is much more within this thread, I think.

(Suzy and Nellie are sitting in the hall in front of their opened lockers which are littered with artfully arranged pin-ups from British and Japanese music mags. They are clearly deep in conversation)

PASSING METALHEAD BOY does a double-take when he sees locker gallery full of Men Wearing Makeup. PMB: "What is that faggot shit?"

SUZY and NELLIE exchange glances. Each girl removes an empty shopping bag from their locker. NELLIE: "'scuse me?"

PMB: "I asked you what that faggot shit was."

NELLIE (offers bag to PMB): "Here, take this."

SUZY (offers second bag to PMB): "Here, take this."

PMB now has TWO BAGS. PMB is puzzled.

SUZY: "Now. Put both bags over your head, DUDE. Keep America beautiful, okay?"

...see, they didn't stand a chance so no real hassle. Mallrat girls who had 'hair' comments were encouraged to look five years into the future, where if they had not managed to reproduce with a football player, they might actually HAVE the haircut I was sporting that day. In the same future I would of course be having my hair cut where I would never have to look at their bad style ever ever again. Besides, there weren't enough of US to form an actual Breakfast Club-type subcult so we were very confusing for THEM.

Not sure I agree. Sitting out Madchester was probably a wise move, but the single biggest cause of the decline HAS to be the fact that Kill Uncle was so spectacularly awful. Virtually EVERYTHING which was good about the Smiths had gone by now. (By the way, except for the singles, I really don't like Viva Hate either).

Somehow that knife-edge balance between camp, misery, humour, nostalgia and arrogance, which he kept throughout the Smiths career is out of whack much of the time. Too much or too little of any of these carefully-juggled elements resulted in nonsense like King Leer, Bengali in Platforms, Little Man What Now, Late Night Maudlin Street,Alsatian Cousin etc. Maybe the lay-off before Kill Uncle gave him too much time to think about how and what, rather than doing what came naturally in The Smiths. Working with hacks like Street, Langer and Nevin couldn't have helped much either.

Arthur makes a good point about a possible precendent in Orange Juice, and for the Postcard singles, it makes good sense. Simply Thrilled Honey and Blue Boy in particular have that odd structure and slightly distanced feel which marked out Hand In Glove. I sense that Collins was a much less complex character than Morrissey, and consequently less interesting. The post-Postcard era showed that he had nothing much to say.

I agree, pf. It's funny - I was thinking of posting a thread about Panic a while ago and thought better of it. What I was going to ask was 'what does this song MEAN?' Or more specifically, what do the chorus and verses have to do with one another? But then I decided it would make me look stupid. Of course I understand the connection, but it struck me as a perfect example of Morrissey's (Smiths era) approach to songwriting- so many self-contained lines/notebook fragments/twisted aphorisms that somehow end up constituting a lyric. If someone asked me what situation Morrissey was describing, or point he was making in a lot of Smiths songs I'd have no straightforward answer. He changed style a bit on Meat is Murder ('The Headmaster Ritual' is perhaps his best sustained direct, transparent song) but he never really lost his predilection (knack?) for opaque, ambiguous, cut and paste lyrics (torrents of words falling over themselves) until a little way into his solo career.

A thing that rarely gets mentioned: Mick Middles' book (yes, I know it's terrible) insists that when Morrissey & Marr started out, their plan was to become a songwriting team, not a band. Does anyone know if that's true?

That begs the question what was different about the Smiths. I would tend to argue that, musically, they were *less* strange than early Orange Juice: a fuller sound, less angular and difficult, less scratchy. Which is to say, I suppose, that they were more palatable to a pop/rock mainstream. I recall very well hearing "What Difference Does It Make" and "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" on Radio 1 on the bus to school. I can't imagine any of those first few OJ singles making it onto the breakfast show.

There's also clearly a big chunk of J. Rotten in the Morrissey persona: that ill, contrary outsider bit, handing down his crushing barbs with total disdain. I suppose you could argue that, musically, the Smiths were the first band in a musical generation to consider themselves nothing to do with punk (and punk as just a detail of history). They made themselves palatable to punk-obsessed likes of me by the Rotten-ness of SPM. Just a thought.

btw, I saw the Smiths on their first US tour in NY... which one of you geeks is jealous? :)

If not, no need for jealousy here.

>>> For some reason (and I was actually thinking about this before I knew this thread existed!), I associate "Madchester Rave On" outselling "Ouija Board Ouija Board" five to one in Manchester HMV with the fall of Communism and the emergence of MTV Europe

Put that way, it sounds odd - but I think your overall generational point is valid.

>>> shortness of "Panic" / classicism [60s]

This is a fine point, which goes for other Smiths records too, of course.

>>> Peter Hitchens was, perhaps for the only time in his life, spot on when he said that traditions can be destroyed just as effectively when you leave the buildings there but chip away at the ideas and feelings that gave them meaning, as when you tear down the buildings themselves.

Hm... but was he 'wrong' at the same time as being 'right'? I hope so.

Dr C:

>>> but the single biggest cause of the decline HAS to be the fact that Kill Uncle was so spectacularly awful.

I agree - but Stevie T will tell you, I think, that it was 'Ouija Board' which summarized decline !

>>> (By the way, except for the singles, I really don't like Viva Hate either).

I do. I agree that a balance has been lost, but that record is close enough to the Smiths - close enough to the flow - to retain much of what what M had then, I think. (I still think it the best solo record.)

>>> Working with hacks like Street, Langer and Nevin couldn't have helped much either.

This is true. Actually there is a whole separate discussion to be had re. the influence of Langer & Winstanley on the records of Morrissey, Costello and... Lloyd Cole!!

D Nick: you are very, very on the money - loads of money!

>>> What I was going to ask was 'what does this song MEAN?' Or more specifically, what do the chorus and verses have to do with one another?

This was what preoccupied me after I'd left the thread yesterday. And I realized that I had let myself forget my original sense of the song. What happens in the song - let D Nick take up the point again -

>>> it struck me as a perfect example of Morrissey's (Smiths era) approach to songwriting- so many self-contained lines/notebook fragments/twisted aphorisms that somehow end up constituting a lyric... but he never really lost his predilection (knack?) for opaque, ambiguous, cut and paste lyrics (torrents of words falling over themselves) until a little way into his solo career.

This is terrific stuff - so basic, yet so little recognized (it often seems). Anyway: Panic seems to me to be a *yoking of 2 ideas*:

1. REVOLUTION IN THATCHER'S BRITAIN - it's happening all over, kids! The miners' strike may have failed, but look at this fantasy! Violence is the only answer to our rulers!...

2. WE DON'T LIKE DISCOS / DANCE MUSIC - extended to 'burn down' idea, this seems like the same idea as #1. But really it's a much narrower Morrisseyesque fantasy.

In yoking the two he left the impression that the whole song was really about #2 (which emerges halfway through); whereas really I feel that #1 (very 80s, very Red Wedge pushed to extreme, in a way) is the key, and drags #2 in its wake.

Corroboration of a sort: Steven Wells made Panic his 45 of the week (July 86) cos it was Politickal, like. (Nothing to do with anti-disco sentiment, which would have repulsed him.) Think about it (as annoying people say).

>>> A thing that rarely gets mentioned: Mick Middles' book (yes, I know it's terrible) insists that when Morrissey & Marr started out, their plan was to become a songwriting team, not a band. Does anyone know if that's true?

No... I don't even recall seeing it. Anyone else?

Hopkins:

>>> I think PF's urge to put the strangeness down to such a simple synthesis is perhaps an oversimplification.

Fine. You're probably right. I was only being 'heuristic', or something. There is still a point there. I am not convinced, I think, that OJ were into that *particular* synthesis.

In return, I think your post is perhaps tainted with (by?) your perpetual post-1983 antipathy to the Smiths. To me, OJ sound (yes) original and different in the way you say - but also less fun than the Smiths (perhaps cos so original and different).

Dods mentions Bowie - I wonder whether my whole fixation on 'strangeness' misses out the idea that Bowie had done all strangenesses before? But no, I think, not quite. (Strange Pop Bowie = other thread.)

What does it mean to live vicariously through the Smiths? That you fantasize about being a miserable closeted neurotic?

When he made the comments I quoted, Hitchens was to me "wrong" because, on the whole, I don't think the traditions he cherishes were worth preserving, but also "right" because I thought he put his argument over very well *even though I disagreed with it*. Certainly, on a personal level, Hitchens is more interesting to me than any other journalist of the right, and there are some fundamental truths he has grasped about the anti-traditionalism (despite appearances) of Thatcherite policies, but I wonder how much of his interest to me is down to the endless amateur sociology *and* amateur psychology you can get out of the contrast between him and his brother.

Dr C: that's sort of what I meant to say about Kill Uncle, but it got lost along the way. It wasn't just the delay: all the singles off that album were just SO WEAK: you could not imagine any of them going Top 10 for one moment. I would concur utterly with what others have said about Morrissey losing his essential ambiguity at that time, and his lyrics becoming so much more boring and uninspiring (of thoughts, of possible meanings, of anything, really).

>>> Maybe if the song *had* been longer and more fully-explained, the "REVOLUTION" element might have been given the chance, so to speak, to sound more prominent?

Yes, precisely. Also the disco stuff has been easier for people (journos, whoever) to seize on over the year - where the revolution doesn't really go anywhere. (Is this right?)

Always seemed significant to me that the 45 was released just after Queen is Dead LP: and - more so - that live, they would follow that title track with 'Panic', without a moment's break (cf Rank LP): ie. 'Panic' was an extension of the political analysis of the earlier song. OK, only a pop lyric / tune; not a terribly sophisticated analysis, and tending more to 'adolescent' espousals of rebellion vs the royals / hatred of the Tories than anything properly worked through. But still - not quite the same as the 'racism / anti-disco / reactionary' thing that has been insisted on again and again. Possibly.

>>> I wonder how much of his interest to me is down to the endless amateur sociology *and* amateur psychology you can get out of the contrast between him and his brother.

Sad situation. But CH is also odd and perverse: currently writing articles for Guardian attacking 'liberal twits' who question war / US foreign policy. He's bright and everything, but I think he slightly abuses his position by going for perversity and irritation of readership too much.

>>> It wasn't just the delay: all the singles off that album were just SO WEAK

'Our Frank' - yes. 'Sing Your Life'? Probably. But funnily enough (Nitsuh may back me up here), two non-45s are arguably the most compelling things here: 'Driving Your Girlfriend Home', and 'Mute Witness'. (Thanks to Stevie T for making party tape in June 1997 which brought latter track to my stunned attention in the middle of Covent Garden. Never since abandoned belief that track is grate, though I'm not entirely sure I've even *heard* it since.)

Also what was The Smith's legacy? Twee-core? C-86? (I think mainly not), Jarvis Cocker/Pulp?

Legacy? The Smiths were immensely popular amongst the people who would become the twee end of indie, and were a central inspiration for a generation of sensitive kids to form bands and write sensitive songs. You could argue whether that meant twee-core was the legacy of the Smiths either way. I think it's *a* legacy of the Smiths. Pulp another, without question I think.

I did love the Smiths very dearly once upon a time, but I balk at talk of them being a miracle. I can't remember thinking "that sounds like nothing I've ever heard" (except perhaps on first hearing "How Soon Is Now"). I can remember thinking that some of their records were unbearably exciting. (If this comment bears the 'taint' of my not being a raving Smiths enthusiast, PF, please feel free to ignore it).

>>> I do think the band's relationship with / musical break from punk is crucial

OK - I'll buy it, though I'm not sure I get it yet.

>>> and the reading of "Panic" which various people seem to be reaching for above can be thought of as a punk story too: in the lyric you see a wave of unspecified panic crystallise into a musical battle, the fear and confusion of the initial verses collapses into the safety / sterility of a polemic reaching no further than the DJ booth.

This is a fine argument.

Weird complicating Pulp fact = Pulp started before Smiths? - or sth absurd like that?

>>> I did love the Smiths very dearly once upon a time, but I balk at talk of them being a miracle.

I meant 'miracle' in a non-evaluative sense - which I know sounds oxymoronic. I'm sure you think that my attempt to be non-evaluative is 'tainted' by evaluation. Probably it is, and possibly you think that's OK (possibly inevitable) anyway. I don't mind balking at (talk of) miracles, but in pop terms I can't think of that many things that deserve the term better than this lot (but possibly nothing does), whether in evaluative or non-evaluative terms (assuming that either category exists).

>>> (If this comment bears the 'taint' of my not being a raving Smiths enthusiast, PF, please feel free to ignore it).

Oh, I did.

Also compare Devoto's famous "I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin" line from Magazine's "Song From Under the Floorboards" with Morrissey's later preoccupations with illness and ugliness.

I go for 'a major incident in pop history' to describe the imapct of The Smiths rather than any definition of 'miracle'. Yet, I'm still struggling to understand what of consequence, if anything, they left behind. Here's my best shot at asking the question - "What did the advent of Morrissey allow artists to now do (which no-one did before)?" 'Scuse the bad grammar.

Doc C says, what did M leave behind? - etc. It's a very good question - BUT, can't a band / artist / whatever (in any medium) be 'great' and still NOT have a great influence? (cf, as always, Eliot's review of Ulysses, on this point.)

My feeling is that he made possible a more conversational style - he opened the door to new kinds of verbal awkwardness. But that is not meant to imply that there was no conversation or awkwardness pre-M.

Damian - I agree re. the chronology, but not re. musicianship. Marr was very much a 'musician' - not just a three-chord hack. There is always a sense, I think, of him 'doing what's right for the record'. You may have a point re. lyric-determines-length-of-track - but then, what about all those records where that doesn't apply? = That Joke / HSIN? / Queen Is Dead etc. I don't know - your argument is good, but I think Marr *could* easily have gone on and played fabulous 5-minute outros - *and I wish he had...*

Is that YOU over there in the gloom, Pinefox?

it's presumably a glancing sideways allusion to William Wordsworth, and it says a lot about the culture Morrissey came from: romantic fantasies of pre-industrial Britain, while superficially appealing, ultimately unsettle him as much as the erosion of the Industrial Revolution legacy and its replacement by rootless consumerism, because both present a vision of a parallel universe in which the culture he came from would never have existed (Manchester is often cited as "the first industrial city" and it was certainly an irrelevant backwater before the flight from the land enabled it to rapidly become an economic powerhouse). visions of the pre-industrial world erode and threaten Morrissey's urban-socialist-collectivist past, and the creation of a deunionised Manchester where Janet Jackson is a more important cultural figure than J.B. Priestley (the mortal fear which drives the main narrative to "Panic") presents the clear message of NO FUTURE. it's as if, amid bleak premonitions of his future, he's dismissing a possible solace because of the threat it poses to his pride in his past.

why don't people focus on that line in particular? it's pretty much the epitome of a deeply conservative Old Labour mindset, as though he sort of wants to find solace in an unchanging, utopian, monocultural vision of the countryside as a place to escape his hated deindustrialisation and decollectivisation and consumerisation and all-pervasive cultural hybridisation in the erstwhile socialist heartlands from whence he came, but that very Old Labour tribalism stops him (all the neo-ruralists in the last 35 years of pop culture came from pretty middle-class backgrounds AFAIK, and I find it very hard to imagine Fairport Convention coming even from the more salubrious parts of Greater Manchester, the equivalent suburbs to the Wimbledons and Muswell Hills from whence they actually came. as for such a band coming from Sheffield or Newcastle? utterly unthinkable, certainly in that generation, before the Industrial Revolution legacy crumbled and the new pick-and-mix rootlessness set in.)

a few contenders:

Wham!, "Bad Boys"

Bros, "When Will I Be Famous"

Happy Mondays, "Step On" (also Mancunian of course so probably the most obvious)

The Brotherhood, "Punk Funk"

Clipse, "Grindin'" (Westwood: "CHEETHAM HILL MASSIVE!!!")

"Panic" is a *weird* record, isn't it? Bloody weird, to be honest. Bizarrely, its emotional extremity and call-to-arms reminds me now of Eminem's "Lose Yourself", but ***from the opposite starting point***. It's almost an anti-pop pop record, in that it's an explicit refusal of the cultural exchanges that were already, by 1986, forming 90% of the Top 40. In fact, it's probably the best possible candidate for Tom's "Berlin WHAT?" thread, not in terms of actual reference points per se, just the ethos that formed it.

I recently said (not on here IIRC) that Wham!'s "I'm Your Man" was to Thatcherism what something like Elgar's "Dream of Gerontius" was to romantic Toryism: the epitome of the ethos expressed in music. If pure Thatcherism said "fuck you, High Tories *and* puritan socialists" ... well, it was revulsion at hearing "I'm Your Man" in a thoroughly inappropriate context which inspired "Panic" in the first place, so I always imagine Prince Charles hearing Diana playing it and getting TOTALLY PISSED OFF (remember his expression when she dragged him along to see Michael Jackson at Wembley in 1988? something like that).

I'm waffling, aren't I? But "I'm Your Man" and "Panic" = the Thatcher and Scargill of pop, surely, the radical of the right and the desperate nostalgic dreamer of the left.

Hey Pine! Are you going to the ILX Christmas thing?

God ... I loved that period of ILM, even if it went over certain heads :).

oh, and Gareth to thread!

Robin C: can't seem to remember what heads you mean - not that I expect you to mention them by name.

There's part of me that regrets missing these shows massively (though granted I was in San Diego rather than the LA area). At the same time, I kinda appreciate how this *wasn't* my high school listening -- college, sure, but it's nice not to have those bands/music tangled up with said high school times. Probably explains why they last for me.

I wish I still had my ticket stubs. I saw them in 1986 at what we affectionately called the "Cement Center" on the University of Colorado campus.

The Smiths
September 3, 1986
CU Events Center, Boulder, CO

Still Ill
I Want the One I Can't Have
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
How Soon Is Now?
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Panic
Stretch Out and Wait
The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
Is It Really So Strange?
Cemetery Gates
Never Had No One Ever
What She Said
(with Rubber Ring intro and outro)
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
Meat Is Murder
Rusholme Ruffians
(with (Marie's The Name) His Latest Flame intro)
The Queen Is Dead

Our seats were pretty far back, so it was hard to get a solid impression of the band. I did get to see Mike and Andy playing with Sinead on her first US tour a couple years later, we were right up front. I had no idea they were touring with her until I saw them. What a magic moment that was.

Meanwhile their music is almost entirely tied into my miserable high school experience to a profound degree. I don’t think I listened to this band for 15 years after hs until it seemed like distant history bc my life had changed sufficiently.

I can find almost no evidence online of that Sinead show, other than these photos from her press conference of the same day. Odd.

https://fairangels.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/sinead-oconnor-in-denver-1988/

xp I can relate, LL. For me, it was the middle of my college career, a time when I felt lonely, isolated and exhausted. I found the Smiths affirming as well as depressing.

Bee OK forgot to mention that the $17.50 Nov 1986 New Order show at Irvine Meadows also included The Fall and The Durutti Column as openers

Bee OK forgot to mention that the $17.50 Nov 1986 New Order show at Irvine Meadows also included The Fall and The Durutti Column as openers

I texted some friends that went to this show with me to see if we were on time. We were and The Durutti Column opened the whole damn thing. My mind is sort of blown right now as I realize that I saw the Fall live.

Thanks ET for taking me down that road for some early memories.

Ah, yes, the "Pumped Full of Drugs Tour."