The Miracle of the Smiths

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.

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?

This may be part mythology, but according to both "The Severed Alliance" and "The Songs that Saved Your Life" Marr went and knocked on Morrissey's door to introduce himself because he was fascinated with the Leiber/Stoller story/ethos (which mentor and later manager Joe Moss introduced him to) and wanted to carry on in that tradition. Of course there was a go-between, Stephen Pomfret, who had been in a band with Morrissey called the Nosebleeds, who was at first allotted a space in the new band and then dismissed once his work was provided. Marr was five years younger than Morrissey, so they traveled in slightly different circles, though they had met once before, at a (Buzzcocks?) concert. Morrissey was also very interested in the great songwriting tradition, Brill, and especially 60s girl groups, and at their meeting Marr was sure to play up his interest in that area also. Marr later disdained Morrissey's girl pop covers as the worst things they'd ever done though. I think the thought was that, if they couldn't make it as a band (because they couldn't find the right other members), they could at least write songs for others. This is evidenced in their frequent pleas/campaign to Sandie Shaw to let them write a song for her. But it didn't seem to go much further than that.

When I played a Smiths bootleg that I had just picked up, Gareth said, "The Smiths sound like they're all playing a different song at the same time." I had never thought of it that was, but given their background it makes sense. Marr had a dilettante background, tons of different influences, but had been most recently in a funk band with Rourke called Freak Party. And Joyce came from a punk band. These influences had to be stifled to an extent to please Morrissey. Toward the end, Marr was even fed up with their "jangly" ethos. At the time Marr was working in at X clothes shop and meeting a lot of people, creating a lot of opportunities for himself. His previous bands hadn't worked out so he set off to find himself a lead singer. Morrissey was sitting at home collecting unemployment and writing fanzine type books about The New York Dolls and James Dean. In progress were books about 60s girl groups and "Exit Smiling," a book about underrated Hollywood movie stars. These latter were shelved once the Smiths began. Apparently the songwriting process worked like this: Marr, and later his producers, would work out the tune, and then Morrissey would add music. But it wasn't that simple, if Morrissey wasn't pleased, he would ask for the melody/mood to be more like "this" and Marr was left guessing at and then striving for what would please Morrissey. One song, apparently, "Draize Train," Morrissey regarded so lightly that he could never make lyrics for it, so this was left as an instrumental. As others have mentioned above, Morrissey's very unusual phrasing would have the band revising the tune even more.

Morrissey was also apparently jealous of any of Marr's relationships outside of their own. This led to first manager and Marr friend Joe Moss leaving the group, and seemed to affect their management throughout. Morrissey didn't trust anyone in control of his business, nor was he comfortable executing the decisions himself, as much as he was making them. This left Marr in the unfortunate position of doing all of Morrissey's dirty work. Morrissey did seem to have a very crafty business head: the deal he worked with Rough Trade was 50/50 (with only himself and Marr as beneficiaries of course. He was also apparently stingy in paying his roadies. The only way Joe Moss got paid after he left was from Marr's pocket. The Smiths were virtually unmanageable, and this may explain their haphazard single/record releases. Though Rough Trade must have something to do with this also. Certain songs that should have been released as singles never were, or were too late, as "How Soon is Now," and tons of single were thrown out to the public, and then collected on a compilation to the hold the fans over until the next proper album. I don't know if this is common in the UK? This may have also reflected Morrissey/Marr's
reevaluation of the 45 as superior to the album and their belief in the themselves/desire to be foremost pop chartists. The band also had serious problems with their producers. Marr bonded heavily with John Porter, and the two of them got very into adding guitar upon guitar into the mix, which Morrissey wasn't very happy with. They were guitar geeks and spent tons of time in the studio messing around. Morrissey was a purist and wanted to tone down any technological influence, "Hand in Glove" was given it's clubby sound purely by distortion, a trick the band used to get around Morrissey's edicts. Morrissey preferred Stephen Street as a producer, who he later worked with at the beginning of his solo career, and I think Marr just learned how to be a producer himself to get around Morrissey's jealousy.

What I'm trying to get at is the all-consuming fear and loathing of women and heterosexual acts on that first record. Most explicit in "Pretty Girls Make Graves," but hinted in the squalid depiction of sexuality in "Miserable Lie" and pretty much all over the place

I think the loathing isn't specific to "heterosexual" acts, just sexual. The "Pretty Girls Make Graves" is another plundering--this time from Jack Kerouak's "Dharma Bums" and probably appropriated for its sense of futility and poetic drama rather than a specific misogyny. Morrissey was extremely "pro-feminist" as a youth -- he went to meet Patty Smith (through fanzine connections) wearing a button that said "Women's Liberation." He apparently also walked around Manchester with a button reading, "Lesbian Liberation," which could not have gone over well in those days. Morrissey was very influenced by the "Fourth Sex" regarding Jack Nichol's "Men's Liberation" as his Bible. Elizabeth Brownmiller's "Against Our Will" and similar pro-feminist books as Suzy mentioned above were also very influential. "He wanted to get beyond stereotypical male and female roles. I think "Miserable Lie" addresses the futility of relationships in general. The singer said a very interesting thing on the recent doc "Importance of Being Morrissey." This is just a paraphrase, but his interviewer asked him, "Would you ever consider living with somebody?" M.: "No, I can't imagine how that would even happen really." Interview: "Have you ever considered it?" M: "No, I don't think human beings are meant to live together. I don't think people get on really."

Side note: When Marr left the band, the Smiths asked Roddy Frame to replace him. He refused.

It is the next logical step.

"Yes, I'm THAT good."

(Actually, regular reader/sometime poster Melinda Mess-Injure is going to be presenting at this!)

Yes they were a miracle.

I'm gonna have to kick your arses in a minute with Smiths talk. Just warning you.

"The death of a disco dancer
Well, it happens a lot 'round here
And if you think Peace
Is a common goal
That goes to show
How little you know

The death of a disco dancer
Well, I'd rather not get involved
I never talk to my neighbour
I'd rather not get involved "

Prescient, yes?

Just read this thread, really quite something, anyway there's a couple of question I would like to ask relating to the issues raised in this thread, there is talk of Morrissey and The Smith's "legacy". I was wondering how peoples view had changed taking into account his perhaps nostalgia based comeback and obviously Smiths / Moz indebted yet achingly conservative bands reclaiming the indie / NME world. There's a notion put forward here that provincial Britain as Moz understood no longer exists but these bands seem like a studied attempt to speak to / about provincial Britain in the way Moz did. Though The Libertines who I am thinking of her got derailed by their own myth pretty quickly without bring anything particularly interesting to the table. Whilst perhaps someone like The Streets does talk about provincial Britain in a way that doesn't reek of conservative nostalgia though of course it could be argued he is part of a very different tradition and a completely different vision of Britain. The lyrics of many You Are The Quarry songs suggest that Britain no longer exists for Morrissey as anything but memory and pastiche (Come Back To Camden, Irish Blood, English Heart)? But was it ever anything but that? This is reminding me of the thread on Bob Dylan if Dylan is the link between two eras is Morrissey a sort of link between two significantly different epochs of British cultural history, from mining to malls or something. From tin mines to Tescos? Corner shops to Co-Op?
― elwisty (elwisty), Saturday, 19 February 2005 19:06 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^so glad this guy stopped posting

elwisty a villa fan by any chance?

It's the other one, but I get them confused all the time as well tbh.

the miracle of this thread. best ilm thread ever?

One of those great old threads where I look through it years later hoping, "Man, I hope I didn't say something really stupid during this terrific discussion." And I didn't say anything at all, thankfully.

TBH I only recently started watching footage of early Smiths concerts. It is kind of incredible that this man was a pop star:

Not even like charmingly Michael Stipe-ish geekiness.

(Like, speaking as someone who's pretty awkward and unco-ordinated but harbours no ambitions to pop stardom.)

Just academic stardom.

This thread was also amazingly self-renewing -- it had Nabisco, Dr C and Carmody writing great screeds early on, but years later the marvellous Mary could still pop up and write an even bigger one.

I think elwisty got the return and ? keys on his computer confused.

lol aspergers

lol you're a dick

Heads up -- from the folks who brought you the New Order/Joy Division Recycle blog:

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/

:D

Thanks, Ned.

kewl

Bookmarked!

Stoked for this.

Hope some fans pick up the idea and do this for The Cure too.

I know it's in bad taste to go "OMG this thread is so good!!!"

But yeah, OMG this thread is so good!!!

It is good! (today's stinking it up a bit, though)

Aw.

it was my emoticon, wasn't it ... :(

Still no Smiths action figures...

Sorry Ned, now I feel bad.

http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2009/1/30/17/morrissey-almost-nude-23290-1233354574-13.jpg
shit just got real