My position on The Smiths at the time fell into the category of 'not keen'. Indie music was just coming through and Morrissey and friends seemed to epitomise the miserablist ethos of the whole movement. And their fans had stupid flat-tops, came from Manchester and wore turned up 501's and black sesh cardies. Remember I'm 16 or 17 at this time and so going through the most narrow-minded and bigoted period of my life. Of course I've mellowed with age and can appreciate The Smiths for what they were now. I can also spot some pretty mainstream influences in this first album too, not least the Motorhead-derived riff on 'Miserable Lie' and the Robert Plant-style wailing on 'Pretty Girls Make Graves'. That wailing falsetto he resorts to in a number of places is really rather odd and borders on a Monty Python or League Of Gentlemen style man-playing-a-harridan act. Also, Morrissey's vocal and lyrics often seem to be struggling against Marr's melodies. I guess it's Morrissey's refusal to compromise and rephrase his lyrics to fit the music (nor the other way round with Marr) that contributes to the magnetism of the whole thing and makes them much more interesting than their contemporaries. There are jarring changes of pace too. Not least on 'Miserable Lie'. And sometimes he just resorts to la-di-da-di-da instead of proper lyrics (see 'This Charming Man') . It's obviously intentional, and it works, but you do wonder if he simply couldn't think of anything and so made a virtue of giving up trying. The Smiths present another problem for me too (in the context of doing the blog posts), in that many of their best known songs were single-only releases 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' and 'William, It Was Really Nothing' are examples, and 'How Soon Is Now' was the B-Side to 'William' but appeared on some later issues of Meat Is Murder (see, it's complicated - thanks Wikipedia). 'Hand In Glove' is on here, which they also recorded with verruca-prone Eurovision entry Sandie Shaw. Shaw gave a memorable performance on Top Of The Pops in which she ended up lying on her back. She was only about 47 at the time but if you were a narrow-minded and bigoted 16 or 17 year old at the time, you probably thought she was acting a bit like a drunk aunt at a wedding who's just discovered her husband's been having an affair with Gillian from the office. Smiths album artwork is simple and complex in equal measure, so I'm not even going to try.
Side 1
Reel Around The Fountain
You've Got Everything Now
Miserable Lie
Pretty Girls Make Graves
The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
Side 2
Still Ill
Hand In Glove
What Difference Does It Make
I Don't Owe You Anything
Suffer Little Children
MEAT IS MURDER (1985)
All indie guitar bands strove for a 'jangly' sound in the mid-eighties. Personally I prefer my guitars slightly overcooked and crunchy. The Smiths were prominent janglers, but Meat Is Murder does reveal that Marr was playing around with a variety of styles including skiffle ('Rusholme Ruffians' and 'Nowhere Fast'), jazz-funk (oh yes) on 'Barbarism Begins At Home' and some pretty heavy rock ('What She Said' has more than a hint of Jethro Tull about it). Of course words are as important as tunes when you're discussing The Smiths. Here Mozza gets stuck into school bullies (teachers and pupils) in 'The Headmaster Ritual', corporal punishment in 'Barbarism Begins At Home' (where he also yips like a Jack Russell terrier) and militant vegetarianism on the title track (with Daisy the cow and Flossie the sheep on backing vocals). As an enthusiastic carnivore I cannot agree with his premise that there is no reason to kill animals for food and so it amounts to murder and so his efforts to change my mind with the song have utterly failed. Sorry. The Spotify version doesn't include the later-added 'How Soon Is Now', so I picked that up off the Hatful of Hollow album. Marr's ghostly, quivering intro is one of the defining sounds of the decade. The lyrical theme is one of Morrissey's faves, loneliness, shyness, not getting your end away. Also released as a single around the time was 'Shakespeare's Sister', which I can describe no more accurately than 'very Smithsy'. Cover pic is an American soldier in Vietnam with the album title scrawled on his helmet. The slogan in the original picture was 'Make War Not Love', I am Wikipedially informed.
The Headmaster Ritual
Rusholme Ruffians
I Want The One I Can't Have
What She Said
That Joke Isn't Funny Any More
Nowhere Fast
Well I Wonder
Barbarism Begins At Home
Meat Is Murder
THE QUEEN IS DEAD (1986)
Amusing musings on violence and death with the Jangle-o-matic turned up to 11. The Daily Mail ragging title had the desired effect at the time too. Moz is at his acerbic peak from start to finish. Love the frantic wah-wah pedal on the title track, but I've gained most pleasure over several listens from 'Frankly, Mr Shankly' in which Morrissey seems so pleased with the rhyme, he just can't stop splurting out "Sssshankleeee", and piles on the archly funny rhyming couplets. The biggies on here are 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' and 'Some Girls Are Bigger That Others'. As I began to think about the lyrics to Bigmouth in earnest (I do actually think about this stuff before writing it down y'know) I kind of assumed it was about domestic violence ("Sweetness I was only joking when I said I'd like to smash every tooth in your head") but Wiki-disillusioner suggests it's more introspective and is about Morrissey feeling sorry for himself because he's so misunderstood - which is why he sees himself as a modern Joan Of Arc. That weird backing vocal, which elevates the song to another level, is actually Morrissey speeded up. 'The Boy...' is actually quite disappointing when listened to in the context of the whole album, seeming a bit bland and inoffensive compared to everything else. 'There Is A Light...' is Morrissey returning to his shy, low self-esteem and unlucky in love comfort zone, and has that great hesitant flute backing. And 'Some Girls...'? You probably shouldn't try to read too much into it, I suspect that the rhyme of mothers and others just appealed to him.Wedged in between all these on side 2, 'Vicar In a Tutu' is a jolly gallop and really does seem to be about a cross-dressing cleric. Easily my favourite so far and only one more to go too.
The Queen Is Dead
Frankly, Mr Shankly
I Know It's Over
Never Had No One Ever
Cemetery Gates
Bigmouth Strikes Again
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Vicar In A Tutu
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
STRANGEWAYS HERE WE COME (1987)
Vicar In A Tutu
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
First listen and you think Morrissey has lost his mojo. And there really are moments where the band seem to have lost the plot. The intro to 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me' takes well over a minute for no good reason and overall there is a feeling of it all being a little derivative. But the light ska of the opening 'A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours' is pretty good fun, and the standout single off the album 'I Started Something I Couldn't Finish' is as good as any other they've done. So after 3 or 4 listens it all comes together into a coherent whole. 'Death Of A Disco Dancer' owes a small debt to 'Dear Prudence', although he's more Siouxsie than Lennon. That's Morrissey tickling the ivories too, and showing a fair degree of virtuosity. 'Girlfriend In A Coma' is quite SO Morrissey that you wonder if he's intentionally wandering into self-parody. Point of reference on that song is 'First Cut Is The Deepest', which could be a Smiths song title in its own right. Big surprise for me was 'Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before', which I knew from the Mark Ronson cover version, but didn't realise was a Smiths song. It's a great song in both cases. When 'Last Night...'does get going it resembles a Bond theme, all lush strings and drama. If they were auditioning for the job, it would have been Dalton's first outing 'The Living Daylights' I reckon they might have pulled it off, but A-Ha got the shout in the end. Mozza gets his digs in with 'Unhappy Birthday' and particularly 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' in which he rails against the constant milking of the Smiths back catalogue cash-cow by record execs (and remember these were the supposedly game-changing Indie rebels at Rough Trade). By the way, I always thought it was indicative of what singled Morrissey out that he used words like 'sickening', but having listened to all the albums in succession, he actually overuses it and went back to it again on his single effort 'Suedehead'. There's really great later stuff that I really like that never made it onto a proper studio album. 'Ask' and 'Panic' both post-date the four albums and for me probably represent the pinnacle of their pop output.
A Rush And A Push and the Land is Ours
I Started Something I Couldn't Finish
Death Of A Disco Dancer
Girlfriend In A Coma
Stop Me If You Think That 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
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