1984 album in review: The Smiths -- The Smiths

"Oy, Wanker, Bloke, Telly" 

This is a descriptive term, for a certain strand of Britpop, that I recently heard podcaster Yasi Salek use on the most recent episode of Bandsplain (about the band Blur--who, coincidentally, I love). It made me laugh out loud, because this is just the sort of British pop music I tend to gravitate towards. It's the sort of music that wears its Britishness proudly on its Union Jacked sleeve. While the subject of this post, The Smiths, aren't of the 1990s Britpop movement, the music they made in the 1980s certainly helped pave the way.

Now, let's take the time machine back to that magical year of 1986 that I have discussed so much in this blog:

Sometime during the first week of college freshman year, a particularly outgoing floormate--I can't remember exactly who this was--knocked on my door and introduced himself. (The irony of me forgetting who this kid was is not lost on me. I think it might have been Bob D., but I'm just guessing at this point). He enthusiastically recruited me to join him in knocking on every door on our floor (Ground Floor East, "Nads," Shaw Hall, Michigan State) and introducing ourselves, thereby getting to know everyone. This was an exhilarating experience, and I thank this "mystery kid," for this act of fearlessness.

So back to our door-to-door journey through "Nads." (Yes, our floor, in classic 1980s male collegiate immaturity, was named Nads). The last room we approached was G-69. the room closest to the stairwell that led up to the main lobby of Shaw Hall. The door of G-69 was wide open and inside the room were three guys, who I soon learned were Paul, Nick, and Pete. Pete was perched on the top of the one bunk bed in the room. Pete had a vaguely Beatle-ish haircut (think George Harrison, ca. 1965) and a distinctly artistic, bohemian air that I recognized immediately. He took one look at me and said, "Hey, you look a lot like this guy," as he pointed to a poster behind him. The man pictured on the poster had tall, almost spikey hair and dark-framed glasses. He seemed to probably be a musician. At this point, I think I said, hesitatingly, "is that the guy from...Pet Shop Boys?" Pete chuckled under his breath and said, "No. It's Morrissey...from the Smiths. Do you know who the Smiths are? You look just like him!"

The truth was, I did look a little bit like Morrissey. I had similar glasses and my dark hair stood up high on my head in a similar manner as Morrissey's. (Allow me at this time to have a moment of silence for my hair. It was fun having you while I did). But I had no idea who this Morrissey guy was, and even less of an idea who this "Smiths" band was. Who names a band "The Smiths" anyway?

"So...are the Smiths...good?" I sheepishly asked, already feeling embarrassed that I thought this Morrissey guy was Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys. How was I gonna live this one down? My hip credentials were non-existent at this point, other than I accidentally resembled this Morrissey character.

"You're damned right they're good! Here, I'll let you borrow this album, The Queen Is Dead," Pete ebulliently exclaimed. (In retrospect, it's safe to say Pete had been drinking just a wee bit that evening and was feeling pretty good).

I was relieved that Pete seemed completely unfazed with my ignorance regarding the Smiths. In fact, he seemed more that thrilled to be proselytizing on their behalf.

I borrowed Pete's copy of The Queen Is Dead, and from the opening track, with the opening sound clip of "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" (take from the British kitchen sink drama The L-Shaped Room, which I quite recently watched for the first time), its thunderous drums, warbly, distorted guitar, and Morrissey's almost disembodied voice moaning, "oooooohhhh, farewell to this land's cheerless marshes/hemmed in like a boor between arches..." I was hooked. And that's not just me overstating my reaction. I really and truly was hooked. The lyrics seemed audacious, culturally inscrutable and opened me up to a new unexplored world. Just as hearing R.E.M.'s Lifes Rich Pageant and Murmur for the first time--in probably the very same month as hearing this Smiths album--a door had been propped wide open for me. These were exciting new--for me--bands with smart lyrics, intriguing and unique lead singers, and guitarists who were creative without being ostentatious. 

Hearing The Queen Is Dead for the first time was likely the moment that my Anglophilia was born. The Smiths, these four lads from the gray hardscrabble industrial city of Manchester, had songs about "the Queen," "Dear Charles," the Daily Mail, a rusty spanner, Keats, Yeats, Wilde, "cemetry [sic] gates," the Holy Name Church (with somebody "lifting some lead") and on and on. And then there was the gatefold sleeve with the band pictured in front of some brick Victorian building called the Salford Lads' Club: Morrissey standing in front, arms crossed, hair sticking straight up, with a knowing, arrogant smirk; Johnny Marr shyly leaning to his left behind Morrissey, with a curtain of dark hair above his eyes, Andy Rourke on the left looking bemused, and Mike Joyce on far right, cigarette in left hand, looking like someone not to be trifled with.

In short order, I bought my own vinyl copy of The Queen Is Dead and worked my way backward from there: Meat Is Murder (an album that I actually remembered seeing at Camelot Music at Saginaw's Fashion Square Mall the previous year--but didn't buy since I knew nothing about the band), Hatful Of Hollow (the odds and sods collection only available on the band's British label, Rough Trade), and the subject of this post, the self-titled debut.

I also became fascinated with Morrissey and played up whatever resemblance I had with him. I combed my hair like Morrissey, bought a Morrissey-like cardigan, studied pictures I saw of him on album sleeves and music magazines and tried to, if not replicate Moz, pay homage to him. All of this is a little embarrassing in retrospect and only lasted about a year. I was an 18-year-old looking for an identity, copying others in an attempt to be cool. Yet, at the same time, arriving at college and discovering eccentric artists like Morrissey was freeing for me. I had finally escaped from my small-town Michigan life and was able to try on different looks and personas. (It took me a long time to learn that being myself was okay).

Now onto the real Morrissey and not Midwestern teenagers pretending to be Morrissey. "The Mozzer" has become problematic, to say the least. Some might just say he's quite simply an asshole. He has become a "little England" anti-immigration, racist wanker. Maybe he always was like this, but we just didn't know back in the 1980s. I suppose songs such as "Panic" (with its "Hang the DJ" rant) and later "Bengali in Platforms" (from his 1988 solo debut Viva Hate, containing the lyric, "life is hard enough when you belong here") should have been a warning.

I can't square the 2024 version of Morrissey with the Smiths-era Morrissey: the son if Irish immigrants who, at least in song, seemed to identify and empathize with oddballs, misfits, and the under-class--while also taking shots at authority and the monarchy. But I suppose we all change as we get older, some not for the better. Morrissey has always been contrary and has always tried to poke the hornets' nest, so who knows how he really feels about anything? It might change by the day.

The Smiths are comprised of more than just Morrissey.  Drummer Mike Joyce and bassist Andy Rourke provide a solid foundation (with Rourke being remarkably funky at times. Witness his Bernard Edwards/Chic-like playing on "Barbarism Begins at Home" from Meat Is Murder). Finally, there is guitarist Johnny Marr. Guitarist extraordinaire Johnny Marr. I don't think I appreciated how important he was to the Smiths' sound (and songwriting) back when I first started listening to them in the 1980s. As an added bonus, Johnny Marr seems to be a saint of a man. He is affable, witty, and has had a successful post-Smiths career (as a solo performer, occasional bandmember of various bands, and as a composer).

Now, on to the Smiths' debut album, which is ostensibly the subject of this post. It's not my favorite Smiths album, though I still love it. This little exercise has made me appreciate it more and notice details that I either forgot or didn't process earlier. The band was still trying to figure out its sound and how to use the studio. The songwriting is a bit rough around the edges, and Morrissey hadn't yet harnessed his voice. However, his lyrical game was already on-point--perhaps the product of all that time spent in his room reading literature and poetry and writing.

The Smiths always paid attention to image and packaging, and a hallmark of their album and single sleeves were the "cover stars" on each release. A cropped still of actor Joe Dallesandro, from 1968's Flesh (aka Andy Warhol's Flesh) adorns the front of The Smiths. In my deep dive into this album, I checked to see if Flesh was streaming anywhere, assuming that either it was not, or if it was, it would cost money. Lo and behold, Flesh is--as of this writing--streaming on YouTube free of charge.  Over the course of three days, watching in about 30-minute chunks, I saw the whole movie. It's a cinema verite "day in the life" of a young New York City hustler, played by our The Smiths "cover star," Joe Dallesandro. Filmed on the cheap by director Paul Morrissey (no relation to "our" Morrissey), the film is a fascinating glimpse into late '60s bohemian New York and features some notable folks from Warhol's Factory. (For example, Candy Darling has one memorable scene and is quite captivating). It's easy to see young Steven Patrick Morrissey being intrigued by Flesh and perhaps making a mental note of Joe Dallesandro's undeniable beauty, maybe even thinking that a still from the movie might make a good record sleeve someday. (That might be a fanciful stretch on my part, but who knows? Morrissey long harbored dreams of making it as a performer).

So now I shall dive into the album, and I apologize in advance to any English or British Isles person for anything I might get wrong with these song interpretations.

The opening track, "Reel Around the Fountain", is about a May/December gay romance or sexual encounter. It could easily be the scene in Flesh in which the elderly "Artist" (portrayed by veteran British actor Maurice Braddell) pays Joe to pose nude in various athletic poses while The Artist sketches him. I have heard some insist that the song is about pedophilia, but I have never heard it that way. I don't think the narrator is literally describing himself as "a child" when the relationship began. I also took at as the younger man describing the disparaging ways in which other described the older man ("virtually dead," "no worth") and how the younger man disagrees with this assessment.

Upon listening to this song this week, I finally noticed Paul Carrack's keyboard playing with lends a gentleness and almost soulfulness. It reminds me a bit of famous session player Nicky Hopkins' work in the '60s with the Kinks and the Rolling Stones in particular. It's a comparison that never would have occurred to me as an 18-year-old, since I had no idea who Nicky Hopkins was.

Darkness and gloom with a touch of humor (Morrissey's sense of humor is often overlooked in the overly reductive view of his "mopeyness") makes its first appearance in "You've Got Everything Now." Morrissey's allergy to full-time employment ("I've never had a job because I never wanted one"). The narrator of the song is conflicted. His acquaintance is successful but doesn't seem happy in the eyes of the narrator ("I've seen you smile but I've never really heard you laugh"). The narrator remembers the past at "the old grey school" when the roles were reversed and the narrator "would win" while his friend/adversary "would lose."

On "Miserable Lie," we venture into the world of a couple in a complicated relationship living in a rented room in Whalley Range, which is all they "get for their trouble and pain." (According to Wikipedia, "the source of all human knowledge," Whalley Range is a suburb two miles southwest of the Manchester city center. Originally planned as "a desirable estate for gentlemen and their families," by the 1960s, Whalley Range had gained a reputation for its bed-sits and red light district). Musically, the song transitions from slow to frenetic, mirroring the combustible, hot and cold nature of the relationship depicted.

With the exception of the gloomy, meandering word salad of "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and the equally dark final track, "Suffer Little Children," which is a meditation on the 1963-1965 Moors Murders in Manchester, every song on the album addresses sexual confusion to some degree or other. In "Pretty Girls Make Graves," a young woman in a beach/seaside setting attempts to seduce the narrator, who tells her "I'm not the man you think I am." Morrissey was likely trying to tell us about himself without being direct about it.

Back to "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and "Suffer Little Children" for a moment. I don't think The Smiths are recognized enough for, not just the darkness of many of their songs, but the violence (both implied and explicit). "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" includes the line, "there will be blood on the cleaver tonight," and "Suffer Little Children" is self-explanatory. (In my deep dive, I discovered that Morrissey took lyrics directly from the book Beyond Belief: A Chronicle of Murder and Detection. The book was published in 1968 and is about the Moors Murders case. I found a cheap used copy online and now I own the book. Yes, when I obsess over a subject, I go all out).

It has dawned on me that I am crawling way too far up my own ass with these lyrical analyses. I don't honestly know exactly what Morrissey is on about with many of these songs, and does it really matter? On recent listens, the songs that leaped out at me the most are "This Charming Man" with its effervescent melody and "What Difference Does It Make?" which features some incredible Johnny Marr guitar work. My notes for this include "I fucking love this song." What more is there really to say? 

The debut album is not my favorite Smiths album. That honor probably goes to The Queen Is Dead, but their final album Strangeways, Here I Come has grown considerably in my estimation over the years.

By the time Strangeways... was released in September 1987, I'd cooled off a bit in my Smiths passion. I still liked them, but I'd moved on to other music and was also disappointed with the band's decision to break up. What can I say, I was a fickle music fan back then.

In the years since, I've had periodic Smiths moods. Since Morrissey went off the deep end with his public proclamations, I've wrestled with whether to continue as a Smiths/Morrissey fan, but ultimately decided to separate art from artist, and remember that there was a time when Morrissey wrote "songs that saved our lives." When our older son discovered the Smiths on his own, it renewed my interest in the Smiths and proved that the band created timeless music that continues to speak to sensitive young people, and perhaps will continue to do so well into the future.