One week at number one on w/e 14th November 1983
Using that analogy with The Smiths, it sometimes feels as if the rear view mirror was also cracked and twisted, offering so many illusions that nobody is sure what’s true anymore. They were revolutionaries who changed music! They were reactionaries who dragged it backwards! Morrissey spoke to millions of lonely bookish leftists and is also a fascist! And sometimes, besides this, you find yourself leaning on the second-hand anecdotes from friends which may or may not be deeply exaggerated. I’m forced to recall an older friend telling me that he once saw a man with a broken leg dancing ecstatically at an early Smiths concert, so passionately moved by what he saw and heard that being in front of Morrissey and Marr was like a trip to Lourdes.
I heard these tales only from older friends because frankly (Mr. Shankly) I was ten years old when The Smiths broke. The first I truly knew of them was through Tom Hibbert and Sylvia Patterson’s interviews in Smash Hits. That magazine’s approach to all pop stars, whether aspiring or established, was to hold a fairground mirror up to them and distort their eccentricities until certain aspects of their personalities dominated, each interview acting more like a caricaturist’s sketch than a respectful, gushing homage. Paul McCartney became known as “Fab Macca Thumbs Aloft”. Rod Stewart’s nickname was “Uncle Disgusting”. Even when Tom Hibbert interviewed Margaret Thatcher, the one quote that shone through the final article was her icy reply of “Always be serious!” to one of his more flippant, joky comments (in this case, about whether Cliff Richard should be knighted).
Morrissey never had a nickname at Smash Hits, but the way he was portrayed in that magazine often felt more revealing than the reverence bestowed on him by the NME and Melody Maker. For one thing, his quick wit shone through in that publication far more than the others – rival music journalists seemed to want to engage with his cerebral side, ignoring the fact that his lyrics clearly revealed someone with a sharp sense of humour.
On the flipside of this, however, he also frequently came across as a deeply lonely and gloomy soul; the kind of figure who rose at Noon, watched a black and white film on the television while slowly sipping soup, and waited for the phone to ring. Not a pop star, just an alienated man with a lifestyle less appealing than the elderly widower next door; that neighbour may not have had much to envy, but he at least waved from his window cheerily every morning. The Smash Hits Morrissey would never have done that.
I couldn’t relate to him, and he didn’t inspire me. If anything, I worried on his behalf - my Dad had a troubled friend who lived down the road, an eternal bachelor who had on occasion been sectioned due to his depressive episodes. To me, the Smash Hits Morrissey felt strangely close to the man I knew as Uncle Frank.
Also, for all their originality, there was also something very antiquated about The Smiths which felt odd to the hopeful ten-year old me. With the exception of the bold text on their sleeves, everything was deliberately black and white, frequently featuring pictures of fifties and sixties stars frozen in their monochromatic, pre-1967 world. This approach was not entirely without precedent; Paul Weller was also known to nod backwards in his choice of sleeve design and certainly sleevenotes, and obvious retro-heads like Meri Wilson and The Maisonettes might have shared this aesthetic, but generally speaking, early eighties popular culture was about keeping your eye on the horizon in front of you, not looking behind at a “better” past.
The older I became, the more I was won round. Musically they were often equally backwards-looking but less straightforward. The Smiths were proudly and obviously a “beat combo”, present to prove to the eighties that groups with guitars were absolutely not on their way out (an early review of “This Charming Man” even regurgitates this Decca audition quote) but this is where they ace it. Their sound is, like all brilliant groups, an inexplicable cocktail of everything that ever inspired them, combining to sound like nothing that went before. So much is going on here; the sharpness and brevity of sixties beat singles, the ambitious guitar work of post-punk (Marr has stated he was influenced by Maurice Deebank out of Felt – among others - but his approach is much more urgent and frantic) the taut, driving rhythms of a bass player and drummer who had obviously heard some Motown, all topped off with Morrissey’s shivering timbre, a sealion’s bray communicating one-line quips and deflated profundities, frequently with each following the other.
Many of the indie groups we’ve encountered so far are kids who were inspired by punk to Just Do It, only to find that at least one or two of their members were barely acquainted with the instruments they were supposed to do it with. That amateur aesthetic did often lead to interesting sounds, but seldom anything transporting. On The Smiths records, everyone has a strength they play to and maximise, an influence they can utilise and blend. It may be a strange brew, but there is no deadwood. Everything is eccentric, incredibly well performed and dazzling.
“Hand In Glove” was in some respects a strangely unrepresentative and modest single to open their careers with; “This Charming Man” sounds more like a statement of intent. The nod and wink lyrics and emotive groans are replaced with a poetic opening lines which have seldom been bettered in pop: “Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate/ will nature make a man of me yet?” Immediately, everything monochromatic about the group makes sense; pop music in the early eighties was often about decadence and aspiration, which ignored the fact that for many, it was a time of both economic and sexual denial. In The Smith’s version of pop, a fast car in LA isn’t just replaced by merely a bicycle, but a deflated one in a bleak landscape, almost a caricature of an impoverished anti-rock situation. It is then followed up by a hint towards Morrissey’s own desirability, maturity and possibly sexuality. There are multiple different groups of people who were being ignored by modern pop being directly addressed here and given a home.
The song continues, bounding away frivolously almost at odds with the lyrics, following a scrabbling path which almost mimics the most up-tempo mend-and-make-do skiffle of the late fifties. Morrissey quips and teases his way around a few gentile and old-fashioned hints at a homosexual liaison as he’s rescued in a stranger’s car, and the group seem to spend less than three minutes pulling hither and tither, as if the traditional sixties limits of a pop tune’s duration can’t quite contain them. Marr in particular feels exhilarated and unconstrained, veering from bright jangles to despondent chimes. The song finishes not on a fade, but on an immediate punctuation, an exclamation mark. “How’s that?” they seem to ask.
The public answer was unequivocal. The single moved the group from the outer edge of the Indie Top Ten towards the fringes of the mainstream. They made their first Top of the Pops performance, during which Morrissey was only too keen to play up his eccentricities by swinging around some gladioli while the rest refused to play the usual 1983 dressing up games. Their anti-glamour, their rejection of the synthetic both stylistically and musically felt like a very deliberate and effective reaction, and when a completely untapped audience suddenly feels seen, the end result is often hysteria.
They also affected me in one very significant way – my wife originally chose to move to the UK from Canada partly due to being a huge fan of the group and Morrissey in particular. Had “This Charming Man” not been a hit, my own life might have turned out very differently.
Also, for all their originality, there was also something very antiquated about The Smiths which felt odd to the hopeful ten-year old me. With the exception of the bold text on their sleeves, everything was deliberately black and white, frequently featuring pictures of fifties and sixties stars frozen in their monochromatic, pre-1967 world. This approach was not entirely without precedent; Paul Weller was also known to nod backwards in his choice of sleeve design and certainly sleevenotes, and obvious retro-heads like Meri Wilson and The Maisonettes might have shared this aesthetic, but generally speaking, early eighties popular culture was about keeping your eye on the horizon in front of you, not looking behind at a “better” past.
The older I became, the more I was won round. Musically they were often equally backwards-looking but less straightforward. The Smiths were proudly and obviously a “beat combo”, present to prove to the eighties that groups with guitars were absolutely not on their way out (an early review of “This Charming Man” even regurgitates this Decca audition quote) but this is where they ace it. Their sound is, like all brilliant groups, an inexplicable cocktail of everything that ever inspired them, combining to sound like nothing that went before. So much is going on here; the sharpness and brevity of sixties beat singles, the ambitious guitar work of post-punk (Marr has stated he was influenced by Maurice Deebank out of Felt – among others - but his approach is much more urgent and frantic) the taut, driving rhythms of a bass player and drummer who had obviously heard some Motown, all topped off with Morrissey’s shivering timbre, a sealion’s bray communicating one-line quips and deflated profundities, frequently with each following the other.
Many of the indie groups we’ve encountered so far are kids who were inspired by punk to Just Do It, only to find that at least one or two of their members were barely acquainted with the instruments they were supposed to do it with. That amateur aesthetic did often lead to interesting sounds, but seldom anything transporting. On The Smiths records, everyone has a strength they play to and maximise, an influence they can utilise and blend. It may be a strange brew, but there is no deadwood. Everything is eccentric, incredibly well performed and dazzling.
“Hand In Glove” was in some respects a strangely unrepresentative and modest single to open their careers with; “This Charming Man” sounds more like a statement of intent. The nod and wink lyrics and emotive groans are replaced with a poetic opening lines which have seldom been bettered in pop: “Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate/ will nature make a man of me yet?” Immediately, everything monochromatic about the group makes sense; pop music in the early eighties was often about decadence and aspiration, which ignored the fact that for many, it was a time of both economic and sexual denial. In The Smith’s version of pop, a fast car in LA isn’t just replaced by merely a bicycle, but a deflated one in a bleak landscape, almost a caricature of an impoverished anti-rock situation. It is then followed up by a hint towards Morrissey’s own desirability, maturity and possibly sexuality. There are multiple different groups of people who were being ignored by modern pop being directly addressed here and given a home.
The song continues, bounding away frivolously almost at odds with the lyrics, following a scrabbling path which almost mimics the most up-tempo mend-and-make-do skiffle of the late fifties. Morrissey quips and teases his way around a few gentile and old-fashioned hints at a homosexual liaison as he’s rescued in a stranger’s car, and the group seem to spend less than three minutes pulling hither and tither, as if the traditional sixties limits of a pop tune’s duration can’t quite contain them. Marr in particular feels exhilarated and unconstrained, veering from bright jangles to despondent chimes. The song finishes not on a fade, but on an immediate punctuation, an exclamation mark. “How’s that?” they seem to ask.
The public answer was unequivocal. The single moved the group from the outer edge of the Indie Top Ten towards the fringes of the mainstream. They made their first Top of the Pops performance, during which Morrissey was only too keen to play up his eccentricities by swinging around some gladioli while the rest refused to play the usual 1983 dressing up games. Their anti-glamour, their rejection of the synthetic both stylistically and musically felt like a very deliberate and effective reaction, and when a completely untapped audience suddenly feels seen, the end result is often hysteria.
They also affected me in one very significant way – my wife originally chose to move to the UK from Canada partly due to being a huge fan of the group and Morrissey in particular. Had “This Charming Man” not been a hit, my own life might have turned out very differently.
She would probably rather I mentioned that our first conversation was about her recognising me whistling Super Furry Animals “Ysbeidiau Heulog” (of all the bloody unlikely things) around the office we both worked in, because she’s subsequently become deeply embarrassed by Morrissey’s political direction, to the extent of practically abandoning his music. There will be others reading this who can’t understand how I’ve gushed for over 1,500 words about a man whose current world outlook feels like the mutterings of an embittered YouTube addict, his talent and insight washed out by carefully scripted algorithms, his wit replaced by parroted Tufton Street propaganda.
In my defence, this blog can only be used to look backwards at what happened, how it occurred, and why it created the impact it did. As soon as I start trying to weave the problems and disappointments of the early 21st Century into it, the more uncontrollable the narrative becomes. All I can do is polish that rear view mirror and keep it as clean as I can. After all, that’s another thing The Smiths understood – sometimes selectively looking backwards feels like a comfort, an uncomplicated joy, especially when the future is uncertain and the present has no obvious heroes to offer. You just need to not turn reverence of the past into a naive political or philosophical position, that's all; it's an affliction from which very few people seem to recover, and it can eventually turn you into the very thing you hate.
15. One Way System - This Is The Age (Anagram)
Peak position: 15
More guttural thrash and trash talking and rifforama from the persistent One Way System, who may have been punk rockers – a thing which is starting to feel as relevant to late 1983 as The Smurfs, Mull Of Kintyre and Brentford Nylons – but definitely now had a heavy emphasis on the Rock aspect, which thanks to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal felt current.
If The Smiths were luddites on a subtle level, “This Is The Age” is direct and unequivocal, slagging off computers and current developments with disgust while keeping the backing rough and raw. New Order could consider themselves told.
20. Red Guitars - Fact (Self Drive)
Peak position: 6
Even if Red Guitars weren’t punks, their concerns and obsessions often acted as more poetic parallels. The lyrics here may seem grand and eloquent, containing pearls like “facts are facts and railway tracks/ run parallel to the sky/ overcome gravity like we overcome grafitti/ with grafitti of our own”, but the chorus makes no bones about it and could belong to anyone on Crass’s label: “Take the profit out of war/ we don’t need it anymore”.
Musically speaking, “Fact” is a long brooding sulk of a single, where hard guitar lines only occasionally stab against the song’s slow moving grace.
29. Prefab Sprout - The Devil Has All the Best Tunes (Kitchenware)
Peak position: 7
For all their gentleness, the ideas in some of Prefab’s earliest singles often feel overwhelming. Breathy backing vocals cradle busy arrangements, tricksy drum patterns, vocals which veer from croons to agitated sneers and choppy stop-start structures. There are moments when it sounds as if Burt Bacharach has been united with Steely Dan and the Gang of Four at last.
I’ve owned this track for decades and every time I reach for it again, I seem to notice something I haven’t heard before, almost as if Paddy McAloon has set as many hidden trapdoors inside it as he can. It’s not going to be everyone’s bag, but for those who are tickled by such trickery, it’s heaven.
In my defence, this blog can only be used to look backwards at what happened, how it occurred, and why it created the impact it did. As soon as I start trying to weave the problems and disappointments of the early 21st Century into it, the more uncontrollable the narrative becomes. All I can do is polish that rear view mirror and keep it as clean as I can. After all, that’s another thing The Smiths understood – sometimes selectively looking backwards feels like a comfort, an uncomplicated joy, especially when the future is uncertain and the present has no obvious heroes to offer. You just need to not turn reverence of the past into a naive political or philosophical position, that's all; it's an affliction from which very few people seem to recover, and it can eventually turn you into the very thing you hate.
Elsewhere In The Charts
15. One Way System - This Is The Age (Anagram)
Peak position: 15
More guttural thrash and trash talking and rifforama from the persistent One Way System, who may have been punk rockers – a thing which is starting to feel as relevant to late 1983 as The Smurfs, Mull Of Kintyre and Brentford Nylons – but definitely now had a heavy emphasis on the Rock aspect, which thanks to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal felt current.
If The Smiths were luddites on a subtle level, “This Is The Age” is direct and unequivocal, slagging off computers and current developments with disgust while keeping the backing rough and raw. New Order could consider themselves told.
20. Red Guitars - Fact (Self Drive)
Peak position: 6
Even if Red Guitars weren’t punks, their concerns and obsessions often acted as more poetic parallels. The lyrics here may seem grand and eloquent, containing pearls like “facts are facts and railway tracks/ run parallel to the sky/ overcome gravity like we overcome grafitti/ with grafitti of our own”, but the chorus makes no bones about it and could belong to anyone on Crass’s label: “Take the profit out of war/ we don’t need it anymore”.
Musically speaking, “Fact” is a long brooding sulk of a single, where hard guitar lines only occasionally stab against the song’s slow moving grace.
29. Prefab Sprout - The Devil Has All the Best Tunes (Kitchenware)
Peak position: 7
For all their gentleness, the ideas in some of Prefab’s earliest singles often feel overwhelming. Breathy backing vocals cradle busy arrangements, tricksy drum patterns, vocals which veer from croons to agitated sneers and choppy stop-start structures. There are moments when it sounds as if Burt Bacharach has been united with Steely Dan and the Gang of Four at last.
I’ve owned this track for decades and every time I reach for it again, I seem to notice something I haven’t heard before, almost as if Paddy McAloon has set as many hidden trapdoors inside it as he can. It’s not going to be everyone’s bag, but for those who are tickled by such trickery, it’s heaven.
Number One In The National Charts
Billy Joel - "Uptown Girl" (CBS)
You probably know this but, originally, The Smiths' second single was going to be "Reel Around The Fountain". At the same I bought a copy of a magazine (I think it was "Esquire") which contained an advert for said single, with the same picture as on the sleeve of "This Charming Man".
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