53. The Smiths - William, It Was Really Nothing (Rough Trade)

Number one for four weeks from w/e 8th September 1984

Maybe it’s because I’m a Wire fan, but I’ve always admired compactness and brevity in pop*. The structure of the traditional pop or rock song usually involves heavy repetition, and however much indie groups claim to be outside the concerns of commerciality, they usually obey one of pop’s key principles – if you don’t hammer the fuck out of your song’s strongest hook, not only will it be less likely to get airplay, but any airplay it does receive won’t be noticed as much by the listeners.

By 1984, producers and bands were filling singles to their maximum run times, stuffing the turkey baster with the chorus and then ramming the grooves right up to the record label with its repetition. Even outside of some (mostly pointless and hastily cobbled together) extended twelve inch versions, songs often sprawled beyond their natural run-times and outstayed their welcomes.

“William, It Was Really Nothing” is probably my favourite Smiths song because it steps so far outside this usual structure while also fizzing to the brim with ideas. It comes across as a pile-up of grievances, a betrayed rant in song form, starting with an almost jaunty melody from Marr, before Morrissey whines “The rain falls hard on a humdrum town/ This town has dragged you down”, repeats himself, then adds “and everybody’s got to live their lives”. You’re immediately invited to envisage him strolling agitatedly through some red-brick suburban overspill with no discerning features.

It then makes a huge lyrical leap, using the town not as a reason to sympathise with the predicament of the person the song is aimed at, but to accuse them of building their own prison. William, whose life is “nothing”, is accused of staying with a fat girl – the only bit of the song I feel uncomfortable with, surely the main problem with her isn’t her obesity? - whose only aspiration in life seems to be marriage.

The song feels split in two halves. The first section sets the scene, and Marr and the rest of the Smiths are sprightly and busy throughout, setting you up for the idea that this is going to be an antsy tune about suburban ennui. Following the lines “God knows I’ve got to live mine”, though, things shift, the guitar begins to twang on a despairing line, then we get to the chorus and Marr’s fingers seem to blur through a furiously picked but very pretty and Byrdsian jangle. The chorus repeats once before the whole lot bends and folds like a house of cards, leaving only some ambient inconclusive guitar chords ringing.

It feels as if a tornado has appeared, thrashed around the edges of town, then left a few stray pieces of metal to rattle and sing out as it collapses. The effect is spectacular and surprisingly pretty – rarely do you hear a piece of music where betrayal and fury sounds so fussy and intricate, like a carefully designed doily with “fuck you” written in the centre – a song about courtship and romance where Marr’s guitar lines chime slightly like wedding bells in places, but do so with agitation not celebration.

Morrissey mentioned that “William It Was Really Nothing” was his attempt at writing an anti-marriage record for men, noting that women were always being told to leave their partners on singles, but men had little advice of their own to go on. There’s a slight tone of misogyny to the fact that he picked a “fat girl” as the central focus for “William” – I’m surprised female Smiths fans stood for this – but the song dares to observe that some women become unhealthily obsessed with marriage and begin to use it as a bargaining chip in relationships in a way men more often won’t.

22. New Order - Temptation (Factory)

Six weeks at number one from 29th May 1982

Nearly twenty years ago now, I subscribed to Last.fm, an application which measures the music you stream or listen to on devices, and produces facts and stats about your habits. It aims to stun and surprise you by revealing who your favourite artists are and who else you might enjoy, but can display the bottish habit of shooting bogies such as “If you enjoy listening to Paul McCartney, you may also like the work of John Lennon”.

Once every so often, though, it pulls up an unexpected theme you hadn’t noticed before; that could be that you have an overwhelming proclivity to listen to Joni Mitchell during Springtime, or that your nineteenth most listened to song of all time is an easy listening cover by an artist you otherwise don’t care about, or – in my case - that New Order are among your top twenty most listened to artists (currently resting at the number 12 spot).

The stats don’t lie. Year in, year out I dip into New Order’s catalogue and devour some of their tracks almost obsessively, but I do all this without feeling as if I can call myself “a fan”. Looking at the rest of my personal chart, I can see a stream of artists who at some point of my life I have felt a strong and possibly ill-advised connection to, particularly in my teens and twenties. They’ve all produced music I’ve loved, but have probably also had a combination of other factors which captured my imagination - strong lyrical themes, wit, intelligence or irony, a gripping visual aesthetic which stirred my excitement for their music, or a sense of something I could relate to or a version of somebody I wanted to be.

I don’t recall ever feeling this way about New Order. New Order have always just been there, pumping out wonderful records which have been, at different moments and sometimes all at the same time, moody, stylish, irresistibly danceable, boundary pushing and exquisite pop. Despite all this, though (and I accept there’s a chance I’m projecting here) who among us has really felt as if they know Bernard Sumner or Peter Hook, or even The Other Two? As teenagers, did we really read one of their interviews and want to follow them around the country until we more clearly understood the workings of their minds? Did their lyrics – in one or two cases, among the most atrocious ever written – make us think “Finally somebody has put a new spin on some of the events in my life”?

New Order never gave much away, but they also never gave the impression there was much going on behind the mystique either. All the beauty took place around them; those tastefully designed Factory Records sleeves and arthouse music videos created an image of sorts, but not one that stuck to a solid theme or was consistently, identifiably their own – if you asked Bernard Sumner to talk in depth about the meaning behind any of the artistic elements that accompanied them, you might get seven or eight words at best. If you really wanted the lowdown on that stuff, you had to ring the entryphone at Factory Records and philosophise with Tony Wilson.

“Temptation”, then, is fascinating for two reasons; firstly, it acts as the first solid, logical bridge between their old analogue past and their new experiments with electronics. If “Everything’s Gone Green” sounded shaky and tentative, “Temptation” seems more sure footed, in tune with the machinery rather than occasionally falling out-of-step with it. The original 1982 version (and not the 1987 remix which the group seem determined to make us believe is the definitive version) is too spindly for the dancefloor, but still sounds forward-thinking, like an early experiment in indie-dance.

Combined with that, though, is something that feels sharper and more honest, more knowable and believable, less arid than most of New Order’s work; Sumner’s voice strains and struggles, but the simplicity of the lyrics about the collapse of a relationship are close enough to Motown (The Temptations, even). “Up, down, turn around/ Please don't let me hit the ground/ Tonight I think I'll walk alone/ I'll find my soul as I go home” could actually be lines from a Northern Soul record, while the repeated begging of “Oh, it’s the last time/ I’ve never met anyone quite like you before” brings everything to the necessary climax.