Tom Dunne: The Smiths, and why the sun shines out of their behinds
Mike Joyce, second from right, with the other members of The Smiths: Johnny Marr, Morrissey, and Andy Rourke. (Photo by Ross Marino/Getty Images)
Most music biographies have more in common with Father Ted’s Golden Cleric Award acceptance speech than they’d like to admit. They tend to oscillate between settling old scores or taking total credit for a team game. To find one, Mike Joyce’s that is simply a love letter to his band, The Smiths, is an unalloyed joy.
I’m not sure people realise just how important The Smiths were. I’d rank them just after the Sex Pistols in terms of seismic shift. The Pistol lit a flame, but it was dying out before The Smiths arrived with Hand in Glove on Top of the Pops. After that and it went up again like a Roman candle factory.
It’s amusing at this point – Punk is 50 next year - to read interviews with people who saw the Pistols live. Mick Jones of The Clash spoke of knowing that, “this is what it will be from now on: a new scene, new values.”
Future band mate Joe Strummer remarked simply, “I saw the future.” That future became visible in the End of Year Polls for 1980. That year’s Top Three singles were The Jam’s Going Underground, The Clash’s London Calling and Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. Three era defining classics. Punk’s work was done.
But by 1982 it was getting messy again. The New Romantics, as typified by Duran Duran, were surging up the charts. It seemed like a return to pre punk values: Make up, star outfits, egos and tosh. “Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand” they said expensively.
“Did we fight the punk wars for this?” we asked. It seemed like an opportune moment to get off the music bus. Leave all that malarky to the record companies. Let the suits take charge again. Dollar hadn’t gone away you know.
And then The Smiths released Hand in Glove. We saw Morrisey on Top of The Pops, shirt open, flowers in back pocket and, in his own words, the sun shining out of his behind. “We may be hidden by rags, but we have something they’ll never have,” he sang.
“Where have you been all my life, wonderful boy?” we all asked.
A second single, This Charming Man, confirmed it was no accident. Marr’s guitar work was transcendental. But Morrissey was the zeitgeist. “I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to wear,” he sang.
“My thoughts exactly,” we echoed.
The timing was impeccable. Getting off the music bus had been rash. New bands were formed with former punks - older, wiser, more able to play – and eager to give it a second go. And unlike the first wave, most of this wave got signed.
I was back in a band within a year and one night my three new band mates arrived at the house. The Smiths had released a new single, How Soon is Now. It had to be listened to collectively. We were awe-struck: “I am the son and the heir, of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.” Post-punk Shakespeare.
The Smiths were a touchstone for new bands. A simple format, essentially R&B chord changes and lyrics as Wilde and clever as you felt this generation - our generation - deserved. The possibilities seemed endless. A lot of keyboards arrived in the second-hand ads.
It wasn’t always great. Every single, and there were so many, had something but not everything was There is a Light. It took the release of The Singles (1995) for their true achievement to be seen clearly: The Smiths were our Beatles.
Statistically, it runs 22 singles for The Beatles versus 16 for The Smiths. But you are talking eight years for John and Paul, against only 4.5 for John and Stephen. If they’d gone full term it would have been 22 Fab Fours, versus 28 for Salford. Offensive to purists or not, those stats are testament to one serious writing partnership.
To get the insights Joyce brings to the table here delivered with love and affection is worth its weight in gold. These songs and memories of TV performances and gigs occupy a special place in the hearts of Smiths fans.
Joyce captures that world and that time magically. When there was no internet and you had to seek out people who shared your passion for music, in record shops and sweaty venues. He describes himself now as a “pragmatic, content man.” Not many of them is this game.
