Fanfare for the Common Man

Rip It Up, Issue 81, 1 April 1984, Page 16

Fanfare for the Common Man

The Smiths, four young lads from Manchester, seem to be Britain’s band of the moment. They were recently voted best new act by NME readers and the praises of their debut album and their singer Morrissey are being sung by people from Smash Hits to John Peel.

At your party Morrissey would have been the boy on the stairs, head in hands, his eyes reflecting the wistful mood of a tormented -soul. But Morrissey (his first name is Stephen but nobody uses it) would not have been at your party. While other lads were out kicking up the dirt, he spent his adolescence closeted in his room, buried in the works of Wilde, Hardy, Lawrence and the like. He felt ugly.

Ultimately, however, this bleak period was to be the factor to push the-Smiths beyond the rest of the pop field. Make no mistake the 23-year-old Morrissey is the difference between the band being ordinary and great. Recalling his youth, he says: “It was really quite a dark period. I didn’t go out. I just swam in books. It certainly wasn’t pleasant but now everything has slotted into place and makes sense. Everything just seemed to be working its way towards this.

“If I hadn’t gone through that period I wouldn’t have come out as strong and I don’t think I would be in . the Smiths. Adversity is the mother of invention and I find that completely true. “The things that have occurred now I thought about in great detail many years before the Smiths actually began. Things were thought through quite clearly and I know this may sound dangerous because it sounds like a calculation, but always there was the idea I would lead a pop group successfully and differently, rather than just fulfilling a role. It was not a severe businessminded calculation.’’ The Smiths have shown that the guitar, voice and bass rock’s primary colours are not a tired old form. When they first hit the airwaves you reeled at the freshness, at the simplicity. Calling yourself common old Smith what genius! What cheek! There they were saying our songs can change people’s lives. Let’s take the ugliness, the pomp out of pop. Burn the synthesiser. They know how to make friends.

PHOTO BY ERIC WASON The single ‘This Charming Man’ exemplifies the best of the band: Morrissey’s vulnerable wail over a ringing guitar that echoes all the way back to the 60s. Morrissey’s lyrics are high literature

compared to those of most of his contemporaries. He has brought words like “charming” and “handsome” back into vogue.

“I’m primarily here for the words. I just wanted to hear different words coming out over the radio instead of the usual terminology that we are so familiar with. The world is changing but, lyrically, popular music never has. There has been a very set structure. There are certain things we can sing about and a certain way we can sing them. I find that quite dull.” Morrissey writes the most affecting love songs around. Schoolgirls were playing the single ‘Hand in Glove’ 20 times before going to school. “I get all this incredibly deep fan mail about people telling me about their thoughts of suicide, their parents and that they just couldn’t possibly wear their school uniform. I couldn’t begin to answer these letters because one becomes involved and then almost responsible. “I wanted people to open their hearts and say this is how they feel but it is distressing that one can’t have individual conversations with these people. They think the Smiths are a very private thing and of course they are public. I find that things always become dangerous when people are blunt and honest about their lives.”

As serious as he is, Morrissey is not above humour. Observe the couplet “I recognise that mystical air / It means I’d like to see your underwear” on ‘Miserable Lie’.

Morrissey is sitting in the musty confines of his London flat, books piled either side of him, a picture of James Dean above the fireplace, looking like some latter-day Oscar Wilde. The urbane, affable gent ready to offer an opinion. He gave the British press an inch when he let

it be known he is celibate and, of course, they took a mile. “This is not a crusade and I don’t want to sway anybody in any particular direction. It is just something that is necessary for me. I don’t think that any relationship can be a harmonious one. Ultimately everybody gets bored. “My appreciation of beauty is genderless. The sexes have been allowed to become too different. One of the problems of modern life is that there is so much segregation when there doesn’t have to be, especially in pop music.” Even your voice is sort 0f... “Genderless! Ha, ha. That is not contrived it just so happens that I am a gentle person.” To underline their uncool approach, Morrissey wears beads and throws flowers to the audience at the band’s live gigs. They want you to discover yoursdf, feel handsome. “Groups had become very detached from their audience and I didn’t like that. Because of the times we live in people really need something they can reach out and touch. “People have reacted just the way we wanted them to. There is this sense at our gigs of immediacy, experiencing something right now and being there. It got to the stage when we formed that people were almost afraid to applaud or afraid to smile. Even at concerts that were immensely successful there was this sense of frozen hysteria.”

The Smiths began life in Manchester in late 1982 when Johnny Marr, their impish lead guitarist, pressed his nose up against Morrissey’s window. The bright spark with big pop dreams meets the downbeat romantic.

Marr had a cassette of songs he’d recorded in his bedroom. Morrissey liked what he heard, attracted in particular by the simplicity of the tunes. The music has since attracted Byrds comparisons. Marr didn’t exactly serve to stem the practice with his 60s haircut and he even managed to lay his hands on Roger McGuinn’s old Rickenbacker. It wasn’t down to a Byrds fetish, retorted Marr. It was just that he wanted the best Rickenbacker around. Mike Joyce (drums) and Andy Rourke (bass) eventually completed the lineup.

With all the dross in the charts there were scores of ready made converts to Smithdom.

“Pop has always really been in a dire strait. There has never been a period when I sat back and said well yes, everything is wonderful. At the moment it is quite desperate. “In a way it is helpful because it means people with some vague mentality shine brightly when they do arrive. I mean, if it was a chart crammed with creased intellectuals with things to say then you know the only way to stand out would be to be as brainless as possible .. . which I'm sure we could manage!” '' A record player is not part of his furniture. '. there’s just nobody around . . ."There is, however, a pile of old singles. “... you have to go back to the 60s for the really good stuff.”

The Smiths plan a quick follow-up album to their recent debut.

“I don’t feel any obligation to change or throw ourselves into the obvious snares like we must add an orchestra, bring in an oboe or something. Obviously it will be a test of our abilities to utilise the instruments we have now.”

Morrissey creases his brow' for a final time and bemoans the fact that all this pop success has decimated his reading time. “It is a constant source of anxiety to me. It is because I read so avidly that I am here. You can quite easily forget the reasons you came into the business but I am trying not to.” Richard Langston