A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths

by Tony Fletcher

  Still, at least one of his bandmates insisted otherwise. “Everything he said during that time, in that regard, he lived,” said Johnny Marr. “That wasn’t posturing. Which may or may not have been bad news to him! But nevertheless, what he was saying was true. There was no one around.” Yet despite Morrissey and Marr spending so much of their working lives together—or at least, as referenced earlier, performing their individual roles within their partnership—they kept very different hours. Marr was a sociable night owl, Morrissey a mostly private day person. And Marr had to admit that, as a romantically secure, heterosexually active young man at the time, he didn’t pay personal attention to the emotional impact of Morrissey’s statements regarding celibacy, either with regard to the singer himself or the public at large. “I don’t think I was old enough to appreciate the difficulties that some teenagers go through. One can always empathize. But I didn’t know it as a syndrome, or part of life. And I think it was a very, very healthy and truly brilliant thing … it was totally empowering. And a first. For the singer of a rock band to be saying that was very, very cool.”

  It was, and one might have hoped that Morrissey would understand that the occasional misquote or misrepresentation was a token price to pay for so much invaluable free publicity. But he clearly felt otherwise. As well as writing to Henke, in July he wrote to the producers of Ear Say, a prestigious British TV show for which he had been interviewed both personally and with Sandie Shaw, to say that he was deeply wounded by presenter Nicky Horne describing him as the “Quentin Crisp of pop.” Many young people in Britain had no idea about Quentin Crisp, and those who did might have considered him merely a queer old British eccentric, someone Morrissey might well have admired. Apparently not. “Everybody knows the implications behind such a statement,” he wrote, “implications which Nicky Horne (or anyone else) could never ever seriously justify.… I could never begin to explain the embarrassment this comment has caused me, and how it has upset other members of the Smiths and our families.”

  Morrissey’s refusal to declare himself was driven, in large part, by a sensible determination to avoid being pigeonholed or typecast. “I feel that lyrically I speak for everybody—at least I try to,” he insisted in a(nother) cover story for Melody Maker, at the end of a diatribe against Bronski Beat. This act had emerged earlier in 1984 with an openly gay singer, Jimmy Somerville, and their hit singles (“Smalltown Boy” and “Why”) were equally transparent discussions of male homosexuality that were heralded by many in both the gay and straight communities as an act of significant bravery. Morrissey was unimpressed. “As a direct result of my attitude to relationships our audience is split sexually evenly,” he said. “That’s something that pleases me to a mammoth degree. This is why I feel so sad about groups like Bronski Beat who are so steeped in maleness, and quite immediately ostracize 50 percent of the human race.” In actuality, Bronski Beat had massive appeal with female listeners, and Somerville’s stance proved no immediate hindrance to American airplay either. In fact, the stateside success of Bronski Beat, Soft Cell, Culture Club, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, all of whose front men were openly or well known to be gay, suggested that Morrissey had nothing to fear from the assertion of Rolling Stone and the insinuation of others except his own personal insistence that they were wrong.

  The Rolling Stone interview was part of a barrage of high-profile press that accompanied the stateside release of The Smiths in the spring of 1984; recognizing that something special was going on in the UK with this band, none of the respected national outlets (including Creem, Musician, and the New York Times) wanted to be seen as sitting on the sidelines. While the press attention did not translate into noticeable sales, this was, in part, due to the Smiths themselves, who in a risky but ultimately smart move, turned down the opportunity to tour the States “unless we’re really wanted there,” as Morrissey explained to Musician that spring, adding, perhaps as a warning to bandmates and fans alike, that “Endless touring is time-consuming, soul-destroying and it wrecks your health.”2 And so, in lieu of standing on an American concert stage, Morrissey took to the platform of the press; once he could wrestle Jim Henke away from the subject of his own sexual identity, he used the Rolling Stone profile to issue his most outrageous quote yet, and the fact that he supplied an American reference suggested that it was premeditated. “The entire history of Margaret Thatcher is one of violence and oppression and horror,” he told Henke. “She’s only one person and she can be destroyed. I just pray there is a Sirhan Sirhan somewhere.”

  The comment resounded forcefully back to Britain. Even those who privately agreed with him were surprised that Morrissey should state such a view publicly, but he remained unapologetically consistent in his opinion. When the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the annual Conservative Party Conference, on October 12, 1984, he rejected the notion of sympathy for the five people killed and the dozens who were injured in the attack, insisting instead, in a Melody Maker cover story, that “the sorrow of the Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed. The sorrow is that she’s still alive.… I think that, for once, the IRA were accurate in selecting their targets.” With a nine-date tour of Ireland scheduled for the following month, Morrissey’s comment, instantly republished across all forms of media, necessitated the employment of personal security, especially for the shows in the predominantly Protestant north. Denis Desmond of MCD recommended Jim Connolly, who proved so good at his job that he was subsequently put on the touring payroll as security officer, a protective presence alongside Morrissey throughout the Smiths’ career and beyond. (The Irish concerts went off peacefully, although in Dublin, Peter Morrissey, who had moved home to his birthplace, showed up backstage and was refused entry into the dressing room. The Smiths considered it a sacred space and not one for socializing or family reunions.)

  Morrissey’s comments about the IRA and Thatcher only served to further antagonize the right-wing media, and the Sun newspaper (again) sought to enact some revenge, when the brother of Moors Murders victim John Kilbride heard “Suffer Little Children” on a jukebox in the summer of 1984 (pride in the album rendition had seen it selected as the B-side to “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”) and accused the Smiths of tasteless sensationalism. The newspaper promptly roped in Anne West, the mother of victim Lesley Ann Downey, for the headline MOORS MUM RAPS MURDER SONG and a powerful quote: “Whoever wrote the song must be as sick as the killers. It’s just blood money.” More so than the child-molesting claims of the previous year, the Sun’s latest accusation was entirely unjustified. “Suffer Little Children,” as Scott Piering wrote in a subsequent press release on Smithdom letterhead (the company was now registered at Collier Street, and Piering clearly authorized to represent it) “was written out of profound emotion by Morrissey, a Mancunian, who feels that the particularly horrendous crime it describes must be borne by the conscience of Manchester, and that it must never be forgotten lest it happen again.” Additionally, Morrissey wrote a long letter to Mr. Kilbride and spoke personally with Mrs. West, who was so deeply impressed by his sincerity that she withdrew her comments and replaced them with an about turn: “Morrissey can write a song about my daughter any time he wants.” Some damage had been done by this point: thanks to the Manchester Evening News following blindly in the Sun’s footsteps, the high-street chain stores Woolworth’s and Boots had removed the Smiths LP from their shelves, and the Smiths had to pay a (paltry) £400 donation to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as some form of penance before either would restock. But greater good had come out of it. Morrissey had been placed in the dock by the Sun and accused of being a public enemy—but through his insistence on challenging the charges and stating his case, he had proven himself instead as the people’s friend.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It’s easy to get further and further away from the council-estate and you can forget how you felt for twenty-four years before it all happened. You can get quite
bedazzled by the lights. Well, we never intend to do that.

  —Morrissey, Jamming!, December 1984

  Toward the end of 1984, after less than a year in London, the Smiths all moved back to Manchester. It was a conscious decision, for which Marr took responsibility. The return north was partly born of a need to get away from the capital’s rumor mills, its media circus, and the temptation for endless business meetings, but more so of a desire to reconnect with their Manchester friends, their influences, the milieu that had surrounded them growing up. There was a sense that, having made something of themselves on a national level, they could return home with heads held high. There was also the fact that Morrissey and Marr had made enough money to buy houses—in the Manchester suburbs if not yet in Central London. Marr’s was half of a vicarage on Bowdon’s Marlborough Road, near Altrincham Grammar School, which he and Angie quickly turned into the group’s “engine room” à la Marr’s idol Keith Richards, complete with Marr wearing his guitar even in the kitchen, “all the roadies sleeping on the floor” and a couple of Alsatian dogs for company and security. The hours were late, the mood boisterous, and the vicarage’s neighbors no doubt bemused, but it served to give the group an HQ that had been sorely lacking in London, and would have an immediate positive effect on the Smiths’ writing and recording.

  Morrissey opted for a cul-de-sac in nearby Hale Barns, close to the local tennis grounds and golf course. The detached house he purchased was surprisingly similar in style to the semidetached on Kings Road that was now consigned to memory, for he installed his mother in the new abode too, from where she took care of business and visitors when he was otherwise engaged in London.1 He was unabashed about their close relationship, telling Melody Maker just a few months later, “She completely dissects everything that happens. She reads every single interview. She produces long monologues … she’s very, very much involved in what I do. And hers is the only opinion that I really take remotely seriously.” (Presumably, he did not mean to leave his partner Marr out of this equation.)

  In the process of relocating came a realization that their second album could not afford to sound like the first, flawed as that had been, and neither should it sound like the singles that had followed it, brilliant though they were. For John Porter’s greatest skill, it turned out—treating every song as a potential number-one single—was also his greatest drawback, because not all songs required such a commercial approach. The Smiths now saw the need to handle their latest batch of songs as an album, a coherent body of work that would take them to the next level as artistes, single sales possibly be damned. To do that, they needed not only to move back to Manchester but also to record in the north again. More so, they needed to take responsibility for the process.

  “Perhaps Morrissey had more belief in me than I did myself,” said Marr, who felt that any decision to self-produce an album as the Smiths would ultimately fall on his shoulders. Nonetheless, he said, the decision was made quickly. “It was just, ‘All right then, I can do it.’ So many things didn’t need to be discussed for very long because we were on exactly the same page.”

  Or as Morrissey put it: “The whole idea was to control it totally, and without a producer, things were better. We saw things clearer.”

  John Porter saw things equally clearly: that he had been fired, and, as far as he was concerned, very much at the behest of Morrissey. At the beginning of their working relationship, the singer had sent him postcards “thanking me for helping him,” but almost immediately, said Porter, “he seemed to get suspicious of me. And I think the fact that Johnny and I were so tight and hanging together and smoking piles of dope together … we’d become good friends. I think Morrissey felt that I was maybe pushing a wedge between the band.” Aware of this perceived division, he said, “I really tried to bring Morrissey in to make it a three-way thing. I knew that that would only make it better. And I probably—without voicing it at the time—knew that if I couldn’t do that, there would be no future for me anyway.” In a gesture of friendship, Porter even invited Morrissey to his house for dinner, for which his wife, Linda Keith, “made this beautiful vegetarian spread. And he just didn’t turn up. He didn’t phone, didn’t say ‘I can’t make it,’ just didn’t turn up.” Porter’s conclusion? “I don’t think Morrissey liked me very much.”

  Johnny Marr confirmed that “absolutely it was” Morrissey’s decision to move on. As far as the guitarist was concerned, “I would have just had [John Porter] produce everything.” Viewed in the light of such a comment, the singer’s insistence on dropping Porter at the end of a run of four consecutive top 20 singles, and at the very point that the producer had just labored over a pair of B-sides that were being hailed as the greatest recordings of the Smiths’ career, appeared nothing short of callous.2 But although Morrissey did not always go about his decisions the right way, his instincts up until then had been largely proven correct, and they were about to be confirmed again when he suggested that they hire Stephen Street, whom the Smiths had met at the Island Records studio when, as in-house engineer, he worked the “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” session.

  Street was twenty-four years old at the time—older than all of the Smiths except Morrissey, but more than a decade younger than John Porter. A capable musician, having played bass in pop/ska band Bim, he’d abandoned the gigging circuit a couple of years earlier to focus on what he realized was his first love, the recording studio. And being part of their generation, subject to the same influences and post-punk experiences, he was already a Smiths fan when he came to work with them. (Indeed, he volunteered for the single session.) “There was something magical there straightaway,” he said of meeting the band. “Johnny’s guitar playing was obviously fantastic. And there was something about Morrissey. The way he carried himself and the way he generally behaved, you could tell he was getting quite used to this idea of appearing on Top of the Pops. There was definitely a star quality emanating from him.”

  Street’s presence at the Island Records studio had immediately sent alarm bells ringing with Porter. “As soon as Morrissey came in, he looked at Steve and I thought, ‘This is it, you’re out of a job.’ ” When, at the end of the session, Morrissey asked for the engineer’s phone number, and especially when Street was offered belated “special thanks” on the “William” sleeve, the writing was on the wall.

  “Here was someone who was wide-awake, very enthusiastic, sharp, and obviously very talented,” said Marr in defense of Street’s hiring. “And looked like one of us.” In October, Street was appointed as engineer for the Smiths’ second album, and he moved up for a lengthy stay in a Manchester hotel. From there he joined the group on a daily drive in their battered white Mercedes over to Amazon Studios in Kirby, on the outskirts of Liverpool, where Echo & the Bunnymen had recorded much of their hit album Porcupine. The sessions were surprisingly routine. By eight o’clock most evenings, Morrissey would be ready to return to Manchester, and because the group was commuting together, as a team, that meant everyone leaving with him. This suited Street just fine; despite his youth, he was not one for Porter’s all-night sessions. “You go through the night, all you end up doing is starting later and later the following day. You don’t get any more work done. A ten-hour day, that’s enough for me.”

  Once they started working together, Street recognized the obvious: that “part of the reason Morrissey didn’t want to work with John Porter is he thought that [Porter] was putting too much emphasis on guitars and not enough on his vocal.” Morrissey and Street quickly became comfortable with each other, in part because Street was willing to jump when Morrissey said he was ready to sing, and to work within the vocalist’s confines. “Nine times out of ten I’d get it in three takes or so,” said Street, though equally often, he would find himself splicing together different lines from different takes to get the best vocal possible. “It could [even] be words within lines,” he said.

  Over the course of the album session, the engineer’s inexperience did see hi
m accept one off-key vocal that ultimately prevented the song in question—“I Want the One I Can’t Have”—from becoming an otherwise radio-friendly single. (Morrissey had announced it as their next 45 on the Irish tour at the end of 1984, after the majority of the album had been recorded.) But that in itself was part of the singer’s appeal. “You got a sense of performance from him,” said Street. “You can’t beat that. I’d rather it be slightly sharp or flat and be a performance rather than be note perfect and completely flat in [sense of] delivery.”

  As he settled into his working relationship with the band, Street sensed that Marr might now be overcompensating for his previous habits with Porter. “I always got the feeling that Johnny was being economical,” said Street. “He wasn’t layering just for the sake of layering.”

  “We hung a lot of music on the atmosphere,” confirmed Marr, citing the ballad “Well I Wonder” as a prime example. “It purposefully has a feeling of suspension in it and is very delicate. I could have put a lot of overdubs on that song, but I left it as it was.” “Well I Wonder” ended up being based on one simply strummed acoustic guitar (along with drums, bass, and textural sound effects), accompanying Morrissey’s minimalist, forlorn lyrics, cribbed largely from Elizabeth Smart’s novel By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (though none the worse for people eventually discovering as much), and featuring a falsetto vocal finale that sounded so much less forced than past attempts. The sound of rain coming down upon its conclusion was, said Marr, “the sound of moving back north.” For Marr, the sense of the album they were making was that it was “done on an industrial estate on a very, very wet Liverpool winter. And we were very druggy. It’s druggy music.” The harsh reality of Amazon Studios, however, was that it was not up to standards. Stephen Street ultimately implored the band to move on to a higher-end studio, and subsequent overdubs and mixing and, according to Street, the entire recording of a couple of songs took place at Ridge Farm Studios in the leafy green belt county of Surrey.3