The group had come into Amazon with three songs fully road-tested: the long-standing “Barbarism Begins at Home,” and “Nowhere Fast” and “Rusholme Ruffians,” both of which they had demoed with John Porter and then recorded with him at a third Peel session in August.4 It was the rockabilly rhythms of these two newer songs—or what Marr referred to as “That Sun Records kind of rush”—rather than the funk workout of the older one, that gave the clearest indication of the band’s new studio direction. Lyrically, too, that pair helped set the scene for the new album, for Morrissey was evidently determined to move away from the now-clichéd Smiths subject matter—his perceived sexual habits (or lack thereof)—while bringing an even closer affinity to the plights and habits, and political targets, of the working classes. In “Nowhere Fast,” he opened the second verse with the assertion, “I’d like to drop my trousers to the queen, every sensible child will know what I mean.” The wit suggested an element of music hall, that treasured English trait that stretched back from the Smiths’ contemporaries Madness to the Kinks and George Formby, the latter of whom Morrissey readily cited in an interview at the time as “one of the greatest lyricists of all time.” (It also helped pave the way for the theme of the third album.)
“Rusholme Ruffians” was an alliterative ode to the “fun fairs” of the Smiths’ childhood Manchester. While Marr’s recollection of such events had been a warm one, of being left alone with his sister to enjoy the pop music blaring from the rides in Wythenshawe Park, Morrissey’s was of unprovoked violence, of being head-butted for no reason in Stretford, and since he was the lyricist, it was his memory that prevailed. In the song’s opening verse, “a boy is stabbed and his money is grabbed,” while later on, “someone falls in love and someone’s beaten up,” and a girl considers suicide from the top of the parachute. It was by far Morrissey’s longest and most literal lyric to date, and his fascination with violence was notable inasmuch as, while he had his narrator walk home alone, just as he had done in “How Soon Is Now?,” in this case he was buoyed by his experience rather than wanting to die, proclaiming, “My faith in love is still devout.”5 Reduced by more than two minutes from the exuberant version demoed with John Porter, “Rusholme Ruffians” displayed such an obvious doff of the cap to Elvis Presley’s “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame” that the group would soon include a section of that song in their stage rendition.
By its very title, let alone its lyrics, “Rusholme Ruffians” played up the sense of the new album as a most northern and physical endeavor. (“I think the way I write is very Northern,” said Morrissey at the time. “I’m not in the least infected by London or the South.”) To this end, it was notable that “What She Said”—a frenetic under-three-minute attack of buzz-saw guitars and constant drumrolls that announced a previously untapped tension to the Smiths—referenced “a tattooed boy from Birkenhead,” the Liverpool port just a few miles from Amazon Studios. But the most powerful geographical statement was reserved for the opening line of the opening song, “The Headmaster Ritual”: “Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools.”
“The Headmaster Ritual” was essentially a blow-by-blow account of the daily routine at St. Mary’s, from Jet Morgan’s ludicrously officious inspection of daily uniform to Sweeney’s bullying tactics on the playing fields. But despite being set in Manchester, and coming from Morrissey’s personal experience, so too was the song to be recognized universally for summarizing the emotions of so many within the group’s generation. In admitting, “I wanna go home, I don’t want to stay, give up life as a bad mistake,” for example, Morrissey immediately won the sympathy of all those who had dreaded going to school on a daily basis, all who had suffered personally at the hands of aggressive teachers and violent fellow pupils. And yet when he then adapted the opening line in the second verse to spit out the words “spineless bastards all,” it was the lyrical equivalent of standing up to those bullies. With the rest of the Smiths backing him so confidently—the one-minute introduction featured the most densely layered and yet most dexterous guitar tracks of the entire album, instant vindication of the decision to self-produce—Morrissey was able to switch to a purely phonetic vocal accompaniment, the kind that had sounded farcical in the past but which he now wore as if a second skin. And when the Manchester Education Authority subsequently took public umbrage to “The Headmaster Ritual,” suggesting that they might try to ban the Smiths from playing within their boundaries of Manchester as a result, it served as confirmation that the attack had hit where it hurt—and that, as such, it had been entirely effective.
Morrissey had been accused in the past of clouding his lyrical agenda, of hiding his meaning behind too many metaphors, and if “The Headmaster Ritual” purposefully opened the second album as an (overdue) statement of absolute clarity, it was nonetheless bested in that regard by the record’s unequivocal finale, that for which it was named: the song “Meat Is Murder.” Vegetarianism itself was far from taboo in 1984, and Morrissey was not alone among his circle in his refusal to eat meat: his mother, Betty; Angie Brown; Grant Showbiz; Sandie Shaw; the band James; and more recently Marr himself had all made their own commitments to abstain. James, in particular, had caused the Smiths all sorts of amusement by bringing a Calor gas stove on the road and cooking their own meals in the van. (It is perhaps not insignificant that James and Sandie Shaw tried—and failed—to get the Smiths, especially Morrissey, to engage in meditation as a means of dealing with the intense pressure, scrutiny, and responsibilities that came with their fame.) By comparison, the Smiths were not even strict lacto-vegetarians: Stuart James had been surprised to find Morrissey eating whole fish on the mid-1984 tours, and Marr had tuna sandwiches on his rider. In addition, collectively they consumed so much milk, cheese, and eggs that they could have been sponsored by the factory-farming dairy industry. And they routinely wore animal products. Still, Morrissey had come to see his vegetarianism as a matter not only of pride but principle, and insisted that those around him follow suit. Mike Joyce found the transition easier than did Andy Rourke, but the result of the decree was sufficient solidarity that Morrissey could now sing about his pet crusade with the Smiths not just at his side, but fully behind him.
Having his band’s support was crucial. Morrissey knew perfectly well that he ran the risk of alienating at least 90 percent of his audience with “Meat Is Murder,” and yet it was a risk he was not only willing to take but, in terms of naming the album for it, that he was willing to bet the band’s career upon. “The artist must educate the critic,” Wilde had written, which Morrissey would cite as his most treasured line from his most dependable icon. He set out on the process of educating not just the (Smiths’) critics but the public at large without subtlety, without apology, and without guilt; rather, he set out to impose guilt upon the carnivores, even those who were throwing flowers at his feet.
To that end, subsequent charges that “Meat Is Murder” was dogmatic may have been accurate, but they also missed the point. That point was simple: Meat is murder. “The calf that you carve with a smile?” Murder. “The turkey you festively slice?” Murder. “The flesh you so fancifully fry?” Murder. “It’s not ‘natural,’ ‘normal,’ or kind,” insisted Morrissey, it’s “murder.” To dress the subject matter in more comforting tones would have been the equivalent of dressing the meat of a “beautiful creature” with tomatoes and lettuce, placing it in a bun, and presenting it to the consumer as something other than what Morrissey believed it to be: murder.
If there was a line in the song that failed to stand up to scrutiny, it was that “death for no reason is murder.” Death by car crash, or by brain cancer, or in a house fire could be construed as death “for no reason,” and yet surely not as murder. Then again, Morrissey was not given to outside editing of his words, and for a singer who had traded so far in lyrical obfuscation, the fact that only one line defied logic was noteworthy of itself.
When it came to the music for “Meat Is Murder,” Morrissey had told Marr o
f both the title and concept in advance and the guitarist duly submitted something atypically flat, ponderous, mechanical, and “nasty”—so much so that it took a while to realize that it had been written in 6/8 time, the rhythm of his nostalgic and melancholic ballads. Morrissey then supplied Stephen Street with a BBC Sound Effects album with mooing cows on it and asked the engineer if he could make it sound like an abattoir. Street, to his personal and professional satisfaction, succeeded by adding other incidental noises to that of the cow and putting them through a reverse echo. That was mixed in alongside the simple guitar chords and Marr’s lead piano melody that sounded as if originally intended for a ghost film. The final arrangement was not particularly loud, abrasive, or even harsh. But at more than six minutes in length, “Meat Is Murder” was as unforgiving of its listeners as Morrissey was of meat-eaters. Even those whose eating habits were profoundly affected upon hearing the song tended to express something of a relief when it concluded.
It was music as propaganda, and as such it would have had no place on a major label. But the Smiths were on Rough Trade, the distribution arm of which was distributing the likes of Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, and other anarchist-punk bands with equally uncompromising messages, and with a number of staff who were vegetarian or vegan as a natural product of their politics and/or lifestyle.6 News that the label’s golden calf was releasing an album with such a militant title was therefore greeted, in some quarters at Collier Street, with genuine excitement. The stakes were raised that much higher when Morrissey then delivered his design for the album cover: an image of an American soldier in Vietnam from the controversial 1968 documentary In the Year of the Pig, the album title Meat Is Murder inscribed on the soldier’s helmet in place of the original motto “Make War, Not Peace,” the picture repeated four times like a Warhol silkscreen. In its simple, two-color, almost amateur design, it could have been an LP sleeve by any independently distributed political band of the post-punk era. It happened to be by the Smiths, the biggest of them all, and it served as confirmation that for all their mainstream popularity, this was not a group in any mood for compromise.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
To me popular music is still the voice of the working class, collective rage in a way, though seldom angst ridden. But it does really seem like the one sole opportunity for someone from a working class background to step forward and have their say. It’s really the last refuge for articulate but penniless humans.
—Morrissey, New Musical Express, December 1984
At the end of each calendar year in the UK, as the music papers gathered up their critics’ and readers polls, John Peel surveyed his Radio 1 listeners for their own favorite songs of the year. As a barometer of mainstream tastes, the “Festive Fifty” was marginal indeed, which was precisely its point; Peel was, for a generation or more in the UK (and overseas, via the BBC World Service), the arbiter of all that was proper (as opposed to merely popular) about modern music. At the end of 1983, “This Charming Man” had come in second in Peel’s Festive Fifty, behind New Order’s “Blue Monday,” appropriate confirmation of the two Manchester acts’ notable crossover into the pop charts. For 1984, the Smiths came first—with “How Soon Is Now?”
Peel’s listeners were not the only ones who believed that the Smiths’ bonus B-side was in fact the best song of the year. A similar story was unfolding in America, where “How Soon Is Now?” had proven instantly popular on import, primarily in the alternative dance clubs but also on those radio stations that were already aware of the band. Sire decided to release it as a domestic 12″ maxi single, backed with a train-wreck of a 7″ edit and the song “Girl Afraid”; in the absence of an existing sleeve design, the label approved one that took the gatefold imagery from Hatful of Hollow and wrapped it around the outside of the 12″. (It was the only Smiths sleeve ever, anywhere, to feature the band on the front.) Meanwhile, Rough Trade’s licensee in Holland/Belgium had also decided to cater to the obvious by releasing “How Soon Is Now?” as a 7″ single (this one, mercifully, fading out early rather than being edited to pieces), copies of which soon began showing up in UK stores.
And so, at the start of the New Year, as everyone at Rough Trade sat down to plan the marketing of the biggest album release in the label’s history, they became distracted by what they saw as unfinished business. At the precise moment they should have been figuring which of Meat Is Murder’s nine songs would make the best single, they decided to release the six-month-old “How Soon Is Now?” all over again instead, and this time as an A-side.
The Smiths might not have been able to dictate release schedules in other countries; they most certainly had complete control in the UK. But in going along with this decision, they allowed themselves to be sold by the supposed experts, at least one of whom, Scott Piering, had allowed himself to be sold a false bill of goods in turn. Thanks in large part to the Smiths’ run of four top 30 hits, Piering had gained permanent access to almost all the various Radio 1 producers, and while some of them still treated Morrissey’s voice as if a plague upon its listeners, several had reacted enthusiastically to “How Soon Is Now?” and indicated that if it was brought to them as an A-side, they would support it. More than one even mentioned it as a “top three” hit. Piering duly reported such confident assurances as he gathered up advance airplay from the evening shows in anticipation of the Smiths’ usual high chart entry.
It didn’t happen. The press release to the journalists might have trumpeted “overwhelming demand” and a need to nullify the “extortionate price” of the Dutch 7″, but the fans weren’t buying it, literally. They already owned the song once if not twice (on the “William” single and Hatful of Hollow), and any incentive to purchase it a third time was small indeed, given that the 7″ single’s B-side, “Well I Wonder,” was to be included on Meat Is Murder and that the 12″ bonus was a “mere” instrumental. (“Oscillate Wildly” offered a rare chance for Marr, Joyce, and Rourke, average age twenty-one, to experiment with cellos and pianos and baroque textures, and perhaps for the rhythm section to wonder how come Morrissey took his usual co-writing credit regardless of contributing nothing more than the titular pun, while they got none of the proceeds. But for all its majesty, it was always hard to convince the general public that an instrumental was more than a throwaway.) When “How Soon Is Now?” failed to chart top 20, and an uninspired Top of the Pops performance barely nudged it upward, the radio producers backed away from their earlier promises, and Rough Trade, Scott Piering, and to an extent the Smiths themselves were all left looking rather embarrassed by the whole episode. Not even a desperate attempt to promote “Well I Wonder” to the middle-of-the-road Radio 2 could save the day.
The chaotic history of “How Soon Is Now?” in the UK was but a reflection of the entire business enterprise surrounding the Smiths. In the weeks leading up to the release of Meat Is Murder and “How Soon Is Now?,” a flurry of paperwork between Rough Trade Records and Distribution, All Trade Booking, Appearing Promotions, and Smithdom Ltd indicated not only how deeply devoted the label and agency and various promo divisions were to the Smiths’ success, and how hard everyone at Collier Street was working on them, but that the process was stretching these various companies’ capabilities to their absolute limits. A major label might have dealt with the pressure by lining up a longer lead time for the album and had its marketing department pull from its previous experiences to plan out the campaign accordingly. Rough Trade not only had no previous experiences of this nature to draw from, it didn’t even have a marketing department.
At the start of January, Peter Walmsley, the head of licensing, and Jo Slee, who worked under him, sent Morrissey, at his request, a lengthy breakdown of international achievements to date along with projections for the future. Outside of the UK, The Smiths had sold a reasonable 100,000 copies around Europe, Japan, and Australia/New Zealand (more than 20,000 of them in Germany, despite the group’s cavalier attitude toward touring there) and an additional 50,0
00 in the States. Hatful of Hollow was following relatively fast in its footsteps—more than 25,000 in America already, on import alone—and to the extent that these markets weren’t experiencing Smiths fatigue (a genuine concern), Slee and Walmsley were willing to project sales for Meat Is Murder, outside of the UK and USA, as high as 250,000. But for this to happen, each territory had similar requirements: a tour, a press day, a photo session, and a video. (If they couldn’t have the last of these, suggested Rough Trade, maybe the band could release a live “film.”) The memo was exhausting, and Slee recognized as much: “once one knuckles down to it, one is somewhat overcome by the wealth of information at one’s fingertips.”
Domestically, meanwhile, Rough Trade UK was also feeling the pressure of increased expectations. Morrissey had trumpeted the lack of promotion as a positive aspect surrounding the debut album’s success—the music selling itself—but now he was looking for the sort of visibility commensurate to the Smiths’ commercial standing. Rough Trade duly reported that it was looking into TV ads, major installations at key record stores, and fly posters for the upcoming tour (these to be financed by the promoters), though there was still little inclination for advertising in the music press, which tended to publicize the Smiths for free. Again, the feeling from the label was that it could only deliver if the band would do its part to help them, and Rough Trade sent the singer a twenty-seven-bullet-point list of print media requests, some of them broken down into additional sublists of ten or more, which indicated the almost forbidding extent to which the words of Morrissey, in particular, had become so coveted. The question, clearly, was no longer whether the mainstream press would cover the band, but whether the band would do the press, and given the impending tour schedules and the Smiths’ admirable habit of popping back into the recording studio every other weekend, that was not entirely certain.
A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of the Smiths Page 38