Johnny Marr

by Richard Carman

  Did that affect the way you wrote with Bernard?

  Yes, extremes are very conducive to being in a group. It shakes things up. That first Electronic album is very much of its time. For example, ‘Feel Every Beat’ may sound a little obscure but lyrically it makes total sense. It is vaguely political - there were serious head-on conflicts for Bernard with the Chief of Police James Anderton that threatened his very livelihood. Where we are at at the moment is a different thing and we’ll have to see how that works.

  What percentage of your work starts as music with the lyrics being put to that later?

  The Smiths was entirely music first. I gave Morrissey the music and he’d fit stuff around that. I suspect he had lyrical fragments lying around and he would fit them in place to each song I gave him. There were one or two exceptions such as ‘Rusholme Ruffians’. I knew he had written a song about The Fair, so I decided to use ‘Marie’s The Name’ by Elvis Presley. Also, with ‘Meat is Murder’ I knew there would have to be that kind of heavy material content. Perhaps the main example of his lyrics prompting my music is ‘Panic’. I had been over his house and I knew he had a new idea with a hook that was ‘Hang the DJ’ so I basically wrote ‘Metal Guru’!! We even asked Toni Visconti to record it but he wasn’t interested. The line ‘It says nothing to me about my life’ ironically reminded me of the role ‘Metal Guru’ had in my life as I explained earlier, so I used that Bolan track. With Electronic it is a perfect step for me at this stage because for the first time I am totally writing with another musician. Sometimes I’ll write all the music, other times he will and I’ll just put a guitar break down. Sometimes we’ll both contribute to the music - for example, ‘Getting Away With It’: he wrote the verse and I wrote the chorus. That is when the real sparks fly when we write together, head to head. That is very new and fresh for me. Normally when people ask me to write a song they expect a whole backing track, such as Kirsty MacColl on ‘Walking Down Madison’.

  What is your approach to technology and its role in the songwriting process?

  I treat technology really in much the same way as I would a drummer and a bass player in certain situations. I can be completely musically fascistic and technology allows you to do that. I use it to make that connection with Phil Spector, who would get musicians to play and play and play until every single drop of individual nuance had gone and he got it to exactly how he wanted. ‘Get The Message’ sounded like a really odd band and I spent a long time just getting that sound, five days on just the rhythm track.

  Well, if you are that demanding of the correct feel for the music, isn’t that very intimidating for the lyricist, in that he has to come up with a very specific lyric to match that feeling?

  Well, touch wood, it works quite well. Something I do appears to inspire them to pick up on the mood I was after.

  But when you write, do you have any specific situation in mind - for example, a lyricist may have a very particular event or occurrence in mind when he writes. What do you think of that inspires your sound?

  A feeling. There were two songs for The Smiths that are good examples, the first two songs we ever did - ‘Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ and Suffer Little Children’. That demanded not too much doom or all minor chords, that would have been too obvious. At the end of the day I have learnt from all the people I have written with that they want it to sound like is me. But the problem is they usually means ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’ when they say that. I wrote that track in about four minutes and just did it. I guess there is something in the guitar part that appeals. I heard it on the radio recently and I can see what people are looking for - that mix again between happy and sad. That is my nature.

  Well, have you got any examples where the lyricist absolutely hit the nail on the head with their articulation as far as representing your own emotions and feelings that you created the song with?

  Oh yeah, loads. ‘I Know It’s Over’ by The Smiths. It isn’t my favourite Smiths track but when I heard him sing that for the first time in the studio it was amazing. ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ captures the atmosphere perfectly aswell. ‘How Soon Is Now’ is another example. Also, ‘Disappointed’ - Neil Tennant sang this great falsetto tone at the end which was spot on. Again ‘Get The Message’ as well. That song undoubtedly stamps Bernard’s genius as a singer, his is an incredible performance on that track. That vocal performance is as good as anything that Lou Reed ever did. ‘You And Me Babe’ for Kirsty MacColl was also very appropriate - I wrote that track on my knees with a tape recorder in the hall-way ‘cos the kids were asleep and I was feeling kind of sad, and she captured the spirit of that very closely.

  Do you ever evoke a visual or actual scene to inspire songs?

  Sometimes, yes. For example, much of The Smiths’ work was an evocation of being on the bus to or from school, in the rain, going under all these Victorian bridges. That was something that I heard in Joy Division’s music and it was something that Morrissey and I discussed and were both very aware of. It is a feeling that you can’t avoid if you are a sensitive person in Manchester.

  Is that why you clicked with Bernard so well?

  Undoubtedly, and it is something that we are trying to address more now, especially with our slower, more atmospheric songs. A song called ‘In A Lonely Place’ which I believe was originally a Joy Division song but was released by New Order, is very Smiths-like, not in terms of sonic content but in terms of atmospherics. It has a certain melancholy that is almost beautiful and that is what those times were like. This is always in contrast to the other side of inspiration which is just pure driving exuberance, and I find I share that very much more with Matt. He is the only person that I have met that is able to draw on that peculiar environmental feeling I just mentioned, even though he lives in London. He seems to be able to focus on it, with songs like ‘Heartland’, ‘Helpline Operator and ‘Love Is Stronger Than Death’, he evokes a young white sensitive boy living in a Victorian environment. It’s not as obvious as Ray Davies because he did it lyrically, these little scenarios. We evoke it as a musical atmosphere, a feeling. It is not something that I particularly want to go back to, but I do recognise it, that unique melancholia.

  You are renowned for mixing pseudo-jazz progressions with rock backdrops. Where was your inspiration for doing that?

  Bert Jansch, the guitarist from Pentangle. Incredibly unfashionable group to mention but an amazing guitar player. When I moved to Wythenshawe, Billy Duffy and some of his mates introduced me to all that. There was Richard Thompson as well, but I could never really get it on with his singing, I couldn’t get with all that finger in the ear stuff!! The way Jansch and Renbourn worked together was very jazz and that introduced me to tunings.

  So is that contrast between the jazz and the rock elements the musical manifestation of your personal mix of melancholia and happiness?

  Yes, I think it is, that captures that feeling. ‘Unhappy Birthday’ by The Smiths has really strange chords, but what happens on the left hand is quite jazzy. Also, ‘Headmaster Ritual’ is similarly written with different tunings, which I think doesn’t sound like anyone except me. That was the song that took me the longest time to write, about three years. Each album had a new bit. First the chords, then the riff and suddenly three years had gone by. With that song if you analyse what I am doing on the left hand it is like Joni Mitchell, and what I am doing with the right hand is like Dave Davis.

  Do you still experiment with tunings?

  I am doing so again, yes. I get bored with the way a guitar is set up. The great thing about tunings is that you’ll play two chords and think ‘I’ve done it, I’ve come up with a chord sequence that no-one else has ever used. Then I put it back into concert tuning and it’s C to F!! But again, using different tunings breaks down those critical and creative faculties that we were talking about earlier, you follow things that you might otherwise not go with because it sounds like a piece already out there. You don’t second guess yourself, you f
ind different harmonics and get more into it.

  So would you advise young bands to use tunings and capos more often?

  Definitely. Funnily enough, there was a piece in a guitar magazine a few years ago about my use of capos and I thought ‘Shit am I the only person who does it?’ They cost about three quid and you get a new song out of it, you know, it’s well worth it.

  Have you got any examples of songs that wouldn’t have been written without the use of a capo or tuning?

  Loads. ‘Big Mouth Strikes Again’ because the chords are really quite simple but if it had been in regular concert tuning it would have been boring. ‘Cemetry Gates’ as well. ‘Feel Every Beat’ by Electronic. Those are kind of ‘Headmaster Ritual’-Joni Mitchell chords that are really weird.

  You said of ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’ that you used a Strat because you were looking for that single coil purity. How much does the make of guitar affect the end track?

  Very much sometimes.

  But doesn’t that mean that a young band with only one guitar is limited by their finances as to what they can create?

  Yes, a little, but it does give you that first identifiable sound. A band’s first album is quite often just a sound that people latch onto and that is great. Then on the second album they can afford more gear and so they can bring in more textures. I think that is a good thing. I always had a Les Paul and I thought I was getting too bluesy, so I got a Rickenbacker which is much less suited to solo-ing. The only solo I think that has ever worked on a Rickenbacker was ‘Eight Miles High’. But yes, the make of guitar you write with can really dictate the songs.

  Name a song written with a specific person in mind. Who is that person and why did you write it?

  After about a minute and a half of writing ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ it had a Del Shannon feel, so I continued to write that with my mother in mind, because she listened to so much of that. ‘Back To The Old House’ I wrote with my wife in mind.

  When the lyrics have been put over those songs and they don’t match the exact situations or person you were thinking of, what happens?

  What you need to look for is one partner to give 100% and the other to give 100% and those two halves to make 300%, a chemical reaction that creates a song which is far greater than the sum of its parts. Again, ‘Get The Message’ is a very elementary song but the atmosphere of the vocal is superb. The vocal was actually a stream of consciousness. Bernard sang these two lines, recorded it then stopped the tape. Then he went [picks imaginary tunes out of the air with arms]… and put those two lines down and the whole track was done first take. It’s not just about the content of the lyric, it’s also about the delivery, the atmosphere. That fragility he captured mixed with my music in a way that was so simple, but it was so much bigger than the sum of the parts. The Smiths had it, and I had it with Matt but I have seen it the most with Bernard and Electronic.

  When Bryan Ferry did the ‘Right Stuff’, putting lyrics to The Smiths’ ‘Money Changes Everything’ did his lyrical and musical presentation match your original ideas?

  Yes. I didn’t really analyse the lyrics that much, because Bryan is more into phonetics anyway, and for me that song is very much phonetical and rhythmic. The fact that Bryan didn’t write anything radical didn’t worry me because phonetically he got it right and with those really high backing vocals it sounded perfect. And the band that Bryan used was much more true to the spirit of the track. He used Andy Newmark on drums from Sly Stone and Guy Pratt on bass which was exactly the nature of the track really. Perfect.

  You have dropped knives onto open guitars to create certain effects and other tricks. Have you got any other examples?

  Well, the knife thing was used on ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’. I do all kinds of stuff like that. I’ll tape up the strings for example. Take ‘Violence Of Truth’ by The The, there is an almost glam rock riff that comes in where the lyric goes ‘These are the rules of religion, these are the rules of the land’ and the only way I could get that sound was to pick the most horrible guitar I had and then find the key, tune up the bottom string so the bass string was in sympathy with it, then tape the top four strings up and just whack the bottom ones. It turned out almost like glam sax. Another one is for when you want really accurate warble and pitch bend like you normally would with a whammy bar, you sample it into a keyboard, use the pitch bender on the keyboard and then quantise it in the actual sequencing. Whatever it takes I will do to a guitar, tape strings whatever. The Nashville tuning method is quite good as well - put the high strings from a 12 string onto a six string - that can have good results.

  Really, but isn’t that the antithesis of The Smiths’ purist approach?

  Well, we weren’t really that purist behind the scenes. Morrissey liked the ideas of sixties techniques, so we’d use sound effects from BBC sound effects records, whereas now we’d have used a CD Rom but told people it was from the BBC records! Take a look at the ‘Strangeways Here We Come’ sleeve and there is a picture of me with my head in my hands, and in the background there is an Akai sampler, clearly!! Having said that, we were a guitar group and if I wanted a certain sound I would use a guitar. So if I was looking for strings, I would get that through the guitar, using sustain and turning the tape upside down. That approach has its difficulties but it can also get great results and it’s more interesting than doing it with synths. That is where I am at now, taking that experimentalist approach and using it for guitars rather than synths.

  What is the balance between wearing your producer’s hat and your songwriter’s hat?

  Absolutely none. No difference. Unless you’re producing someone else. With Billy Bragg I showed his guitarist some tricks and that was great fun. Take S’Express - the distinction between the writer and the producer had completely gone and I think that gelling of the roles is completely healthy.

  You still need to be creative within those parameters though…

  Sure. Matt Johnson did it in reverse for example. He started in the early 80’s with all this technology and yet now he has come round to real purist material. Years ahead of his time, always has been. But yes, I take your point, technological abuse has to be avoided, it’s back to that indulgence idea again. I think my sense of the song always stops me from doing that fortunately.

  How much does structure dominate the writing process? Is unorthodoxy in structure appealing to you?

  Yes, as I get older it appeals more. Paradoxically, I like changing things around, changing structures and playing around but still using some form.

  Does the process of recording and the studio interest you?

  As a kid I liked to hear records that you didn’t know how they were achieved, where you get this environment that is almost from another planet, I love that. It is far more interesting than just four musicians playing in a room. If you are going to do that you have to do it like Matt did on ‘Dusk’ I think. He got these very intense, interesting dynamics that captured your attention completely. That degree of presence is pretty rare though. You see, too many bands are just record collectors and four guys in a room with a big record collection each doesn’t mean you can come up with the goods. That is a mistake that has come through more and more in the eighties.

  But you make no secret of your references to the past, so how do you balance that with plagiarist nostalgia?

  It’s the question of relativity. The thing I liked about the Beatles for example was that they made use of the technology that was available at the time. Bands who want to sound like the Beatles and only use the same gear they did are completely missing the point. If The Beatles had adopted that attitude they would have sounded like a swing band. Jimi Hendrix was all about capturing his own spirit and being obsessed with the power of music and taking his many references and building on it and making it his own. All the greats are about living in their era and saying something about their times. That was something that frustrated me about my detr
actors when I left The Smiths because they equated me with this fickle music careerist persona that was now into dance. There were two answers to that. One, what I was expressing in The Smiths was the spirit of the sixties but in its own time, in its own way. The pragmatic approach of those sixties songwriters was what inspired us. It didn’t sound like Gerry & The Pacemakers to me, it sounded very much like an eighties group. Also, I feel that we made it cool again to be on Top of the Pops. The second thing about that criticism was that I am a faddy person, unashamedly, I have always liked fashion. I think it is fascinating, fashion in music and fashion in clothes. There is a philosophy of some rock musicians that says a song has to be timeless to be great. If you pull that off then great, but one of the things that attracted me towards Marc Bolan was that he was of his time. That is why I have got the utmost respect for the Pet Shop Boys because they are not trying to write ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, they want it to sound like the year it was written.