JOHN WALTERS: Out of the sort of liberation that punk brought to the model that that area was getting into, I should imagine that the most successful band that you’ve had on the programme recently must surely be The Smiths, who clearly don’t have a punky noise…style, totally different, but couldn’t have existed, probably, without punk, and you had them on very early on, May 1983, before they had a record out, after they first came from Manchester and appeared in London. Again, looking back to that Manchester gloom…there’s always been that melancholy solitude…a whimsical, ironic and rather witty approach to solitude in Morrissey’s stuff…Would you say, ‘Oh Morrissey, he’s my sort of chap’?
JOHN PEEL: I would like to think he was…I’ve only met him a couple of times. I just like the fact that I was hearing words being used in popular songs that I wasn’t used to hearing, just the use of language really pleased me as much as anything else: and his voice again was not a voice that you could immediately trace back to somebody else. I mean, he wasn’t trying to be Marc Bolan, he wasn’t trying to be Jim Morrison again..they just seemed to be another band that arrived from nowhere with a very clear and strong identity, and that is always attractive. [Peeling Back The Years, 1987]
Smiths, Reel Around The Fountain (FF 1983 #6, 1984 #36)
I used to hate The Smiths. It was that dreary voice, spreading doom and gloom, and that annoying jingly-jangly guitar. Being forced to listen to a tape compilation of their hits recorded at the wrong speed while on the way to a Christmas party while I was working for the Civil Service did nothing to improve my opinion of them.
Yet there I was, two years later, trying to buy all the singles up before they were deleted, and watching all of a two-hour bootleg video compilation of interviews from Italian TV, and hanging on to every word. What changed? I think I can date it from the release of The Queen Is Dead, and Smash Hits telling me to buy it. The guy in the independent record shop in Stevenage winced at the title track, calling it ‘amateurish’, but by now it was too late. I was hoooked.
Smiths, This Charming Man (FF 1983 #2, All-Time FF 2000 #22)
I sold this 12 inch for £1. I should have had my nadgers cut off for doing so. As you can see, the single covers themselves, without exception devoted to 60s icons, were an art form.
As for the song itself: who can say The Smiths are gloomy and depressing after hearing this? The delicate and allusive wordplay, the Motown-like beat, it was a classic of epic proportions. From the moment Johnny Marr’s guitar ushers in the solid, unwavering backbeat, you know you’re in safe hands. See Stephen swing lots of flowers here:
Smiths, Hand In Glove (FF 1983 #9)
I first saw this done by Sandie Shaw and the band: she was writhing around on the floor of the Top Of The Pops studio. Here’s another clip, just as interesting:
Of course, the boys themselves were the real deal, self-mocking (‘The sun shines out of our behinds’) and assured. All these tracks come from their eponymous debut, which still contains plenty of longueurs, but has the freshness of spirit and glamour of discovery in spades. Now I can’t imagine life without this band, and every play of their music brings new pleasures. They would come to haunt the Festive Fifty to a ludicrous extent, despite the fact that they were its philosophy in miniature: rooted in the past, yet travelling unknown continents all the time.
Buy: The Smiths, The Smiths
Teenage Kicks 
The Sandie Shaw clip has stuck in my mind for twenty odd years now.
I had the same kind of damascene conversion to the Smiths that you’re talking about here, in fact, most of my favouite bands have necessitated some kind of listening ‘right of passage’ baefore I could truly love them. I remember locking myself in my apartment with a Fall compilatiion tape playing endlessly for a week. If I could describe the moment when I gained ‘consciousness’ (I’m pretty sure it was ‘faaaaaaannnnsss: remember…) I would, but I can’t.
A great post as ever. Come on you miserable buggers, show some appreciation and stop just downloading and then doing a runner.
FiS
Thank you, thank you, thank you for voicing just what I have been feeling. One of my posts was downloaded 28 times and not one person left a comment. How long does it take to write ‘thanks’, ‘interesting’, or even valid, polite criticism? It costs nothing…just like the mp3s I offer you.
More than 500 people download some of the Pels shows.
Imagine how I feel!
My point exactly. 28 people, 500 people, 0 comments: it’s the same result-our frustration because of their apathy.
Naturally, you don’t expect every single one of them to say ‘well done old chap, please have my babies’, but if a third or even a few said something, it’s interactive, not just selfish ‘downloading and then doing a runner’ (thanks for that expression, Adam). We spend a lot of time putting this stuff together, for no pecuniary outcome at all, just out of love (as the recently disappeared crash calloway said).
Don’t feel too bad, one blog I was reading had 800 hits and nobody left a message. Speaking personally, I love your blog. Being based on the Festive Fifty you’re never going to like everything on it (I bet you find yourself having to post stuff you don’t like much) but I refuse to leave a negative message. I mention this because you recently featured Peel favourites The Fall and they are my #1 “I don’t get it” band but I didn’t see the point in sharing that (until now). It did surprise me, though, that you received no comments at all on that post bearing in mind that a lot of Festive Fifty fans are likely to be fans of The Fall.
Anyway, nice Smiths post and be assured your blog is one of the first I check every day (even when you feature The Fall:) )
Aww, thanks Mick. Yes, you make a couple of very valid points. I was less than enthusiastic about posting ‘Stairway To Heaven’, for example, because I just don’t understand how it has become so revered, when there is so much better stuff to hear (even by the band themselves)! And yes, there is lots of stuff that I am not wildly over the moon about having to write about (step forward Laura Cantrell, Melt Banana, Bang Bang Machine and Niko Case), but this is my mission, and it’s as much a learning experience for me as anything else.
As far as the Fall are concerned, I can see why some people would not like them, and I respect that: I guess people just want to read about and download the rare and unusual stuff. Well, sorry everybody, but the Festive Fifty is such that for every Godspeed You Black Emperor rarity, there are legions by the Wedding Present that everybody already has in their collection, but for the sake of completion have to be posted.
OK, thanks once again to my great blog friends for their support and I’ll stop weeping in my beer. Cheers Mick and Adam for your inspiration!
I had a similar Smiths’ experience, I loved ‘Hand In Glove’ when it came out but ‘This Charming Man’ seemed too light and jangly and I went right off them for a long time. This was also partly due to a really (really) annoying bloke I knew at art college who was mad about them so I always associated his weedy, whiny voice with them.
I sold my 7″ of ‘Hand In Glove’ like an idiot too. But I was poor and needed the money at the time.
We’ve all been there Lee…like my mate Jim (remember him?) who swapped his ORIGINAL New Hormones issue of the Buzzcocks’ ‘Spiral Scratch’ for Jilted John on Rabid Records and never stopped moaning about it.
I think I bought a packet of fags with the proceeds :-(. Been two years without them now and don’t regret it.