i-want-more

Record box #2

The Smiths: Girlfriend in a coma; Shoplifters of the world unite; William, it was really nothing; The boy with the thorn in his side; Ask; Panic; What difference does it make; Sheila take a bow

Imagine yourself as an ungainly 13-year-old girl with an imaginative inner life, living in a house in the middle of nowhere in the mid-1980s. Actually, don't bother - because frankly, it was fairly crap.

Seeing The Smiths on Top of the Pops was a bona fide religious experience. It's Johnny Marr I recall most clearly - his skinny legs sticking out from the bottom of his Rickenbacker, and his hilarious beehive hairdo.

These singles were always lucky purchases. It's been well-documented (somewhere...) that Smiths records would go straight into the top 30, then bomb straight out again, because their fiercely loyal fanbase would buy it in the week it came out. As a result, shops such as Woolworths and Boots (yes, they did used to stock music) would always have the 'unpopular' stuff in their bargain bins. Which is great news when you're on three quid a week pocket money.

Of all of the above, I think my favourite is 'William...'. I think it's because the opening lines resonated - 'The rain falls hard on a humdrum town/this town has dragged you down...' In recent years I've heard various rumours about the song being about the novel Billy Liar or perhaps about a friendship that Morrissey struck up with Billy MacKenzie [more about him another time]. I don't care what it's about. I care that the opening bars shimmer, and the lyric 'I don't dream about anyone/except myself...'

My least favourite is 'Girlfriend in a coma'. Possibly it's because it seems tied up with the memory of the summer when the Smiths split. Crushed doesn't even begin to describe it. Briefly, I felt that I was never going to feel the same way about a band again - dramatic as always, eh.

Not sure I ever have felt that way about a band again. [Not sure that's such a bad thing after all.]

posted by deafdisco @ 2:20 am