Dear Friends,
I will write to you for two more weeks, including today. Then I will just write other things. Maybe I will come back here from time to time. I don’t know. It’s going to be hard to quit. Do anything for over 1000 days in a row and a pretty strong habit is made.
I found out that my buddy, Mark E., had a major cardiac event. What a fucking bummer. Uggh. I hate that so much. I feel so bad for his son. I’m not sure I will ever get a chance to meet his son or talk to him, but I hope I do.
Apparently, some assholes on the Facebook were putting it out there that my friend had committed suicide. Motherfuckers. The internet is a pit of bullshit. His ex-wife BLASTED them, which I applaud, but how lame can people be? Keyboard warriors blow.
The last couple of days at work have been interesting to say the least. I have one student that I think I have mentioned. He asks really good questions a lot of the time, but every once in a while, he asks me these incredible time-wasting questions. I went a little too far in pointing this out yesterday and I feel really badly about it.
Sometimes I forget that they are just trying to figure out what they can get away with and I don’t need to teach them how rude they have been, but just that they have been rude at all. I had a long talk with him about why he frustrated me, and I think he got it, but I won’t soon forget the look on his face when he realized that I was pretty darn pissed at him.
It’s time for a nice long break.
*****
It is not an understatement to say that the Smiths changed my life.
Between my friends, Jerry and Bill, I fell in love with the Smiths in 1985 and I have loved them ever since. The first record of theirs that I bought, well, let me correct, that my mom bought was Meat Is Murder. She bought it for me at Wherehouse Records at Tower Plaza in the spring of 1985. It was the same day that I was given my first Metallica record, Ride The Lightning, and I still take tremendous pride that I got these two records on the same day.
I learned every lyric on this record over those next couple of years. I played Meat Is Murder every day for much of that time, most likely. It was like a calming salve to my achy teenage soul. I felt like Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Mike Joyce, and Andy Rourke were speaking directly to me and my friends, but mostly me.
In those days, I didn’t marvel at the musicianship the way I do now. I definitely did not have a grasp on how amazing Rourke’s bass lines were or how difficult they would be to try and learn a few decades later. I always give up about ten minutes into trying to learn some of my favorite bass lines by him. RIP Rourke!
As with all of the records I will be writing about the rest of the way this year, there are no weak moments. I love every song. I’m also going to discuss every one of them, so bear with me.
“The Headmaster Ritual” starts off with Marr and Rourke just bobbing and weaving together in such a wonderful way. When Morrissey comes in singing about how “belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools” I am totally in. I was somewhat aware of the personality that Morrissey was cultivating in those days by the time I could play this record every day, so it was not a stretch to fall for every word and feel so sad for my tortured hero/poet/master of lament.
I often tried to read into the lyrics of “The Headmaster Ritual” when I was younger, but over the years, I started appreciating Marr’s ability to craft amazing songs more than Morrissey’s excellence in creating such strong emotions and visuals with his words. Nowadays, I don’t care much about what he was saying but how he sang it. It’s still fun to sing along with in the car or shower.
“Rusholme Ruffians” paints a vivid picture. I don’t know how many times I have pictured myself at the fair in question. “So, scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen/this means you really love me” is such a great pair of lines. Whenever I see students with things written all over themselves it reminds me of this song. Morrissey captured that adolescent angst so well.
The song is also just a thumper. I don’t think Marr, Rourke, and Joyce got enough credit back in the day for how amazing they were on their instruments. You could teach a music theory class on the Smiths, I am sure, if you dived into how they constructed their individual parts.
Did anyone play a shuffle beat better than Mike Joyce in those days?
“I Want the One I Can’t Have” was the story of my life from 1985 to 1991. The grass was always greener somewhere else, but I allowed myself to suffer because of it. The drugs and alcohol made it easier, of course, but I always had the Smiths to really keep me company. I would listen to them all the time when I was alone.
For years, they were the band I listened to on the way to gigs to get my voice warmed up. I may have shared that before. I would also listen to Meat Is Murder and Hatful of Hollow while doing prep work at Easy Street. I could sing my head off in there and bother no one. I fancied myself to be a pretty decent Morrissey impersonator there for a while.
“What She Said” has a great Marr guitar line. It kicks in with a bit more balls than the first three songs on Meat Is Murder. “What She Said” is very rock and roll and I love that aspect of it. Just total Id Rock. Not ‘kid’ rock. Fuck that guy. ‘Id’ rock.
The riff seems to spring right from Marr’s guts, you know? I can just see him wailing away at the guitar and Joyce is right there with him, egging him on…pushing him farther, deeper, and when it abruptly quits, you’re spent.
The band chose a great ending for side one with ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.” When the song starts, it is the perfect, big fluffy cloud for you to fall into after “What She Said.” Again, Morrissey’s words are transformative. The emotions go from wistful to hopeful to dire over the course of a few minutes.
“I’ve seen this happen in other people’s lives and now it’s happening in mine.”
I mean, where do you go from there? The band is playing this riff behind him that just wants to be happy. It longs to be happy, but you just know it will never quite get there. Perfection. The fade out then fading back in is also brilliant.
The Smiths most iconic riff is “How Soon Is Now.” There was a time in the early 2000s, I think, when it seemed to be everywhere. For a while, I would skip this track when I would listen to my old CD in the car because I just couldn’t stand to hear it again, but I’m back to loving it now.
“How Soon Is Now” reminds me of being on the dance floor at Tommy’s when I was a teenager and just not giving a shit that I might be dancing, do my pseudo-Morrissey moves all by myself. Marr must’ve made a pretty, pretty penny on this one and deservedly so.
“Nowhere Fast” starts off with the idea of dropping one’s trousers to the world. I’ve often considered this to be a pretty gutsy (and necessary) thing. You just have to tell the world to fuck off sometimes. “If the day came when I felt a natural emotion/I’d get such a shock I’d probably jump in the ocean” is another catchy line.
Joyce and Rourke are absolutely ruling here, too. Marr’s got that little happy blues riff happening, but it’s really the bass and drums that are driving the whole way.
Rourke starts off “Well I Wonder” so beautifully, too. It’s like he sums up all of the moodiness of early 80s British new wave in one haunting bass line. As I type this today, I think of the people I have lost this year. The line “Please keep me in mind” has always resonated with me when I miss people I can no longer see or talk to. Here’s another one, kids, to play on the day of my celebration of life.
“Barbarism Begins At Home” is one of those daunting bass lines that I have tried to learn a few times. It always ends with me telling myself that “I don’t need to learn it. I should just appreciate it.” This one was an early favorite of mine, too. I really identified with this as a teenager.
Now, I just love it when Morrissey barks. To be a fly on the wall when he threw that in the first time would be so effin’ cool. I’m guessing that Smiths’ practices were sometimes full of spirited discussion. Barbarism really does begin at home. Such a great title.
“A crack on the head is what you get for asking.”
The dramatic closer, “Meat Is Murder,” is really kind of a silly song on one level, but also a pretty powerful statement on the other. When Meat Is Murder came out, I’m sure the band’s management was thinking they could break these guys really big in America. “Meat Is Murder” put that at risk in 1985, big time.
We all know that the Smiths got kinda big, but never were a huge financial success in America during their time as an active band. I have wonder how much “Meat Is Murder” impacted that success. They were certainly catchy and way more rockin’ than other bands that did get pretty big.
“This beautiful creature must die and death for no reason is murder.”
I ate that stuff up a teenager, but still managed to see my way through frying up a few pork chops when I got home from school most days. I like the song (and some animal flesh) just fine. With the Smiths, you learn to ignore and forgive a lot of what Morrissey says and it’s okay. The vast majority of his lyrics on Meat Is Murder are great.
This record really did change my life. I learned that music that I liked was also art. It was complicated and brilliant and it didn’t have to be punk rock to take the piss out of things. It could be beautiful and still put a real ass kicking on the world.
*****
See you tomorrow.
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