“A taunting little number”: Did Cilla Black break up The Smiths?
It is no secret that, when forming The Smiths, Morrissey took many cues and avenues of inspiration from the pop scene of the 1960s. While other prominent indie bands of the era took their sound from punk rock, girl groups like The Shangri-Las seemed to have more of an impact on the songwriter than any punk group. However, that did not necessarily mean that the rest of the band was on board with Morrissey’s dedication to the style and sound of retro pop songs.
If you exist outside the cultural realm of the United Kingdom, the life and career of Cilla Black might have passed you by. Emerging from Liverpool during the 1960s, Black quickly became a defining female voice in pop, which continued for much of the decade. Performing a variety of smash-hit singles, in addition to appearing on various television programmes – the last of which, Blind Date, lasted all the way until 2003 – Black’s career was certainly multi-faceted. One aspect of her work, which is rarely known, was her role in breaking up The Smiths.
Morrissey always seemed to have a fascination with Cilla Black, regularly discussing her work in interviews and hinting at the fact she had been a major influence on him. Within the discography of The Smiths, however, the band rarely crossed paths with the optimistic pop-centric sound of the Merseyside icon. That was until Morrissey made the executive decision that the band would cover Black’s ‘Work Is A Four-Letter Word’, from the film of the same name, as the B-side to their single ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’.
When the band started recording their fourth album, Strangeways, Here We Come, in March 1987, the writing was already on the wall for the future of The Smiths. Internal tensions within the line-up, namely between Morrissey and Johnny Marr, meant that the period was fraught with conflict, arguments, and musical differences. Although the album itself ended up being an incredibly strong effort from the indie rockers, by the time it was released, the group had already gone their separate ways.
Seemingly, a large contributing factor to that demise came with the recording of ‘Work Is A Four-Letter Word’. The rest of the group was becoming frustrated with Morrissey’s desire to keep recording cover songs of pithy 1960s pop tunes instead of creating original material. For the majority of The Smiths’ discography, it had been the partnership of Marr and Morrissey driving the band forward, but for the Cilla Black cover, Morrissey recruited Mike Joyce to tell Marr what was going on.
“That really pissed me off big time,” Marr later recalled, “That Mike was the one who told me we were gonna do that song, which I thought was just totally naff.” That feeling seemed to be shared by the rest of the group, who weren’t all that keen on the idea of recording a Cilla Black tune, even if it was going to be relegated to a B-side. “I’m older now,” the guitarist said, “so I can see it was a desperate situation for everybody. But it was just the end.”
Even Morrissey himself could see, in hindsight, how his decision ultimately led to the break-up of The Smiths. “Cilla Black, unbeknownst to herself, actually broke The Smiths up,” he said years later. On the song itself, the singer shared, “I thought it was an amusing song. I wasn’t really attempting to produce a great piece of gothic art; it was just quite a taunting little number.” Nevertheless, that “taunting little number” ended up being one of the last things that The Smiths ever recorded together.
‘Girlfriend In A Coma’ was released on August 10th, 1987, with ‘Work Is A Four-Letter Word’ as its B-side. By that time, Marr had already left the group for good – citing the Black cover as his final straw – and The Smiths disbanded months prior to the release of Strangeways, Here We Come later that year.
