The Johnny Marr performance Noel Gallagher adores: “Kills me everytime”
I’ve sort of lost track of who Noel Gallagher claims are his influences.
For a man who famously hates everything and everyone, he’s name-dropped a litany of bands during press runs over the years, and every time he claims that artist is his unwavering favourite. One day it’s The Stone Roses, the next The Beatles.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that if he were pinned down and forced to give one name in complete assurance, it would be The Smiths.
Just a decade before Oasis seized the throne, they were the definitive Manchester band—no, in fact, they were the definitive British outfit. Come to think of it, the groups’ backgrounds were strikingly unique, with both Johnny Marr and the Gallagher honing their crafts in working-class communities while shaping their personalities against the backdrop of Irish immigrant families.
So it is unsurprising that the music born from Marr’s guitar resonated so deeply with Gallagher, whose songwriting methodology was built on the blueprint set by The Smiths guitarist. Moreover, The Smiths were a band whose music had a profound impact in the 1980s. It was a decade waving goodbye to the crunching riffs of classic rock and welcoming in a sea of synthesised pastiche, and within that, Marr managed to create a sound that cut through the noise.
Gallagher himself once labelled them “the most unique band to ever come out of England,” helping British indie music in particular, turn a corner. They built the bridge between the sort of raucous rock of Led Zeppelin in the 1970s, to what we hailed as Britpop in the 1990s, and Marr’s guitar playing was at the very heart of that.
“I’ve seen him in the studio doing things that are so simple, yet so difficult at the same time,” Gallagher explained when asked about the essence of his guitar playing ability. “It does your head in. It’s impossible [to play like him]. If you’re making a record and a producer says, ‘Give us that Johnny Marr stuff’, you better get on the phone and get him because you can’t do it.”
That unique sense of technicality was best showcased on tracks like ‘How Soon Is Now?’ and ‘This Charming Man’, which blended virtuoso style riffs with an inherent melodic backbone. But Gallagher’s love for Marr didn’t just stop at the fretboard. Every facet of his musicality was adored by Gallagher, who highlighted the use of an unexpected instrument on a Smiths hit as a point of reference.
Explaining, “It goes without saying that I love Johnny Marr’s guitar playing, but what I love equally is his harmonica playing. And I think the riff at the beginning of ‘Hand In Glove’ is fucking… kills me every time.”
It was the very first single for the band, highlighting an astonishingly high skill level for not only a group finding their feet, but a friendship between Morrissey and Johnny Marr trying to establish itself. The pair had not long met before laying down the track, and there would have been no doubt in Morrissey’s mind that when Marr provided both harmonica and guitar melodies, he had just found his musical partner.
