“Our masterpiece”: The 1987 song that captured everything great about The Smiths
Even the cheeriest of indie souls will one day wallow in the morose beauty of The Smiths and find themselves declaring, ‘This is the greatest band in the world’. It might only last a week, it might last a lifetime, but it seems every fan of guitar music has thought it at least once.
While their current disposition might be tarred with brushes of controversy, the fact of the matter is that they represent four artists tirelessly creating original work, and the fruits of that labour are thankfully left untouched by anything that had followed. What remains is a brooding kernel of mid-80s romanticism that still sounds like the last bus home.
At the core of this gladioli-swinging sound is the undisputed brilliance of Johnny Marr’s entirely original guitar work. With tremolo wizardry, Marr turned himself into a one-man atmosphere machine that not only defined the guitar sound of a generation but helped save indie music from the dreaded synth-pop sedation that infected the era.
With lush and soaring melodies, The Smiths managed to couple moody folk introspection with the visceral edge of rock ‘n’ roll and soundtracked a thousand coming-of-ages thereafter. If Ry Cooder captured the saudade of New Mexico’s setting sun, then Marr did the same for rain-slicked Manchester.
While a Doppler slide can be murky by nature, Marr has a unique way of giving it a light flourish that he has been propagating to sumptuous effect ever since. Rarely has such butter-cutting ease of melody been coupled with such mercurial depth. And this deeply personal style informs his favourite Smiths song with singular aplomb.
Part of what makes Marr’s playing so enduring is how little it relies on bravado. There are no histrionics or chest-beating solos, just an obsessive attention to texture and movement that rewards close listening. His guitar parts rarely announce themselves as the focal point, yet removing them would collapse the entire emotional architecture of the song. It is a style built on generosity rather than dominance.
That philosophy extended beyond his instrument and into how The Smiths functioned as a unit. Marr has always been quick to emphasise the collective nature of the band’s best work, recognising that the magic came from alignment rather than individual brilliance. In a group often reduced to the clash between singer and guitarist, it is easy to forget how carefully balanced their music was, and how much restraint it took to achieve something that still feels so effortless.
“I’m often asked what’s my favourite Smiths song,” Marr declared at a Q&A event upon the release of his memoir, Set the Boy Free. “I’ve always been able to say it’s ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ because I think it captured all those things that are transcendent, esoteric, that spiritual quality that means so much to me, that was captured not just by me but by every member of the band.”
And indeed, he has always been able to say this, as a 1993 quote from Select Magazine ratifies. “Strangeways suffers because it was our last record, so people think there were arguments and horrors in making it, but there weren’t,” he began.
“Morrissey and I both think it’s possibly our best album. That and some of The Queen Is Dead, which accepted opinion says is our masterpiece,” he continued. “That might be true, but Strangeways has its moments, like ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Love Me.’ Last time I met Morrissey he said it was his favourite Smiths song.” Marr, on this rarest of occasions, agreed. In their eyes, their masterpiece was clear.
The members of the band are not alone in championing it as a favourite either, David Bowie also said that this is his favourite Smiths song in an interview with Q Magazine in 1992. Later, in 2003, Outkast’s very own Andre 3000 told MTV that ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ was the song he wished he had written more than any other. “I personally wish I would have written that Smiths song ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me.’ Genius song,” He said.
Adding: “This girl named Hannah in Atlanta turned me on to them. Because I was telling her that I loved The Hives and The Buzzcocks and she said, ‘Hey, you need to check these guys out.'”
The song is the quintessential peak of The Smiths. It rumbles along on an esoteric mix of pillow-propped contentment and sorrowful yearning, perfectly coupling mournful lyrics with a sonic backdrop that both comforts and compounds, contrasts and complements. It might have been a swansong, but the band certainly didn’t go out with a whimper.
