The album The Smiths want to be remembered for
By now, there are few things that Morrissey and Johnny Marr will agree on. The once-tight collaborators can’t stand each other, and things have been more than hostile for a long time now, curtailing any suggestion of a reunion. But there’s one thing they can agree on: The Smiths’ legacy and the songs that lock it in.
They were always an odd duo. Back then, Morrissey was the brooding Oscar Wilde of the rock world. Marr was the music obsessive, taking his bandmates’ dark poetry and giving it an instrumental nest. The differences in their personalities reflected in the songs, becoming represented in the band’s legacy of truly depressing lyricism being paired with a jangling and fun sound; Morrissey meeting Marr.
Despite the differences, for the first years of The Smiths, it was a perfect combination when it came to artistry. The pair were utterly prolific, sometimes writing several future hits in one day as these songs seemed to pour out of them. But outside of those sessions, writing tunes at one or other’s house, it was a mess. “The differences in personalities are what often make for interesting chemistry, and, inevitably, [with] the differences in personality come [the] point when those things are gonna stop forward motion, I guess,” Marr told Rolling Stone about their split, but really it was more than that.
Between all the personality clashes in the group, actually running the band and making it work became impossible. “We were deemed unmanageable,” Marr said as they stopped being able to hold down a team as conflicts ramped up. It impacted the process of creativity, too – it’s hard to be prolific with someone that you don’t even want to be in a room with.
Yet regardless of the shit show their connection became, worsened by Morrissey’s political beliefs and Marr’s clear exhaustion towards the whole thing, both have always and forever honoured what they made together. There is clear pride on both sides for their music, especially for their final record, Strangeways, Here We Come.
Given that it was their last album, recorded right before they split, it doesn’t feel like it should be as cohesive as it is. Or it feels more like the band should look back on it with more upset or even resentment, as if it should represent those bad final moments. But for both Marr and Morrissey, their love for the album has been safe from that.
In fact, even when they were making it, that love created an odd calm amidst a storm. “Strangeways suffers because it was our last record, so people think there were arguments and horrors in making it, but there weren’t,” Marr reflected, adding straight up, “Morrissey and I both think it’s possibly our best album.”
Morrissey’s own reflections agree with that. In his 2013 book, Autobiography, the singer called it nothing short of a “masterpiece, with everything in its perfect place.”
While the album was safe from the drama of the moment, allowing the music to endure, both agree that part of the reason it’s so great is because of how that drama creeps into the song. Marr especially hears it on his favourite track. To him, the “best moment” on Strangeways is ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ as he said, “The song epitomised everything that was unique about the band. It sounded like the drama of our lives.”
As Morrissey croons, “The story is old, I know, but it goes on”, it feels like the band is mourning in real time, dealing with the inevitable end in their own uniquely melodramatic way that always made them great.
