The closest The Smiths ever got to funk: “I’m almost embarrassed”
The Smiths were one of the acts leading the charge for post-punk. Along with the likes of Joy Division and The Cure, they were part of a gloomy generation where depressive lyrics were a kind of currency cashed in for hit and a legacy. So when the band once admitted that, actually, they were inspired by more joyous genres like funk, they felt the need to whisper it.
The Smiths were an odd unit made up of parts that shouldn’t have fit. That makes sense given that the band only managed to hold it together for about six years before imploding and staying locked in an ongoing argument ever since. But during the years between 1982 and 1987, they burned bright as the angsty poetry of Morrissey and the catchy, upbeat instrumentals made by Johnny Marr and the rest of the band come together to create something special.
Morrissey was always the odd one out. Before the rest of the band knew about the singer and Marr boldly showed up at Morrissey’s door to invite him into the troupe, the guitarist and the bassist, Andy Rouke, had their own thing going on. In the same circle of high school kids with a love for niche music, Marr and Rouke had been hanging out since they were 13 or so, sharing records they liked and jamming as they learnt their instruments.
But the music they were listening to wasn’t the kind of classic rock and roll or early punk that one might suspect. While Morrissey was busy studying Oscar Wilde and obsessing over the Moors Murderers or whatever else he did as a teen, Marr and Rouke were really into funk.
However, those funk-fueled days proved useful as the two teenagers began building a riff that would eventually make up ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’. Rouke said of the bassline, “We used to jam along to it for hours and hours, even pre-Smiths. I was into Stanley Clarke, James Jamerson and, I’m almost embarrassed to say it, Mark King from Level 42.”
Even though the band were far from a funk troupe, Marr and Rouke eventually found a place for their secret musical love within The Smiths on this Meat Is Murder track. Marr explained, “With ‘Barbarism Begins At Home,’ a lot’s been made of the funky aspect of the bassline, but that track harks back to what I was doing with Andy (Rourke) before The Smiths.”
It was a homage to their younger selves and their old loves as he continued, “I guess it came out of this love of retro kind of James Brown records, and things like Rip Rig & Panic and The Pop Group. That period of anemic, underfed white funk. It’s me and Andy being townies in Manchester, liking a bit of the American No-Wave thing. James Chance, I guess.”
But they always knew the influence of funk on The Smiths could only ever be a subtle and fleeting thing. Rouke admitted, “I think doing more in that style would have been a terrible idea, though.” With a gloomy reputation to uphold and angsty fans to keep happy, he said any more funk and “People would probably have assassinated us.”
