The Smiths song Johnny Marr is most proud of: “It’s a one-off”
At just 14 years old, Johnny Marr attended a Patti Smith concert in Manchester, where he first crossed paths with Morrissey in the foyer. However, it wasn’t until several years later, after being introduced by mutual musical friends, that the two became close. From there, it didn’t take long for The Smiths to form, with Marr assuming lead guitar duties and Morrissey bringing his signature vocal style to life through his witty, emotionally charged, and often melancholic lyrics.
With the help of Mike Joyce on the drums and Andy Rourke on bass, The Smiths were fully formed and soon became one of indie rock’s most notable bands. They have exerted enormous influence over guitar music since their tenure, which only lasted five years. Yet, during that short period, they released four studio albums and various compilations, often using bold album titles like Meat Is Murder and The Queen Is Dead.
The Smiths honed a style that was instantly recognisable, consisting of jangling guitars, prominent bass lines, and Morrissey’s unmistakable voice. They made countless songs that became simply iconic, such as the indie floor filler ‘This Charming Man’ and ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’, perhaps their most well-known track.
Then there’s ‘How Soon Is Now?’, coming in at almost seven minutes long, which appeared as a B-side to 1984’s ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’. It’s unbelievable that the song didn’t initially receive A-side treatment. It wasn’t until 1985, a year after the band placed the song on their 1984 compilation album, Hatful of Hollow, that they decided to release it as a single. For Marr, it’s a record he considers a favourite.
It is now one of the band’s most popular songs; you can recognise the guitar that immediately opens up the track. The guitars, rich with tremolo and soaked in reverb, sound tense and dark, shuddering with the promise – or threat – of something bigger, like a car gliding past in the night. Marr’s guitars lay down the foundations for the track, with Morrissey singing poignant words like “I am human and I need to be loved/ Just like everybody else does.”
Morrissey’s classic melancholy way of penning lyrics is rendered to full effect on ‘How Soon Is Now?’ with lines like “You could meet somebody who really loves you/ So you go and you stand on your own/ And you leave on your own/ And you go home and you cry/ And you want to die.”
The song has resonated with many people for decades, and Marr feels particularly proud of it. “You know what it is as soon as you hear the guitar,” he told Big Issue North. “It’s a one-off. As a boy I always had the ambition to get good enough to make records that you knew what they were within the first five or 10 seconds, as you do when you hear ‘The Passenger’ by Iggy Pop or ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones or any of those great classic records, and ‘How Soon Is Now?’ appears to do that.”
Certainly, out of all of the band’s songs, it’s that guitar riff that Marr conjured up which sticks out as the most recognisable. The song has since been used in many movies and television shows, from Closer to The Wedding Singer, and various cover versions have been used in media like Gossip Girl, Charmed and The Craft.
