The two Smiths songs Johnny Marr called “really inferior”
After five years without taking a moment’s breath from the never-ending carousel, The Smiths desperately needed to take a break in 1987 following the release of Strangeways, Here We Come. Guitarist Johnny Marr was out of energy, and the only thought that was occupying his mind was taking a holiday rather than returning to the studio.
However, before the opportunity arose for him to take a flight to a sun-soaked destination, Marr was dragged against his will to another recording session to make the B-sides for ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’. Little did he know it then, but when he walked through the doors of Firehouse Studios in May 1987, it would mark the last time they’d make music together as The Smiths.
Much to his frustration, The Smiths were set to record two B-sides rather than one for ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’. Marr had come to the session with the new song ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’ while Morrissey insisted they also record a cover of ‘Work Is A Four Letter Word’ by Cilla Black, and despite airing his grievances, Marr eventually submitted.
While speaking with Record Collector in 1992, Marr said of the band’s final recording session: “It was utter misery. The group were really falling to pieces. We’d finished making the record and I thought, ‘Right, now for the first time, I can have a couple of weeks away from the group’. That’s all it was. I wanted to get away and felt we should all have taken a holiday. I told Morrissey he needed a holiday.”
He added: “The band put what I thought was really unfair pressure to come up with two B-sides for ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’. I fought hard against it.”
Although Marr was pleased with his contribution to the session, he “hated” ‘Work Is A Four Letter Word’, remarking, “That was the last straw, really. I didn’t form a group to perform Cilla Black songs. That’s the main thing.”
During their career, The Smiths recorded 74 songs, and Marr feels a sense of pride in 72 of those tracks. The other, which he considers equally dismal as their take on Black’s creation, is their 1986 cover of ‘Golden Lights’ by Twinkle.
Again, the obscure track was released as an unnecessary B-side to ‘Ask’, already accompanied by fan favourite ‘Cemetry Gates’ on the flip side.
Marr said of ‘Golden Lights’ in the same Record Collector interview: “Yeah, that was another low point. Those are the two low points of our recording career, certainly. They’re really inferior, and don’t deserve a place alongside our own material.”
While B-sides offer the opportunity for acts to experiment in new areas and release music that may not be cohesive with a full body of work, these two novelty covers add nothing to their repertoire. In Marr’s mind, they are a small stain on an almost faultless discography, and more significantly, they highlight the creative differences that had slowly crept in.
After half a decade of relentless collaboration, the time naturally arose for Marr and Morrissey to go their separate ways as they were no longer sang from the same hymn sheet. It was a gradual relationship breakdown, and while these two covers may have seemed inconsequential upon release, their impact was mammoth.
