meat is murder

The Smiths addressed the crux of the criminally vulgar violence inherent in the system with the complex controversial castigations of this adventurous article of adolescent agony.  In the year since the release of their eponymous debut, the band had released four non-album singles and the compilation 'Hatful of Hollow', all the while challenging the preconceptions of pop music.  

Morrissey would explain:  "To be quite honest, we are very angry.  I mean, in very simple terms we are very, very angry.  We're angry about the music industry.  We're very angry about pop music.  And I think it's about time that somebody said something and somebody did something that is of value.  Which is always very difficult because when you try to say someting with value and intelligence, you have to stand trial, you have to go before the jury, as it were, and explain yourself...I don't think that courtesy is really old fashioned...I think civility and common courtesy are really buried within everybody, but now we're in an age when people feel really embarrassed to be polite, and feel quite embarassed to open doors for others.  And I think that's sad, but it's only because I think that to be that courteous is considered to be quite weak and trivial...[the tendency which has overtaken it is toward violence], but this is because, in my opinion, of nuclear weapons.  Because it seems that ultimately, regardless of what happens in the world, the only way to solve our disagreements is by violence, is by nuclear weapons.  And as long as we live in a world where nuclear weapons are the only answer, and the ultimate answer after conversation has failed, I think people will be violent...It's completely connected. It all weaves in and it's all kind of embroidered to make one overall foul image.  From the time that you get hit when you're a child, as covered in a song called 'Barbarism Begins At Home', violence is the only answer.  Conversation is pointless.  And it continues through school.  Certainly if you to to a working class school...Violence towards animals, I think, is also linked to war.  I think as long as human beings are so violent towards animals there will be war.  It might sound absurd, but if you really think about the situation it all makes sense.  Where there's this absolute lack of sensitivity where life is concerned, there will always be war.  And, of course, there will always be war as long as there are people willing to fight wars in armies.  Which is quite another matter, which I must cover one day on a B side...The link is that I feel animal rights groups aren't making any dramatic headway because most of their methods are quite peaceable, excluding one or two things.  It seems to me now that when you try to change things in a peaceable manner, you're actually wasting your time and you're laughed out of court.  And it seems to me now that as the image of the LP hopefully illustrates, the only way that we can get rid of such things as the meat industry, and other things like nuclear weapons, is by really giving people a taste of their own medicine."

Unsatisfied with the sound of their debut, the band produced 'Meat Is Murder' themselves with engineer Stephen Street, who they had met during the recording of their single  "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now".  The sessions featured Morrissey on vocals;  Johnny Marr on guitars and piano;   Andy Rourke on bass guitar;  and Mike Joyce on drums.  'Meat Is Murder' reached number one hundred and ten in the US, fifty eight in Australia, forty five in Germany, forty in Canada, thirty nine in the Netherlands, twenty seven in Sweden, thirteen in New Zealand, and number one in the UK.  





http://www.officialsmiths.co.uk/

http://www.askmeaskmeaskme.com/

http://www.thesmiths.cat/







"How Soon Is Now?" was added to US pressings of the album.  Marr remembers;   "The vibrato sound is fucking incredible, and it took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibrating in time to the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track, recording it in 10-second bursts... I wish I could remember exactly how we did the slide part – not writing it down is one of the banes of my life! We did it in three passes through a harmonizer, set to some weird interval, like a sixth. There was a different harmonization for each pass. For the line in harmonics, I retuned the guitar so that I could play it all at the 12th fret with natural harmonics. It's doubled several times."






"That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEmsjyUrslk





"Barbarism Begins at Home"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3Hi6htzk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_T1NE4Q2BI







'Meat Is Murder'
full album:




All songs written and composed by Morrissey and Johnny Marr. 


1. "The Headmaster Ritual" 4:52
2. "Rusholme Ruffians" 4:20
3. "I Want the One I Can't Have" 3:14
4. "What She Said" 2:42
5. "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" 4:59
6. "Nowhere Fast" 2:37
7. "Well I Wonder" 4:00
8. "Barbarism Begins at Home" 6:57
9. "Meat Is Murder" 6:06



"How Soon Is Now?" was added to the US edition and to post-1992 UK WEA re-issues, as track 6. The 2011 remaster restored the original UK track listing.

the smiths

The Smiths revolutionized pop music with the innovative guitar sound and introspective intellectual angst of this charmingly gruesome landmark.  The band was started in Manchester in 1982 by Steven Patrick Morrissey and John Maher (who later changed his name to Johnny Marr).  The rhythm section of Simon Wolstencroft and Dale Hibbert were replaced by Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke by the time they were signed to independent Rough Trade Records.  Label head Geoff Travis suggested producer Troy Tate (from The Teardrop Explodes) for the initial sessions at Elephant studios in Wapping.  After listening to these first tracks, producer John Porter offered to rerecord the album.  The new sessions were done at London's Matrix Studios, with some final overdubs done at Eden Studios in London.  The album cover was designed by Morrissey featuring actor Joe Dallesandro in a cropped still from Andy Warhol's film 'Flesh'.   The finished album features Morrissey on vocals, Johnny Marr on guitars and harmonica, Andy Rourke on bass guitar, and Mike Joyce on drums,  with Paul Carrack on keyboards, and Annalisa Jablonska on vocals ("Pretty Girls Make Graves", "Suffer Little Children").  

'The Smiths' courted controversy with lyrics that addressed homosexuality, child molestation, and murder.  Morrissey expressed at the time:    "I'm certainly not going to change the way I write because I think it's essential. If I have to be accused of anything, it's because I write strongly and I write very openly from the heart... which is something people aren't really used to. They're used to a very strict, regimented style - and if you are too personal, and I don't mean offensively personal but just too close then it's what a 'strange' person, let's get him on the guillotine...At the end of the day the truth comes through and we shall find the highest success.  Our egos are not so fragile that we are shattered by anything some mini-streamroller at Sounds could write. We're not that fey - good grief. Neither were we really affected that much by The Sun. It's just the rest of the world you have to worry about - you have to take their feelings into consideration - which is a great burden.  It really proves that you don't have as much control over your destiny in this business as you think you do. There are people who like you and there are people who hate you. So why should you give the people that hate you precedence? Really we should stamp on it. It's history already...Much of what I write about is unrequited.  I feel that I do have a unique view of it because obviously it dominates every individual's life - which I've observed for quite a time. I feel I have a particular insight, which sounds terribly pompous and terribly ostentatious. It's funny though that most people that get enchained to the idea of 'absolute love' are usually totally irresponsible and self-deprecating individuals...I'm not a bitter and twisted individual with a whip crashing down on lovers in the park!...It's not really ego. If you have something and you know that you're good why be shy and hide behind the curtains? There's no point...It's more essential to me than breathing - it's more natural to me than breathing. I don't know why I'm here, it's like being hurled on an escalator and you go up and you don't have any say in the matter. That's all really...The whole thing really is a matter of life and death. And that's how serious we are...If the whole threat thing means you have a brain and you use it, then we're a threat. But if it means anything other than that, well, I don't really see how we're dangerous in any way. I don't think we'll disturb anybody - and I don't think it's coy to say that."

 Marr remembers:    "Before I joined the Smiths, I was frustrated because I couldn't find anyone else in Manchester who was as serious as I was. But when I met Morrissey, it was clear he felt just like I did. So off we went. On the first day of actually being together as writers, we talked about our dreams and what we were gonna do and how we were gonna do it. And amazingly, nearly all of it came true — things as specific as being on Rough Trade Records and touring America. But as far as songwriting, when we started out Lieber and Stoller were my main inspiration...In terms of the music, I think the first record is kinda like a time capsule. I don't want to describe the music too much, because then I just sound like a journalist, but I like ['The Smiths'] because of what it meant and how people heard it as something new when it came out. But it really doesn’t represent how the group sounded at the time. I think a first record should be a document of what the band sounds like live, and we had some aborted recording sessions that sounded more like that than the finished album did. But I don’t not like it. We wanted to be a modern band and impress our friends who had good taste and I think we did that." 

Due to the support of fans like DJ John Peel, 'The Smiths' made its debut at number two on the British album chart.  It also charted at number one hundred and fifty in the US, seventy-seven in Australia, sixty-five in Canada, forty-four in Sweden, twenty-eight in the Netherlands, and nine in New Zealand. 




http://www.thesmiths.cat/




http://www.morrissey-solo.com/

http://www.johnny-marr.com/





'Hand in Glove' found its way to number one hundred and twenty four on the UK singles chart.




'This Charming Man' hit fifty two in Australia and twenty five in the UK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PV4eiDi12w







'The Smiths'
full album:



  All tracks written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

Side A
1.     "Reel Around the Fountain"     5:58
2.     "You've Got Everything Now"     3:59
3.     "Miserable Lie"     4:29
4.     "Pretty Girls Make Graves"     3:44
5.     "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"     4:38
Side B
6.     "This Charming Man"     2:42
7.     "Still Ill"     3:23
8.     "Hand in Glove"     3:25
9.     "What Difference Does It Make?"     3:51
10.     "I Don't Owe You Anything"     4:05
11.     "Suffer Little Children"     5:28

the queen is dead

The Smiths took us back to dear old blighty with their savage, solipsistic, sarcastic, sensual masterpiece. 'The Queen Is Dead' was produced by Morrissey and Marr and engineered by Stephen Street. Street recalls that "Morrissey, Johnny and I had a really good working relationship — we were all roughly the same age and into the same kind of things, so everyone felt quite relaxed in the studio." Johnny Marr's subtle supple shimmering guitar work runs the gamut from flamenco to metal to rockabilly and provides a mesmerizing foundation to Morrissey's razor sharp wit as he takes on the church; the crown; nationalism; celibacy; stardom; insecurities; the soil falling over our collective heads; and a very bad dream that lasted twenty years, seven months, and twenty seven days. He packs in references to his favorite movies, songs, and poets in every song.


In the wake of the recording sessions, the band was in crisis. Andy Rourke was kicked out of the band over his heroin use and replaced with Craig Gannon who shifted over to help out on guitar when Rourke returned a couple of weeks later. The band was touring and recording constantly and it took a toll on Marr: "'Worse for wear' wasn't the half of it: I was extremely ill. By the time the tour actually finished it was all getting a little bit... dangerous. I was just drinking more than I could handle." He drove his BMW into a wall one rainy night in 1986. "I wore a neck brace - Morrissey was very envious."


The release of 'The Queen Is Dead' was delayed for seven months due to a legal dispute with their label. The brooding lead singer confessed at the time: "I'm not happy, I'm not...almost every aspect of human life really quite seriously depresses me... I do feel that all those tags, the depressive, the monotony, all tags I've dodged or denied are probably absolutely accurate. When you put me next to Five Star and judge the whole thing against the bouncingly moronic attitude that is so useful if one wants a job in the music industry, then yes I am a depressive. If I wasn't doing this I don't honestly believe that I would want to live. And one hesitates about making such statements because however one makes them it never seems useful."



'The Queen Is Dead'  reached number two on the British album chart. The album cover features a portrait of Alain Delon from the film 'L'Insoumis' and was designed by Morrissey.


David Alice believes that the death of Princess Diana was foretold in the lyrics to the entire album and has put together some "compelling correlations" at:

http://www.dianamystery.com/

http://www.officialsmiths.co.uk/

http://www.thesmiths.cat/

http://www.askmeaskmeaskme.com/

The blistering anthemic title track rocks harden than anything they ever did and slathers on the metaphors with scenes from the class struggle, loneliness out on the limb of a withering royal line, and shameful registered historical facts. Johnny Marr says "'The Queen Is Dead' was a matter of unfinished business, since I'd first tried writing the riff and chords as a teenage in my bedroom." The lyrics make mocking reference to the lax security at Buckingham Palace and an incident where Michael Fagin was able to wander into the bedroom of Queen Elizabeth. The song begins with a soundbite from 'The L-Shaped Room' where Cicely Courtneidge sings an old World War I song about going back to Britain, which plays into the ambiguity over whether going home is a good thing with all of the drugs, nationalism, and celibacy. Derek Jarman directed the expressionistic video. Morrissey explains "I didn't want to attack the monarchy in a sort of beer monster way; but I find as time goes by this happiness we had slowly slips away and is replaced by something that is wholly grey and wholly saddening. The very idea of the monarchy and the Queen of England is being reinforced and made to seem more useful than it really is."

"We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry

and talk about precious things

but when you are tied to your mother's apron

no one talks about castration"

The character in 'Frankly, Mr. Shankly' was inspired by the bad relations the band had with Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records, paying their way and corroding their souls.

"Fame, fame, fatal fame

it can play hideous tricks on the brain

but still I rather be famous

than righteous or holy, any day, any day, any day"

The giddy plagiaristic misery of 'Cemetry Gates' recalls a visit to Southern Cemetery in Manchester and references 'The Man Who Came To Dinner', Shakespeare's 'Richard III', Keats and Yeats, and of course Oscar Wilde.

"So we go inside and we gravely read the stones

all those people all those lives

where are they now?

with the loves and hates

and passions just like mine

they were born

and then they lived and then they died

seems so unfair

and I want to cry"

'Bigmouth Strikes Again' is about how Morrissey's mouth has gotten him in trouble. The background vocals are actually Morrissey's voice sped up; Ann Coates is a pun on the Ancoats district in Manchester.

"And now I know how Joan of Arc felt

Now I know of Joan of Arc felt

As the flames rose to her Roman nose

And her hearing aid started to melt"

The wistful sincerity of 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' encapsulates the antagonism between critic and artist. Morrissey's melodramatic sensationalism had been dismissed as a put on.

"Behind the hatred there lies

A plundering desire for love

How can they see the Love in our eyes

And still they don't believe us ?

And after all this time

They don't want to believe us

And if they don't believe us now

Will they ever believe us ?

And when you want to Live

How do you start ?

Where do you go ?

Who do you need to know ?"

The rapturous romantic restless resignation of 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' makes for the ultimate breakup song.

"And if a double-decker bus

crashes in to us

to die by your side

is such a heavenly way to die

and if a ten ton truck

kills the both of us

to die by your side

well the pleasure, the privilege is mine"

'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' began as a demo tape that Marr left in Morrissey's mailbox for lyrics to be added. It describes an adolescent observance of developing bodies and makes reference to Johnny Tillotson's 'Send Me the Pillow You Dream On' and the British comedy 'Carry On Cleo'. This video is from their final concert at Brixton Academy, London, on the twelfth of December 1986.

"On the shopfloor

There's a calendar

As obvious as snow...

(As if we didn't know)"

 'The Queen Is Dead' 
full album:



All tracks written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr, except "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" (used as an intro to "The Queen Is Dead"), written by A.J. Mills, Fred Godfrey and Bennett Scott.


1. "The Queen Is Dead" 6:24
2. "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" 2:17
3. "I Know It's Over" 5:48
4. "Never Had No One Ever" 3:36
5. "Cemetry Gates" 2:39
6. "Bigmouth Strikes Again" 3:12
7. "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" 3:15
8. "Vicar in a Tutu" 2:21
9. "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" 4:02
10. "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" 3:14