A labour of love: transcription from "Girls & Boys" TV prog.
from “Girls and Boys” BBC2 6th November 2005
Continuity woman: “Whether they were political or just lads having a laugh, boy groups dominated pop; but not all of them shared the same view of the world”
[Soundtrack] “Burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ, because the music that they constantly play….”
Morrissey (circa 1984?): “We feel that the music should be used in order to make serious statements because, erm, so many groups sell masses and masses of records and don’t raise people’s level of consciousness in any direction; and we find that quite sinful, ‘specially in these serious times”
[Soundtrack] Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, Hang the DJ,
Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, Hang the DJ,
Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, Hang the DJ,
Johnny (circa today?): “We felt very fucked-over by Thatcher’s government. And the environment was pretty crap. Morrissey’n myself, we had to escape from that environment. Morrissey turned it into poetry, I turned it into music, you know, but I was idealistic and I was in a position where I could just go “This is unfair, this is crap” because of where I came from really. So pop music gave me a chance to do that and The Smiths were, we were gonna use that opportunity.
[Soundtrack] “It says nothing to me about my life, hang the blessed DJ….”
Continuity woman: But Morrissey also wrote about more personal matters…
Morrissey (circa 1984 again): “In virtually every song there is some, a serious erm, er message, a serious implication but it’s all done, I think, with with with, great, erm, humour.”
[soundtrack] …And when I’m lying in my bed, I think about life and I think about death, and neither….”
Johnny: “He got right in there and said “right everybody, let’s escape”, y’know and right, OK, you escape from ‘your restrictions’, you escape from ‘your ideas’, y’know you don’t have to be, not just “you don’t have to be straight but you don’t have to be gay, er, or you don’t have to be just a bloke, you know – get rid of all the labels. The typical thing is that we made music for people who were disassociated from regular culture; who couldn’t get in relationships; who sat in their bedroom saying “I am alone”, uh, no “I am SO alone”, well we did, but we also made music for lads who went to football, we made music for people who worked in shops. I know ‘cos I’ve met ‘em”.
