Johnny Marr opens up about Smiths split, full interview on YouTube - Radio X

Pleased to see that Radio X released a full 1hr 25 recording of the In Conversation... with Johnny Marr:



They also posted the specific part where
Johnny talks about the split and subsequent help from other artists:



Worth a watch just for the Smiths tunes (and the story of how Hand In Glove came about).
Thanks to Radio X for the full event.
Regards,
FWD.
 
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Ok:crazy:

The real creative force behind the Smiths were Drama J and Andy. They had talent bursting out of their eyeballs, while Moz sulked and did twenty minutes in the studios... LOL OK
Now skip to
post Smiths:

Talented Andy and Drama J : sucky socko third rate material, Comet :drama:already back in the past and forgotten. No demand for Andy services, he must to good, outshine everybody around him.:sleeping:

Switch to sulking Moz: a string OF CLASSIC albums showing no signs of abetting.:bow:

Quite apart from the moonhowling f***wittery of your every post, you meant to say 'abating', you dilettante mess.
 
It's not a question of underestimating Marr's part. I think this input to The Smiths was huge, and hugely significant (and, despite that, I don't think he could reasonably claim to have been a 'songwriter' whilst in The Smiths). But what we've got into disputing here is your notion that the output of The Smiths was a case of being attributable to 50% Marr, 50% Morrissey and, as I say, that's arithmetically too simplistic.

I get that you want to give Morrissey more credit but the fact is his input was words, vocal melody, interviews and image. Johnny's was writing the music, performance and production. I guarantee you that he'll have spent hundreds of hours in the studio on each song that The Smiths made. Compare that with Morrissey's half an hour.

A song is music and words. The musical structure was in place through Marr before Morrissey put his voice to anything. The two of them wrote the songs, if Morrissey wrote the whole song he'd have written the music too.

I'm not under playing Morrissey's hand in The Smiths - obviously what he was producing at that time was incredible but to insinuate that the part he played was greater than Johnny's reveals a lack of understanding in the creativity and the volume of work that goes into making a record while forgetting that musically The Smiths didn't sound like any other band and still don't.
 
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Quite apart from the moonhowling f***wittery of your every post, you meant to say 'abating', you dilettante mess.

:rolleyes:
Ok Skinny, how about this, :frogface: and Andy are aiding and "abetting' sucko music.:clap:
 
I get that you want to

give Morrissey more credit but the fact is his input was words, vocal melody, interviews and image. Johnny's was writing the music, performance and production. I guarantee you that he'll have spent hundreds of hours in the studio on each song that The Smiths made. Compare that with Morrissey's half an hour.

A song is music and words. The musical structure was in place through Marr before Morrissey put his voice to anything. The two of them wrote the songs, if Morrissey wrote the whole song he'd have written the music too.

I'm not under playing Morrissey's hand in The Smiths - obviously what he was producing at that time was incredible but to insinuate that the part he played was greater than Johnny's reveals a lack of understanding in the creativity and the volume of work that goes into making a record while forgetting that musically The Smiths didn't sound like any other band and still don't.

Chezz, dont be Skinny like and abet nonsensical musical information.:straightface:
Songs are melody and lyrics.:rolleyes: Which is all Moz. You cant copyright chords or notes.
Moz was being kind by throwing old Drama J a bone, but he became insufferable over it.:straightface:
 
Chezz, dont be Skinny like and abet nonsensical musical information.:straightface:
Songs are melody and lyrics.:rolleyes: Which is all Moz. You cant copyright chords or notes.
Moz was being kind by throwing old Drama J a bone, but he became insufferable over it.:straightface:

Remember all of those court cases over the years and who won with samples or people ripping off riffs? Think Vanilla Ice. Which words were involved?
 
Remember all of those court cases over the years and who won with samples or people ripping off riffs? Think Vanilla Ice. Which words were involved?

Chezz try to copyright at set of chords.:straightface:
Sampling is taking bits from the copyright master recording itself and putting it on your record.:rolleyes:
The copyright of the master recording is not the same thing as a song copyright. :straightface:
 
Chezz try to copyright at set of chords.:straightface:
Sampling is taking bits from the copyright master recording itself and putting it on your record.:rolleyes:
The copyright of the master recording is not the same thing as a song copyright. :straightface:

Let's put it this way, if you decided to release a song with the exact same chords as say Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I want and Johnny took you to court you'd lose because they're unique. If you pinched the chords to Champange Supernova you'd be writing the same song as a thousand other people. Get your head around this and you'll know why Johnny has a 50% cut.

Granted though, proving you wrote a piece of music is more difficult generally than a set of words but's it's much easier if what you wrote is extremely original.

Other cases such as Marc Almond's also favour the musician. In that case I don't agree with the judge because Marc wrote the vocal melody before the music and so I would agree with him that the musician was an arranger rather than a writer. That said, what you're arguing doesn't stack up in court.

On that point, it's an important distinction to make that Marr wrote the music and Morrissey wrote the vocal melodies to that music. It's a true songwriting partnership although they didn't write together.
 
I get that you want to give Morrissey more credit but the fact is his input was words, vocal melody, interviews and image. Johnny's was writing the music, performance and production. I guarantee you that he'll have spent hundreds of hours in the studio on each song that The Smiths made. Compare that with Morrissey's half an hour.

A song is music and words. The musical structure was in place through Marr before Morrissey put his voice to anything. The two of them wrote the songs, if Morrissey wrote the whole song he'd have written the music too.

I'm not under playing Morrissey's hand in The Smiths - obviously what he was producing at that time was incredible but to insinuate that the part he played was greater than Johnny's reveals a lack of understanding in the creativity and the volume of work that goes into making a record while forgetting that musically The Smiths didn't sound like any other band and still don't.

The vocal melody is music as well so the musics not quite in place before morrissey comes in and if he added overdubs after morrissey melodic input which was stated somewhere then he’s adding music inspired by morrisseys musical contribution. They both wrote music. I’m assuming hey also both did performance
 
The vocal melody is music as well so the musics not quite in place before morrissey comes in and if he added overdubs after morrissey melodic input which was stated somewhere then he’s adding music inspired by morrisseys musical contribution. They both wrote music. I’m assuming hey also both did performance

I really don't get what your point is other than not being able to back down from a position.
 
Let's put it this way, if you decided to release a song with the exact same chords as say Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I want and Johnny took you to court you'd lose because they're unique. If you pinched the chords to Champange Supernova you'd be writing the same song as a thousand other people. Get your head around this and you'll know why Johnny has a 50% cut.

Granted though, proving you wrote a piece of music is more difficult generally than a set of words but's it's much easier if what you wrote is extremely original.

Other cases such as Marc Almond's also favour the musician. In that case I don't agree with the judge because Marc wrote the vocal melody before the music and so I would agree with him that the musician was an arranger rather than a writer. That said, what you're arguing doesn't stack up in court.

On that point, it's an important distinction to make that Marr wrote the music and Morrissey wrote the vocal melodies to that music. It's a true songwriting partnership although they didn't write together.

Courts many times dont give a F about the law, established or otherwise, Chezz. You know that, Chezz.
Thats not a given Chezz, if its the exact same chords but a different melody it may not be so unique.
Sometimes its different chords but similar melody:straightface:

Well go on then, copyright a couple of chords.:crazy: Get Skinny as your solicitor on the matter.:guitar:
 
Moz should do a song with Pixies. Something like 'Gouge Away' but with Moz going nuts on vocals.
DO NOT try and taint one of my top 3 my favorite Pixies tunes with Morrissey. Even imagining it gave me the creeps.
 
Are you really not getting that working with and being nursemaid for Morrissey eventually became too toxic and dysfunctional for Johnny to stomach? Good on him that he had enough self-worth to walk away from what apparently became a destructive relationship.
He's a vampire. He drains those close to him, and when he's done with the husk he still drools over the corpse.
 
O fook the Pixies:sleeping:, led by "Black Francis", Call the Comet level pomposity.:straightface:
 
Moz drained :frogface: of talent??
Wtf, how do you explain "Bug" or "European Me", or "Hi Hello"? Or the sucky tune with
that chick?:tiphat:
 
Courts many times dont give a F about the law, established or otherwise, Chezz. You know that, Chezz.
Thats not a given Chezz, if its the exact same chords but a different melody it may not be so unique.
Sometimes its different chords but similar melody:straightface:

Well go on then, copyright a couple of chords.:crazy: Get Skinny as your solicitor on the matter.:guitar:

Let us know which musicians don't get payments for their songwriting duties. Start anywhere you like.
 
I really don't get what your point is other than not being able to back down from a position.

This was my first post. I’m not the other anon but of course you wouldn’t know that. I should have indicated that so my fault. My point was that you’re not quite correct in saying that the music was finished. Morrissey added music not just words and that his musical input influenced Johnny’s additional work on the instrumental which means to me that even the musical instrumental piece of the music does have morrisseys fingerprints on it
 
The Pixies are that other great band except nobody did all they could to try and f*** up their legacy.

Except for reforming but we'll forget about that...
 
I think this is what it boils down to. It was a classic power struggle imo - Morrissey wanted to call the shots and lead the band/shape his career, while Marr saw it as a partnership of equals and didn't want to lose that status and end up being Morrissey's 'bitch' (has anyone seen that footage of Morrissey swanning through some airport in South America, with his 'personal aide/boyfriend/whatever' tagging along behind him carrying his bag? It's a perfect visual metaphor for how Marr saw his future in The Smiths). So Marr was frozen out. I think Morrissey had possibly kind of twigged by this stage that he could work with other musicians/producers to create songs - it's always seemed a bit too convenient to me that Stephen Street just happened to be waiting in the wings with some demos that enable a solo album to be rushed out mere months after the split. I'm not saying they'd planned it all before the Smiths even split, but there might have been casual conversations that planted the seed in Morrissey's mind that he didn't need to be wholly reliant on Marr. That said, Morrissey clearly didn't want The Smiths to split up, but he only wanted them to stay together on his terms ('I Won't Share You').

It's understandable that Marr's leaving could be viewed as a 'mistake' but I really don't think he had much choice at the time. I think it's Morrissey who has always effectively closed the door to any reunion because he's never been willing to agree to whatever terms Marr was proposing - but perhaps rightly so.

If leaving the Smiths is what Johnny thought he needed to do for his mental and emotional health then it was not a mistake. Yes, it's unfortunate because I think there was still gas in the creative tank - but it is what it is. I believe Johnny said it best in that podcast from a couple years back, don't be sad for them (Moz/Marr) in the end they both got what they wanted.
 
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