Judge John Weeks dead (April 2021)


Excerpt:

His Honour John Weeks QC​

It is with much regret that we report that Master Weeks (His Honour John Weeks QC) sadly died on the Easter weekend, aged 82. The Inn’s flag will fly at half-mast on Monday 19 April 2021, in his memory.

Master Weeks was called to the Bar in 1963 and took Silk in 1983. In 1991 he was appointed a circuit judge on the Western Circuit and as a Chancery Circuit judge in 1997 until his retirement in 2006.

He was elected a Judicial Governing Bencher in 1996.

Details of any funeral and/or memorial service will be circulated as appropriate in due course.
 
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yeah the guitar probably did come first
Unless Marr wrote it on another instrument, then yeah, most likely
guitar came first.
but not as we heard it on album. Andy wrote a bass part to some songs based around a basic chord progression
How do you know Marr only showed Andy a ‘basic chord progression’?


Money and arguments about credit aside I’m not sure they could have replaced Andy very easily and still sound the same.

We don’t know what The Smiths could have sounded like with a different rhythm section, maybe much better. It’s all, what if.

Marr can write a fantastic riff and knows his stuff but Andy really brought some very catchy parts to the table

Well, bringing ‘catchy parts to the table’ only comes second, possibly third, when compared to Marr’s visionary writing and very important drive.
 
I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually Marr wrote some bass lines and added drum machine to a new song idea before giving that tape to Morrissey. It’s been said in solo years by collaborators that he wants an almost finished song to work with to inspire him, maybe that’s not always the case.

Early days I’m sure there was only guitar on a tape given to Morrissey, though I’m thinking that Marr must of added some simply bass line idea to give Morrissey a better picture of where the song could go.
 
Interesting that nothing you say here actually contradicts my posts. I'm aware that Marr put harmonic progressions and structures onto tapes for Morrissey - that's pretty much what I said - and that Morrissey, as you say, and as I said, then wrote a vocal line and words. We both agree that Marr then added stuff in the studio and that neither of us know if he gave pointers to Rourke (but I'll lay odds he didn't - you only have to listen to the intricacy and idiosyncratic quality of those bass lines to realise that).

So what's your point exactly?

Ah yes, you think this demonstrates that the songs were 'co-written'. They weren't. They were created when Morrissey, as you say, put down his vocal line and words. 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' is 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' because of the vocal melody and words. Give the same backing track to a different lyricist/vocalist (even assuming the backing track was in its finished state which, as you yourself acknowledge, it probably wasn't) and you'd have a completely different song.

"a lack of understanding of how a song is written in general" is a fatuous remark since songs are written/created in various ways, not according to some 'industry standard'. Lennon and McCartney co-wrote some songs sitting face to face with their guitars in hand. Sometimes they pieced together individual parts they'd already written. Elton John put music and vocal melodies to Bernie Taupin's lyrics. Some songwriters read music and literally 'write' music; most don't and the term song'writing' in reference to anything other than the lyrics is therefore in those cases not literal. Morrissey didn't 'write' his vocal melodies, and Marr didn't 'write' his music.

The public record you're referring to is presumably Marr's account, and Morrissey's, of how the songs were created. Nobody's disputing that what they say is true in so far as it goes - yes, Marr recorded backing tracks and gave them to Morrissey. What's in dispute is whether he deserved a songwriting co-credit for that (he didn't) and whether Rourke ought to have a had a co-writing music compositional credit for the finished backing tracks (he should have).

To simply accept Marr's and Morrissey's accounts at face value is being a little credulous and displays a lack of understanding of how songs are 'written' in general.

In other words, your argument is horse shit.

Your comment is both shit and way too long. "The songs were really Morrissey's alone" is as horse shit a phrase as I've read on here and nothing in your prolix logorrhoea even begins to support that ludicrous assertion.
 
In my country, an advantageous crap like M Joyce is called Garca!!!!!!. Moz looks back and sees many beautiful records made in his solo career and has one in the refrigerator ready for us to enjoy in a short time as an ice cream of the taste preferred by each of us, instead JOyce has nothing at all ... I think this all said MOz GENIUS JOYce does not exist

So true.
 
:lbf:

FFS DH Andy and FH Mike couldnt write themselves out of a paper bag. Peeps ignore the hot fish polemics:hammer:
it comes from a whole day under the sun + 🍹
 
'Bigmouth Strikes Again' is 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' because of the vocal melody and words. Give the same backing track to a different lyricist/vocalist (even assuming the backing track was in its finished state which, as you yourself acknowledge, it probably wasn't) and you'd have a completely different song.
Or Morrissey given a backing track by, say Jessie Tobias, and you have a completely different song.....
 
Your comment is both shit and way too long. "The songs were really Morrissey's alone" is as horse shit a phrase as I've read on here and nothing in your prolix logorrhoea even begins to support that ludicrous assertion.

Oh, I see - a variation on the old playground "You're wrong just because!". Okay, thanks for a fascinating, thoughtful and articulate response. "Both shit and way too long". :LOL: Going by your response, I'm not surprised that the length of my post crossed your tolerance threshold.
 
Your comment is both shit and way too long. "The songs were really Morrissey's alone" is as horse shit a phrase as I've read on here and nothing in your prolix logorrhoea even begins to support that ludicrous assertion.
Morrissey & Marr were The Smiths, they wrote all the songs. That is indisputable. And that is why they deserved more than 25% each of the royalties. Rourke & Joyce were session musicians. Anyone could have done what they did, providing they had a basic grasp of their instruments.

What sank Morrissey in court was his attitude. If he’d shown a little more humility, he probably would have won, because it is all spelt out in his autobiography how Joyce knew the score regarding his contract.
 
“devious, truculent, and unreliable”

:lbf::rock::thumb:

And we wouldn’t want him any other way !

The "we" in that statement must be you and your reflection -- because there are plentyyyy of us who'd have preferred, at the very least, a more "reliable" Morrissey... not a man who fires people by postcard, burns nearly every bridge, holds more grudges than lonely high court judges, cancels show after show after show, and self-sabotages with such gusto.
 
Morrissey & Marr were The Smiths, they wrote all the songs. That is indisputable. And that is why they deserved more than 25% each of the royalties. Rourke & Joyce were session musicians. Anyone could have done what they did, providing they had a basic grasp of their instruments.

It's not indisputable at all. It's being disputed right here.

If you think that anyone could have done what Joyce did, provided he or she had a basic grasp of the bass guitar, then you evidently think that Joyce's bass guitar playing was basic.

I think most people would beg to differ. :rolleyes: Except perhaps Morrissey.
 
The "we" in that statement must be you and your reflection -- because there are plentyyyy of us who'd have preferred, at the very least, a more "reliable" Morrissey... not a man who fires people by postcard, burns nearly every bridge, holds more grudges than lonely high court judges, cancels show after show after show, and self-sabotages with such gusto.

maladjusted maladjusted ...

never to be trusted

never to be trusted



:tiphat:
 
Morrissey & Marr were The Smiths, they wrote all the songs. That is indisputable. And that is why they deserved more than 25% each of the royalties. Rourke & Joyce were session musicians. Anyone could have done what they did, providing they had a basic grasp of their instruments.

What sank Morrissey in court was his attitude. If he’d shown a little more humility, he probably would have won, because it is all spelt out in his autobiography how Joyce knew the score regarding his contract.

I think the point (and it's been made previously) is that whilst Morrissey and Marr got 100% of the songwriting royalties between them, for them also to get 80% of the performance and mechanical royalties was IMHO a bit much. I think there could have been a much more equitable distribution, say 30-30-20-20. But the fundamental problem was that nothing much was ever written down, so a judge, a long time after the fact, quite reasonably concluded that in terms of performance and mechanical royalties, an equal four-way split was legally justifiable.
 

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