The Guardian: "‘An astounding rush of real-time creativity’: 40 years of the Smiths’ Peel Sessions" by Michael Hann (May 31, 2023)

The Guardian has a new article by Michael Hann, celebrating the power of the first Smiths radio sessions.

Not everyone finds it easy to listen to the Smiths now, but those early transmissions were utterly formative for this vital new band and their enraptured fans

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Full text below:

It’s 40 years this month since anyone bar the attenders at their handful of gigs heard the Smiths. On 13 May 1983, they released their first single, Hand in Glove, on Rough Trade. Then, on 31 May, John Peel broadcast their first session for his BBC Radio 1 show. Before the year was out, they would have recorded one more for him, as well as two for David Jensen. A total of 14 songs were broadcast, all being heard for the first time, apart from a new version of Handsome Devil, the B-side to Hand in Glove.

The Smiths’ radio sessions were as astounding a rush of real-time creativity as pop has witnessed. When they released their first album the following year, only two of its 10 tracks had not previously been recorded for Radio 1. It was those sessions that built up their following so rapidly and so rabidly.

The late David Cavanagh wrote of the sessions, in his Peel biography Good Night and Good Riddance, that they “have given the Smiths so much momentum that an album is almost superfluous. There’s no question that the momentum began with Peel. The Smiths’ universe is at odds with almost everything happening on a cultural or commercial level in Britain’s 80s, and Peel is the arbiter of taste in the alternative society.” (The truth of that was proved by the utter lack of success of another hugely idiosyncratic but gorgeously melodic provincial indie band with an eccentric singer – Peel did not care for Felt and their career went nowhere.)

I didn’t hear Hand in Glove when it was released because I wasn’t yet listening to night-time Radio 1. A few weeks later though, I was: I had noticed that there were often heavy metal bands on Top of the Pops when Peel presented it and I wondered whether he might play any of it on the radio. (I was 13 and fondly imagined that the presenters picked at least some of the acts for Top of the Pops.) He didn’t – not at that point in time, anyway – but on one of the first shows I listened to I heard a repeat of that first Smiths session. I had never heard music that sounded like that before, and I had never heard a singer whose words – in any way at all – actually reflected my life, as a bullied, lonely kid who had no idea how to navigate the world safely, let alone confidently.

Of course, countless kids around the country responded the same way as I did. I wasn’t allowed to stay up until midnight, when Peel finished, so I would go to bed and turn the light off, then plug the headphones into the radio-cassette recorder. I had a handful of C90s that I filled with Peel sessions, one finger poised over the pause button. But it was only with the Smiths’ sessions that I would diligently transcribe the lyrics when I came home from school the next day.

And the songs! Those strange and beautiful songs. Peel described them as “a band with no obvious influences whatsoever”. Well, this is true and yet it’s false. The Smiths sounded like nothing because they sounded like so much: Marr brought Motown and the Stooges and the Patti Smith Group and Bert Jansch and Buffalo Springfield and so many more things into his writing, but because the juxtapositions were so unexpected, they went unheard, and because the influences were filtered through his playing (“fractured yet fluid”, I recall Morrissey calling it in an early interview with Sounds), the Smiths sounded only like the Smiths.

Sometimes the Smiths evolved from their sessions, and sometimes they went backwards. Reel Around the Fountain was one of the latter cases. Recorded for the first Peel session, it was a grave and stately thing, with Marr’s spectral and sparse guitar-playing draped over the song like gauze. A couple of months later they recorded it for Jensen (though this version was not broadcast for two years owing to a tabloid claim that it was a paedophile anthem), and there are acoustic guitars drowning out those spidery lead lines. The following year, on their self-titled debut album, the bassline had changed and it was no longer a strange, misty message from the ether, but a wholly conventional country-pop song. Shame.

This Charming Man, recorded for the second Peel session, underwent the reverse process. Marr wrote the track specifically for the session, trying to create something reminiscent of Rough Trade labelmates Aztec Camera, but with the bass rhythm of the Supremes’ You Can’t Hurry Love (and, of course, it ended up sounding like neither). But that version of This Charming Man is an unopened flower compared to the version released as a single just a few weeks later. For the single version, producer John Porter advised them to change the rhythm from that Motown bounce to a stricter, more rigid style, which foregrounded Andy Rourke’s brilliant bassline, and to introduce the sudden pauses that give the song drama. That’s how fleet-footed the Smiths were at this point: from sketch to one of the decade’s great singles in weeks.

And there were the songs that got away – the sternly empathic This Night Has Opened My Eyes, one of Morrissey’s Shelagh Delaney homages, which was never recorded for Rough Trade. “In a river the colour of lead / Immerse the baby’s head,” he sang, prompting producer Roger Pusey to stop the session to check he wasn’t about to record a song celebrating the drowning of infants.

Each of these songs arrived a few weeks apart. The Smiths were, truly, a teenage semaphore, sending out messages of hope: you are not alone. (Morrissey later remembered how Accept Yourself, recorded for Jensen, prompted a rash of letters from fans thanking him for telling them they were fine as they were). In the conflict zone that is adolescence, the songs were comfort packages. And you could get these joys simply by tuning into Radio 1 of an evening.

I rarely listen to the Smiths these days. I know the songs too well. And too many of them have been coloured by the current views of their singer. But every so often I am taken on the time machine again. In autumn of 2021, I saw Rick Astley singing the songs of the Smiths with the Stockport band Blossoms. My friends and I had thought we would be at the centre of the demographic. In fact, we were among the older people there. The teenage semaphore never stopped communicating. The miracle of the Smiths is too profound to ever truly be overshadowed.
 
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Informative article, but it can't help being the Guardian: "not everyone finds it easy to listen to the Smiths now." I guess it never gets old for them. And "too many of [the Smiths songs] have been coloured by the current views of their singer," which is strange. I wonder which few Smiths songs aren't colored enough by Morrissey's current views to bother Michael Hann.
 
“I rarely listen to the smiths any more…”

Is now an essential virtue signal line.
f*** off then.
 
Informative article, but it can't help being the Guardian: "not everyone finds it easy to listen to the Smiths now." I guess it never gets old for them. And "too many of [the Smiths songs] have been coloured by the current views of their singer," which is strange. I wonder which few Smiths songs aren't colored enough by Morrissey's current views to bother Michael Hann.
Ha! I mean either they've all been coloured by "the current views of the singer" or they haven't, surely?

Or maybe it's OK to still listen to songs about girls' tits, even if you think the singer might be a r****t.

And I'm amazed that the Guardian let the word "coloured" slip through their editorial net.
 
It's not virtue.

It's lying. And it's reactionary, bigoted & pathetic.

that also, but think NealCassidy got it right too. Don’t know why you refuse to see it.
 
that also, but think NealCassidy got it right too. Don’t know why you refuse to see it.

Because it's not right.

Michael Hann previously slagged Morrissey off in the Guardian for being gay & hating Britain.

Thats not a lib-left virtue signal. That's just finding any angle to attack him.
 
“A couple of months later they recorded it for Jensen (though this version was not broadcast for two years owing to a tabloid claim that it was a paedophile anthem), and there are acoustic guitars drowning out those spidery lead lines.”

It was a “paedophile anthem” in the same way Morrissey is a terrible racist.

Yeah. They think they're above the tabloids while doing the same thing.

I think Hann does want you to think he's a paedophile though. That's the allegation that bubbles under all the others.
 
It's amazing to me that folks take such offense at people who write Morrissey off as someone with unfortunate views, but take no offense when Morrissey writes off reggae as "vile", the Chinese as a "subspecies" and Berlin as "the rape capital of the world". I'm still a massive fan of Moz, but I have the right to disagree with what he says. And I agree with the writer in the sense that I can no longer enjoy certain songs as much as a used to due to the stupid things that Moz has said and done. For example, I think that "The National Front Disco" is a brilliant song as long as you don't actually think that the songwriter agrees with the chorus "England for the English". It loses its power as art when Moz goes and supports Britain First.
 
It's amazing to me that folks take such offense at people who write Morrissey off as someone with unfortunate views, but take no offense when Morrissey writes off reggae as "vile", the Chinese as a "subspecies" and Berlin as "the rape capital of the world". I'm still a massive fan of Moz, but I have the right to disagree with what he says. And I agree with the writer in the sense that I can no longer enjoy certain songs as much as a used to due to the stupid things that Moz has said and done. For example, I think that "The National Front Disco" is a brilliant song as long as you don't actually think that the songwriter agrees with the chorus "England for the English". It loses its power as art when Moz goes and supports Britain First.

Misleading quotes, the wrong party & his ethnic background is Irish.
 
Because it's not right.

Michael Hann previously slagged Morrissey off in the Guardian for being gay & hating Britain.

Thats not a lib-left virtue signal. That's just finding any angle to attack him.

Yes, but by finding an ‘angle to attack him’ he is also signaling.
 
Because it's not right.

Michael Hann previously slagged Morrissey off in the Guardian for being gay & hating Britain.

Thats not a lib-left virtue signal. That's just finding any angle to attack him.
Please share the article(s) in which "Michael Hann previously slagged Morrissey off in the Guardian for being gay & hating Britain". I'd love to read it.
 
The BBC's role here shouldn't be underestimated - not just session recording.
Had they adopted The Sun's view, things could have been very different.
"The Sun got it wrong again" was the best possible line they could have taken.

3 articles at the time - with large thanks to braceneck_boy:

SMITHS HIT BACK AFTER 'CHILD-MOLESTING' SLUR
(Melody Maker - undated, but contemporaneous to The Sun/Ferari's work).

MANCHESTER band the Smiths have this week hit back furiously at press reports linking their music to paedophilia, claiming that a recent BBC session had been censored as a result.

Their lawyers have been in contact with the newspapers involved and are threatening legal action if apologies and retractions are not provided. The controversy centres on a song called "Handsome Devil".

Smiths singer Morrissey said this week: "I can't understand why anybody should write such a thing about us. We must stress that "Handsome Devil" is aimed entirely towards adults and has nothing to do with children, and certainly nothing to do with child molesting. It's an adult understanding of quite intimate matters."

"On our David Jensen session, one song, "Reel Around The Fountain", was chopped simply because the word "child" was mentioned and they were frightened people might put the wrong interpretation on it. But at the end of the day, the BBC turned out to be allies."

At the group's record company, Rough Trade, a spokesman said: "We're horrified by the whole thing. There's no truth in any of the allegations about the songs."

The band's lawyers commented: "The allegations are absolutely and wholly denied by the band."


tzers.jpg

thesmithhunt (1).jpg


Text versions of the above pictured articles.
NME: September 10, 1983.
Furore over 'Handsome Devil' lyrics

Following allegations made by overweight Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens (described by Private Eye as the "Lothario of the dancant") that 'Handsome Devil' was a song explicitly about child-molesting, Mancunian four-piece The Smiths were reportedly under scrutiny by the BBC. However, the claim, reported in The Sun by Nick Ferrari, turns out to be totally unfounded. Asked to comment, Scott Piering at Rough Trade said that he viewed the allegations "seriously": "Morrissey made it clear that none of the songs were about child-molesting, and Ferrari accepted this, and then he went and wrote it anyway." Added Morrissey, "this piece makes me out to be a proud child-molester and I don't even like children. 'Handsome Devil' is entirely directed towards adults"...




NME: September 24, 1984.
Handsome Devils or Fallen Angels? Mancunian flower arrangers, The Smiths, stalk down the truth and nip the rumours in the bud.
Salty words: David Dorrell.
Crisp prints: Kevin Cummings

The Smith Hunt!.

It's no exaggeration to say that it came as a shock, a numbing body-slam to the nervous system.
But then what would you feel if you opened a daily newspaper and discovered you had been all but directly accused of molesting children?
The Smiths know: they feel reviled... and confused.
Only a few days before, they had finished a session for The David Jensen Show. Their first single "Hand In Glove" had achieved positive press criticism, and they'd hoped that their follow-up, "Reel Around The Fountain," would build on that success. Everything was great.
Morrissey was singing in excelsis, Johnny Marr's guitars and harmonica were precisely etching the very face of the session, and Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke had lifted the rhythm of their drums and bass until it hammered at the ceiling and crashed to the floor. On a temporal stage The Smiths know it's Heaven when they're up there.
And they smile with devilish intent.
And as for notoriety... well, is thrashing a bouquet of golden daffodils onstage anything more than poetic license? Or is the sensitive profile of a naked man on a single sleeve aspiring to subversion?

But two weeks ago, The Sun ran a news story by their showbiz correspondent, Nick Ferari, which alleged that BBC Radio chiefs were to hold an emergency meeting to decide whether a "song about molesting" should be broadcast on The David Jensen Show.
According to the garbled and inaccurate article the track in question was entitled "Handsome Devil" - and it contained "clear references to picking up kids for sexual kicks". When questioned by The Sun about his "controversial lyrics" Morrissey is reported as saying "I don't feel immoral singing about molesting children."
What man would sign his own death warrant thus? That "Handsome Devil" had not been recorded for the session did not affect the paper's verdict on the band; nor did any of the other flagrant fabrications (including the interview). What did matter was the crash of breaking glass as a thousand lonely housewives dropped their milk-bottles...
Following the spot-the-pervert accusations in The Sun, Sounds ran a damning indictment of the band in their gossip column Jaws - penned by none other than Garry Bushell, a fervent enemy of the Mancunian quartet.
Bushell has been blamed by The Smiths' record company, Rough Trade, for giving The Sun its derogatory and misleading information in the first place. Bushell, when asked, denied such claims and in turn accused his arch rival Dave McCullough - who is an ardent fan of The Smiths - of mis-interpreting the band's lyrics in a feature that he wrote: thus instigating the whole story.
As Morrissey says: "It's really their affair and we're just bait."
Since then Rough Trade's solicitor has dispatched letters to both The Sun and Sounds asking for a retraction. If no such retraction and apology appears legal action is likely to be taken.

So there, condensed and shrink-wrapped, you have the none too pleasant tale of how The Smiths, a wan and wonderful phenomena from Manchester, crossed the great divide between independent fame and National infamy. How do they feel?
"Well, we're still in a wild state of shock," an ashen Morrissey replies. "We were completely aghast at The Sun allegations, and even more so by Sounds. We really can't emphasize how much it upset us because obviously it was completely fabricated," he claims. "I did an interview with a person called Nick Ferari - and what developed in print was just a total travesty of the actual interview. It couldn't possibly be more diverse in opinion.
"To me it's about somebody else, they're writing about another group... it's so strange. It's tragically depressing...
"Quite obviously we don't condone child molesting or anything that vaguely resembles it. What more can be said?"
What more indeed? Since the deplorable rape of a six year old Brighton boy, The Sun has picked up a new word for its meagre vocabulary: "paedophilia". And now that word has been used as a wedge to open the door for an onslaught on anything that doesn't fit into its own Moral Bible.
Paranoia or persecution? If this strikes as a symptom of the former, then take heed: it's as likely to be a concrete encroachment from the latter. Nothing, not even Bingo, can boost a reactionary tabloid's sales like a jingoistic war cry or a MacArthurian witch hunt. Are we so pathetic as to believe that Fleet Street's crusaders march out with unsoiled hands?
As guitarist Johnny Marr states: "It seems on the surface of it as the obvious hatchet job against a new, rising band who are getting a certain amount of publicity. But on every level the whole thing's got completely out of hand... and it's affecting us personally now.
"I've got a younger brother who is 11, who on the day it was in The Sun went to school and was hassled by kids, hassled by teachers."
Morrissey continues: "It's really difficult to conceive such... savage critique. Because it's not just 'bad', it's about as bad as you could possibly, humanly get it. And there is so much hatred from Sounds..."
Wasn't it possible that the Sounds piece was a joke?
"Well, they might be 'jokes' but they're really not funny," Morrissey soberly replies.
"I'm sure," says Johnny, "that if the mother of the young lad in Brighton was to read the statement concerning us, or anybody who has strong feelings about the case, then they're not going to see it as a joke.
"I think if there is that ambiguity there, then it was there with that purpose: for whoever wants to believe it. I think there are more people that are gonna take it seriously than do regard it as a joke. It's more than ambiguous."
And The Sun's piece?
Morrissey: "It's quite laughable coming from a newspaper like The Sun - which is so obviously obsessed with every aspect of sex. So it's all really a total travesty of human nature that it's thrown at us, such sensitive and relatively restrained people. I live a life that befits a priest virtually and to be splashed about as a child molester... it's just unutterable."

However fatuous and fantastic The Sun article was, it did succeed in its dirtying The Smiths name (for reasons unknown). It also ensured that the session, which wasn't being "investigated," was censored and that a six minute version of "Reel Around The Fountain" was removed. According to Mike Hawkes, the producer for David Jensen's show, the specially commissioned track was removed purely as a precautionary measure. As for the article itself, all the BBC press office could offer was that veritable cliche, "The Sun got it wrong again".
Unfortunately Morrissey was saddened to hear that Aunty had decided to drop the track because "The record itself is protection because of its innocence.
"Curiously though, at the end of the day, the BBC did pledge their allegiance to us. So I think that's more important than anything else."
And for The Smiths that's probably true. The BBC have not banned their material and plan to play the single when it is released. In fact, their sad treatment at the hands of the Bingo Barons and other writers of prurient pap may well by the foundations for their success.
What obviously attracted the flies to the meat was Morrissey's blunt but beautiful lyrical style. For many of the songs the leit-motif is that of an ageless, genderless love; and an unrequited love at that. Unfortunately the nebulosity of each song's protagonist does inject a certain sense of ambiguity into the storyline. And that was a red flag to The Sun...
Morrissey: "It's completely taken out of context - but it depends on where the individual's mind lies. If you want to read something in particular lyrics you will - whether it's there or not."
What - "A boy in the bush is worth two in the hand, I think I can help you get thru your exams"?
Morrissey: "Yes. If you read the rest of the lyrics then it completely complies. And the message of the song is to forget the cultivation of the brain and to concentrate on the cultivation of the body. A boy in the bush... is addressed to a scholar. There's more to life than books you know, but not much more - that is the essence of the song...
"So you can just take it and stick it in an article about child-molesting and it will make absolutely perfect sense. But you can do that with anybody. You can do it with Abba."

To meet Morrissey is to meet somebody of unsettling calm. Broad, square and white, he is imbued with the same sense of enormity that marks the great men of religion. He is - in varying measures - bashful, sarcastic and serene. Thankfully his often caustic wit and his elastic ego are countered by his zealotry and passion. At times he is both Missionary and heathen. And at times he writes the best love songs since The Buzzcocks.
His partner in contempt of crime is Johnny Marr, a nervous, effusive creature who hides behind dark glasses and plays great scores.
"I live a saintly life," Morrissey laughs. "He lives a devilish life. And the combination is wonderful. Perfect."

Of course to hear is to believe. And with their debut Troy Tate-produced LP set for imminent release, more will hear and more will believe.
An American distribution arrangement has been agreed with WEA and their hopeful conquest of the Atlantic shores will come as no surprise. Though, no doubt, the question of their lyrical content will surely be mooted by that country's more puritan forces.
Not that it matters.
Morrissey: "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 get 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."
Will that hinder your commercial success?
"No," he continues vigorously. "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."
Throughout, Morrissey speaks of himself and his band in elevated tones almost as if he holds a certain disdain for the soiled and grubby cameo that the rest of us portray as life. He sees the body as the Taoist temple of the mind: he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke and he doesn't swear. Above all, he is celibate and has been for a long time. He sees himself as more than a rival to Cliff Richard.
Yet undeniably his penmanship constantly returns to the throes of Love: in all its tempered glory. And through it comes the weakness and forced purity that underlies the solidity of his work. When he sings his voice is that of an angel in purgatory. And his stigma is the anguish of the damned.

Are you removed from love?
Morrissey: "I'm physically removed, but there are so many aspects of it. 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."
Isn't that a sterile view of love?
"No. I'm not a bitter and twisted individual with a whip crashing down on lovers in the park!"
All in all it smacks of an almost religious devotion to an ideal; an ideal that is clouded somewhat by its own grandeur but is basically akin to the awe-inspring moments that make the Bunnymen so crystalline in their magnificence.
Yet Ian Mac is firmly rooted in his own background and belief, and therefore bows to the world and possesses humility. Morrissey, on the other hand, is quite content to let his lofty aspirations get the better of him and as such fails to win on a human level. His songs are all from a birds-eye view and until he admits to his own weaknesses the best part of The Smiths' creed will remain frozen and other-worldly.
Is this man, you ask, an egotist?
Morrissey: "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..."
What does all of this mean to you?
"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..."
Aren't you worried that people might not take you seriously?
"Some people won't, some people will and the fact that some people will and do already, means that it's been valuable, it's been worthwhile..."
Do you feel that you have to be a threat to be successful?
"No, not in the least. 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."

In less than a year The Smiths have forged a resilient beauty. Their candour, their confidence, has blossomed into the most melodic of spiritual sounds. There is a rawness in their music that belies their musical age; a fresh, ethereal ability that captures more than just the routine of "making" good songs. In a great Smiths song there is an overview that simply towers above the congregating mortals in the pop forum. And for that I'll say a little prayer.
"The good people laugh/Yes, we may be hidden by rags/But we have something that they'll never have" -
"Hand In Glove".
FWD.
 
Please share the article(s) in which "Michael Hann previously slagged Morrissey off in the Guardian for being gay & hating Britain". I'd love to read it.

We learn from List of the Lost that his attitudes towards sex remains odd: it is associated with death, for one thing. It seems to be predatory: older men feed upon the young. Which makes it all the odder that Morrissey writes about his track team in such a fetishising way. “Imperishable, they train insatiably, companions in pleasure and passionate in sentiments, they are the living picture of the desired physique.” (Ask yourself if a 56-year-old man writing in that manner about women in their teens or early 20s would be considered anything other than a bit creepy.)

And his greatest grievance is with Britain itself. A whole section, inexplicably, is devoted to Morrissey’s disgust at the conduct of British establishment during the second world war (along with a contemptuous repetition of the rumour that Winston Churchill and Ivor Novello were lovers, which is odd, given that he also complains that Churchill being credited with winning the war stole the credit from Alan Turing, denied glory because he was gay). Rare is the writer who is willing to complain that the big problem with Churchill during the war was that he was, frankly, a bit of a coward and unwilling to try to identify with the people he governed, but Morrissey is that writer.
 
"Not everyone finds it easy to listen to the Smiths now" put me off reading this article. I simply can't understand the clamour for diversity when another form of diversity, which the "woke" lot don't like, is not acceptable.
 

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