BBC4 right now
Taping it
What a fucking debut single.
Hand in Glove
A gem hidden away on Meat in Murder.
Nowhere Fast.
I was delayed, I was waylaid
An emergency stop
I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
And the pain was enough to make
A shy, bald, Buddhist reflect
And plan a mass murder
Who said Iâd lied to her?
Oh, who said Iâd lied because I never? I never!
Who said Iâd lied because I never?
I travelled to a mystical time zone
And I missed my bed and I soon came home
A love letter to the greatest Irish band of all time
JOHNNY MARR, MORRISSEY, MIKE JOYCE AND ANDY ROURKE FROM THE SMITHS IN 1985. PHOTOGRAPH: ROSS MARINO/GETTY IMAGES
Drummer Mike Joyce, who sued Morrissey and Johnny Marr for ÂŁ1m in unpaid royalties, focuses on the highs of being in The Smiths
Books about The Smiths have a somewhat acrimonious history. âI hope Johnny Rogan ends his days very soon in an M3 pile-up or a hotel fire,â fumed Morrissey on the publication of Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance in 1992. Morrisseyâs disdain for the biographerâs contentious book didnât seem to stop him quoting it from the dock in an English high court, where drummer Mike Joyce successfully sued him and guitarist Johnny Marr for ÂŁ1 million of unpaid royalties in 1996.
Now, itâs time to hear Mike Joyceâs side of the greatest indie soap opera ever told. Morrissey published his Autobiography in 2013 under the Penguin Classics imprint and elevated his pretension to an even higher art form. He barely had a good word to say about anyone, apart from brief cameos from Dubliners Damien Dempsey and Sack singer Martin McCann. Johnny Marr followed in 2016 with Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography, which Rough Trade selected as their book of the year.
Joyce opts for nuanced narrative tactics when it comes to raking over these still-smouldering coals. While the court case itself is not explicitly addressed, there are plenty of tantalising revelations and astute observations as to how and why relations among the members of this amazing band, blessed with one of the finest band chemistries in musical history, soured so spectacularly. Early on, he reveals the band essentially fractured into two separate camps between the lyricist and the musicians. Joyce enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the bassist, Andy Rourke, who died in New York in 2023 after being diagosed with pancreatic cancer, aged just 59.
The drummer cherishes every minute he spent with Rourke. âEvery quirk, difference, peccadillo pushed to Monty Python levels of absurdity until tears were rolling down both of our faces,â he recalls. âThe monotony of touring punctured by the hilarity caused by this daft, beautiful man.â Joyce also contends that Andy Rourke was a severely underrated musician. Despite Morrissey forging a remarkable songwriting partnership with Marr, none of the band really bonded with the singer, who courted a separate circle of friends, associates and acolytes. âFor all of our shared ancestral heritage, itâs a miracle the band made it out of 1982, such were our apparent differences, the sense of total social dislocation from our singer and lyricist,â Joyce reflects.
Of course, the band did make it out of 1982. What they created together over the next four years still sounds jaw-dropping. With a delightfully direct, easy to read, and warm style, Joyce testifies to the astonishing greatness of the best four- piece guitar band to ever hail from these islands and enthusiastically celebrates the bandâs Irish heritage. Morrissey, Johnny Marr, and Mike Joyce all had Irish parents on both sides, while Rourkeâs father was Irish and his mother Mary was English. It has been said that if their national identity were to be assessed by parentage, then The Smiths are more Irish than U2.
Speaking of Irish Mancunians, after Oasis ended their 16-year-long live hiatus in Cardiff in July, the New Statesmanâs senior political editor George Eaton trumpeted that the Gallaghers were the greatest Irish band of all time. Please allow me to correct this and declare that this title rightfully and deservedly belongs to The Smiths, alongside My Bloody Valentine, who are set to make their live comeback in the coming weeks. It is highly unlikely that The Smiths will get to have their own lucrative victory lap.
Rourke is dead for a start, and Johnny Marr reportedly turned down âan eye-watering amount of moneyâ to reform the band. Many fans are still deeply disappointed with Morrisseyâs endorsement of a fringe far-right party called For Britain, who Nigel Farage claimed harbours âNazis and racistsâ.
Mike Joyceâs The Drums is a terrific read and wonderful reconnection to a lost world. As Joyce brilliantly puts it, the 1980s were less connected by modern standards, but the shared passions people enjoyed â record shops, the weekly music press and John Peel â caught the ears, hearts and minds of millions. âWhen I look back, a pragmatic and content man in his sixties, I choose to focus on the amazing highs of being part of the band,â Joyce writes in his preface. âI want this book to be a love letter to that time and a love letter to The Smiths, capturing some of the stories and moments that defined that period of my life.â
Those same stories and moments produced a body of musical work that still defines a period of our lives, and continues to enrapture new generations of fans and enthusiasts in the whole beautiful and never-ending process.
Yet Marr said of Morrissey that he couldnât have loved another human being as much non sexually.
Also Marr completely disputes Joyceâs version of the break up and claimed that Joyce was getting involved too much in business that had nothing to do with him.
That review is by Eamonn Sweeney btw.
And the Penguin classics thing.
Morrissey is in my opinion the greatest lyricist of all time (many would have the same view) so why shouldnât he have it?
As much of an Oasis fanatic as I was in my teens, I didnât feel like paying the fee to see them on their comeback tour. The Smiths, if they were to reform thoughâŚIâd probably sell my motherâs fine china for the price of a ticket.
One of them died so you wonât see them
I think Morrissey, Marr and Joyce would do 
I donât think Marr needs the hassle of it all
Oasis are a pub band compared to the Smiths, a crude Beatles/Stone Roses hybrid with none of the originality or musicianship of either band.
The Smiths in contrast are as shockingly original today as they were in 1983, absolute genius on an individual and collective level. Itâs a tragedy they didnât stick around for a few more albums, absolutely no decline in their output whatsoever, Strangeways is arguably their best album. We can only imagine how good Morrisseyâs early solo work would have been with the other lads in attendance.
Marr would slit Morrisseyâs throat on stage in the ultimate performance art.
Radiohead covering The Smiths