Retro Tape I - Smiths Song

[ltmurnau]

I listen to tapes on my Walkman when riding the bus to and from work. The other day I picked up a thrift-store WEA mix-tape called "retro night", featuring stuff from the 80s.

First cut, side A: "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I kind of liked the durga-durga-durga at the time but figured I need to listen to this only once a decade. Next, "A Little Respect" by Erasure. I didn't remember this from the first time I went through the 80s, and FFed right through it. Then, "Situation" by Yaz and "Every Day is Halloween" by Ministry. Didn't like the first and zipped past the second, having heard it so many times.

And then, a real 80s moment!

"How Soon is Now?"? by The Smiths.

1983, and a fine soundtrack to any late-adolescent's misery.

The intro is instantly recognizable, establishing the wagga-wagga-wagga line that runs through the whole song, and then the WHEEE-Yooong that marks every 6-8 bars or so. Cri de coeur of the inconsolable youngun! This song was/is the perfect drinking-cheap-beer-alone-and-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-so-play-this-over-and-over-again anthem, and in fact Labatt's used this theme in the 90s in several ads to advertise their "Black Ice" strong beer.

Then the lyrics - oh, the lyrics! Oh, that Morrissey!

There are seven verses in the song, but the first four are the first two repeated, then two new ones, then a final chorus.

I am the son
and the heir
of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
how can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
just like everybody else does

(moan these two verses into your crooked arm again)

There's a club if you'd like to go
you could meet somebody who really loves you
so you go, and you stand on your own
and you leave on your own
and you go home, and you cry
and you want to die

Aiiiee the misery! The loneliness! No one likes you and you have zits and it will always always always be like this! This is the climax. Who the hell didn't pick this aural scab over and over again? (at any rate, who the hell around my age - I know I did)

When you say it's gonna happen "now"
well, when exactly do you mean?
see I've already waited too long
and all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth
how can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
just like everybody else does

After this the song tails off into the wagga-wagga-wagga again, and a slow fade with one last WHEEE-yoooong.... If you're not going to play it again, it's time to relieve yourself of that Extra Old Stock you've drunk, or think about making some ramen. (It was at this point that the tape went all wibbley for a moment, as if it wanted to strangle itself in knots rather than keep on playing this song.)

Comments

[ilna.livejournal.com]

I would never have figured you as some regular Smiths-listener, even as a teenager.. too british, not harsh-sounding enough ? Looks like i'll have to revise my conceptions :)

Thanks for that post :)

I think i'm gonna play it - i was looking for something less mental-blastdown inducing than QOTSA and that could be the very real thing i need. And Johnny MArr sounds so cool anyway :) So thanks for the inspiration

S told me a funny story about it the other day - that the Smith's manager wanted Morrissey to write something in the line of some Roxy Music stuff which goes rambling about the sun, and the moon and the air, and that the "i am the son, and the heir" thing of the first line was his way of nagging that manager.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Oh, let me clarify - I never was a regular Smiths listener, never even owned a Smiths tape, but it was in very heavy rotation on my college radio station and it was a time in my life when I felt very sorry for myself. It's just a thing young folks do, like watching Pink Floyd The Wall over and over again. Picking scabs, as I said.

I got into listening to music kind of late, hardly listened to anything until I was 16 or 17 - that was 1980 or 1981. By 1984 I was getting into the harsh stuff, and by 1986-7 full-on "difficult music".

Funny story! I can believe it. BBC news says that Morrissey may write the next British entry in the Eurovision song contest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6248109.stm

PS: yes, "le pendu" is what I meant.

[alexandra-art.livejournal.com]

Funny. I'm young enough [30] that to me, that song was part of the "flashback lunch" on KROQ when I was in HS in the early 1990s. Not a mopey song for me, really...and I didn't drink in HS, either--I was totally uninterested, as a result of Dad being a boring, early-to-bed alcoholic.

I really started listening to the radio in sixth grade, 1988-89, the great booming time of GnR's Appetite for Destruction. ;p