Some more Smiths related stuff...

Isn't YouTube fab? This is a clip of Sandie Smith singing The Smiths song 'Jeane.'



The Smiths and Sandie Shaw on a programme called 'Charlie's Bus' (don't remember it, but I would have been around eight at the time. Probably watching Saturday Morning Superstore or something).



Also this link is
Sandie Shaw & The Smiths doing Hand In Glove on Top Of the Pops in 1984. [embedding disabled by request, you'll just have to go to the link]

Pretty cool, the Smiths working with Sandie Shaw. No-one could top that, could they? Until this...

And of course, Bryan Ferry's 1987 single, The Right Stuff which a) featured Johnny Marr on guitar and b) was based on The Smiths' 'Money Changes Everything.'

Album Review: The Smiths

The Smiths -'The Sound Of The Smiths' (Warners)

Another year, another Smiths compilation? Well, of course, that does depend on which edition of this album you get. The selling point of this album, and surely the attraction to many of us is Disc 2, with many rarities (though still no 'Work Is A Four Letter Word').

Rather than dwelling on yet another Smiths compilation, let us focus on the music instead. For a band that were together for five years, with a recording career of four, The Smiths had a highly productive work-rate where the bar was set almost impossibly high for anyone to follow. Morrissey and Marr surely rate up there with Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards as a songwriting team. They recorded so many classic songs that it's hard just to focus on one or two...but if you're a certain age and you haven't heard these songs, what the hell have you been doing? 'How Soon Is Now?' remains my favourite. With its' middle-eight:

'There's a club if you'd like to go,
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go and you dance on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry,
And You Want To Die.'

'Songs That Saved Your Life (referencing a track 'Rubber Ring', which is not included here) was the name of a book about the Smiths' music, and the reality is that their music did just that. As a miserable teenager, wondering if I'd ever get a girlfriend, this song spoke volumes to me. Years later, it soundtracked the mid-twenties slump as my relationships soured badly, and it still soundtracked break-up misery. 'Meat Is Murder' was definitely a factor in me becoming vegetarian, and apparently one of the most influential things on many people becoming vegetarian over the last twenty-five years. I was marginally displeased when one school friend wrote 'Sixteen, clumsy and shy' inside my Christmas card one year, though it was probably very accurate. The night I freaked out listening to 'Suffer Little Chidlren' and that image of Myra Hindley (shudder) filled my head. The girl I fancied who I got into The Smiths, if even just a little bit (we're still very good friends).

...and these are just my own stories. How many other people spent their teenage years clutching their Smiths records, living through them? Even repeated readings of Adrian Mole hadn't prepared us for how sodding awful teenage life would be. Marr made it seem like you could be a guitar hero without being a prat, Morrissey that beiong a rock god was not all about being full of testosterone. The fact is, it's not just about adolescence remembered, these songs are classic from any era. And yes there was misery (sometimes too much, 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' is the sort of thing that gave The Smiths' detractors everything they needed on one seven inch single). But there was humour, dry observation, wit, and that music. When I heard The Queen Is Dead aged fourteen, it was pretty much a road to damascus moment. It wasn't always easy getting hold of The Smiths' music in the early nineties, with the collapse of Rough Trade; the studio albums were only avilable on expensive import from the US. Quite how four studio albums as strong as theirs were allowed to go unavailable is a mystery.

The music remains timeless. The second disc reminds us of tracks that perhaps fell a little down the list of how good they were - but I've loved listening to 'Jeane' 'Please Please Please Let me Get What I Want' and 'Oscillate Wildly' again.

So, we've heard these songs before. But why not once again?

*****

Listening posts:

QT

WMA

REAL

A veritable Peel-related Pot Pourri!

Tonight's selection is a variety of Peel-related music:

First up, this was not a Festive Fifty entry, but it was a request earlier in the week, so cheers to Tom at Indie mp3 for this:

Shop Assistants -Ace Of Spades (Peel Session).' mp3

Another band that seem impossible to track down, so cheers for these...

Mighty Mighty -'Is There Anybody Out There?' mp3 (1986 Festive Fifty no.44)

Public Enemy -'You're Gonna Get Yours (Terminator X Getaway version).' mp3 (1987 Festive Fifty no.38)

The Fall -'Lucifer Over Lancashire.' mp3 (1986 Festive Fifty no.37) (apparently the 'Theology mix' is a joke. I knew that.)

Some lost Smiths classics, including one of my favourite tracks of theirs ever, Sheila Take a Bow:

Smiths -'Sweet And Tender Hooligan.' mp3 (1987 Festive Fifty no.23)

Smiths -'Sheila Take a Bow.' mp3 (1987 Festive Fifty no.34)

Jesus and Mary Chain did pretty well in the Festive Fifty between 1984 and 1988, though they cropped up again in the nineties, too:

Jesus and Mary Chain -'Kill Surf City.' mp3 (1987 Festive Fifty no.39)

Jesus and Mary Chain -'Nine Million Rainy Days.' mp3 (1987 Festive Fifty no.41)

Madder Rose did well in '93 and managed a brace of entries in 1994 too:

Madder Rose -'Car Song.' mp3 (1994 Festive Fifty no.19)

Madder Rose -'Panic On.' mp3 (1994 Festive Fifty no.35)

Thanks to everyone who has helped me locate tracks. You rock.

You know what I'm going to ask now, don't you?

*weary groans*

That's right! I'm on the scrounge for stuff I still cannot find...

From 1994:

That Dog -'One summer Night.'

Orbital -'Are We Here.'

Salt Tank -'Charged Up.'

R.O.C. -'Girl with A Crooked Eye.'