New Marr interview in today's NME
- Thread starter Maurice E
- Start date
Worm
Taste the diffidence
Yes, "Morrissey & Marr" instead of The Smiths.
I don't think that will happen. But there's one scenario in which it might. Danny argued the other day that Marr is attempting a revisionist history of The Smiths. I more or less agreed with him but added that Morrissey is, too. They both care a great deal about how the story of The Smiths is perceived. Each has tried to tell his side, often at odds with the other's version, but you can tell that the story is now out of their hands. It's taken on a separate existence. Hype, speculation, rumor, "official histories" written by music scribes, and so on.
So here's what I think might happen. The longer the nonsense about what really happened with The Smiths goes on, and the more blame is thrown around and different versions are floated, the more eager Morrissey and Marr will be to settle everything retroactively. Of course they can't actually settle anything. But by working together again, or perhaps just playing some shows together, they can clear away the rubbish by illustrating once and for all that it was always them, and only them, and nobody else mattered. Ever. In short, their egotistical desire to reassert their sole authorship of The Smiths will bring them back together. Coming back as Morrissey & Marr would send a clear "f*** off" to everyone and everything else cluttering their story. The strong appeal of reclaiming their legend, as well as the remuneration they'll receive for so doing, may in the end prove too strong to resist. Doubt they'd stay together long, but it would be fun. Johnny might have another "15,000 cell phone cameras pointing at me" moment, except the number might be four or five times that.
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Mars_Rover
Junior Member
Re: Full interview here
Hasn't Johnny always said that the music for "How Soon is Now" was based on the Bohannon song "Disco Stomp"? So maybe Morrissey wasn't violently opposed to all dance music. He just says some things for dramatic effect, shock value if you will. Like he once claimed to revile reggae music, then years later admitted he was a fan.
Anyway, it's a shame the Morrissey-Marr partnership came to such an apparent bitter end. I always thought it was rather touching the way that Johnny looked after Moz in the studio -- recording his vocals with just the two of them there, because Morrissey was insecure about his singing. I really hope they bury the hatchet at some point, even if they never work together again.
Hasn't Johnny always said that the music for "How Soon is Now" was based on the Bohannon song "Disco Stomp"? So maybe Morrissey wasn't violently opposed to all dance music. He just says some things for dramatic effect, shock value if you will. Like he once claimed to revile reggae music, then years later admitted he was a fan.
Anyway, it's a shame the Morrissey-Marr partnership came to such an apparent bitter end. I always thought it was rather touching the way that Johnny looked after Moz in the studio -- recording his vocals with just the two of them there, because Morrissey was insecure about his singing. I really hope they bury the hatchet at some point, even if they never work together again.
It's just pro forma saying that he will not reform The Smiths, in fact, as Worm said, The Smiths were only he and Morrissey. If they did something together, formally, it wouldn't be the fifth Smiths album, but 80% it would sound like that.
The Seeker of Good Songs
Well-Known Member
If Morrissey and Marr got together again, just for the sake of doing so, would be, I think, a big slap in the face to Boz who has been with Morrissey far longer than the relationship he had with Marr.
Danny
Senior Member
Not only Boz but the whole band. I'm always sad that people don't take that into consideration. Yet they'd be the first ones to slag Morrissey for disloyalty if he did dump Boz & co. After all, it only takes a couple of his bandmembers to take time off with their families for the whispering to start.
Godlovesugly
Vintage Member
Heaven forbid johnny looking like anything other than a tramp.
kissmyshadestoo
Nobody ever looks at me twice
Stoner Kebab
New Member
johnny marr is awesome.
when i grow up i wanna be aldous huxley. wow.
when i grow up i wanna be aldous huxley. wow.
imogen11
Junior Member
haha! I love your logic, judge!
Worm, you're talking a lot of sense. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I have an enormous amount of respect for Johnny but, i've got to say, I hate the way he came across in that interview. Were they really moz digs or are we reading into things a little too much? Pretty lame, if they were.
By the way, the reason why no one considers Boz & Co when discussing Moz and Marr reuniting is because, well, there is no comparison. Sure, Boz & Co been around longer, you're right there ...and still, they've yet to top Johnny.
*ducks* - just my opinion, so no tanties please.
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Worm
Taste the diffidence
This is probably a good place to post an interesting snippet, in light of our attempts to make sense of Morrissey and Marr's history through the distorting lens of the press:
Different cases, a writer and a musician, but I think the passage is relevant to Morrissey and Marr (moreso to Morrissey of course). What happens if you are trying to convey meanings and nuances to a writer who may not be smart or sensitive enough to pick up on them?
Just a general comment about the press and The Smiths. I think the article posted in this thread, by itself, is probabaly accurate and therefore reflects poorly on Johnny.
"See the papers?"
"Yes."
"Not so nice."
"I guess not. They'll be worse," said Mailer.
[Robert] Lowell made a face. He had an expression in his eyes which only a fellow writer could comprehend--it said, "We are lambs--helpless before them." It was true. One could not communicate the horror to anyone who did not write well. The papers distorted one's actions, and that was painful enough, but they wrenched and garbled and twisted and broke one's words and sentences until a good author always sounded like an incoherent overcharged idiot in newsprint--there was even a corollary: the more one might have to say in a sentence, the worse one would probably sound. Henry James would have come off in a modern interview like a hippie who had taken a correspondence course in forensics. It really did not matter what was said--dependably one was always elliptic, incomprehensible, asinine. So a great wall of total miscomprehension was built over the years between writer, and the audience reached by a newspaper--which meant eventually most of America. So a particular sadness slipped sooner or later into every good writer--they were kept further removed from uneducated readers by the general horrors of journalistic mistranscription than by the difficulty of their work. Ergo, they suffered. Because every time they did something which got into the papers, the motive for their action was distorted and their words were tortured; since they made their living by trying to put words together well, this was as painful to them as the sight of an ugly photograph of herself on the front page must be to a beauty.
Over the years, one came to live with a recognition that the average reporter could not get a sentence straight if it were phrased more subtly than his own mind could make phrases. Nuances were forever being munched like peanuts. After awhile one gave up, one did one's little turn for whatever project was up, a cause, a book, an action, and suffered the publicity which at best was hopeless, at worst gave promise of burying you alive.
Armies Of The Night, Norman Mailer
"Yes."
"Not so nice."
"I guess not. They'll be worse," said Mailer.
[Robert] Lowell made a face. He had an expression in his eyes which only a fellow writer could comprehend--it said, "We are lambs--helpless before them." It was true. One could not communicate the horror to anyone who did not write well. The papers distorted one's actions, and that was painful enough, but they wrenched and garbled and twisted and broke one's words and sentences until a good author always sounded like an incoherent overcharged idiot in newsprint--there was even a corollary: the more one might have to say in a sentence, the worse one would probably sound. Henry James would have come off in a modern interview like a hippie who had taken a correspondence course in forensics. It really did not matter what was said--dependably one was always elliptic, incomprehensible, asinine. So a great wall of total miscomprehension was built over the years between writer, and the audience reached by a newspaper--which meant eventually most of America. So a particular sadness slipped sooner or later into every good writer--they were kept further removed from uneducated readers by the general horrors of journalistic mistranscription than by the difficulty of their work. Ergo, they suffered. Because every time they did something which got into the papers, the motive for their action was distorted and their words were tortured; since they made their living by trying to put words together well, this was as painful to them as the sight of an ugly photograph of herself on the front page must be to a beauty.
Over the years, one came to live with a recognition that the average reporter could not get a sentence straight if it were phrased more subtly than his own mind could make phrases. Nuances were forever being munched like peanuts. After awhile one gave up, one did one's little turn for whatever project was up, a cause, a book, an action, and suffered the publicity which at best was hopeless, at worst gave promise of burying you alive.
Armies Of The Night, Norman Mailer
Different cases, a writer and a musician, but I think the passage is relevant to Morrissey and Marr (moreso to Morrissey of course). What happens if you are trying to convey meanings and nuances to a writer who may not be smart or sensitive enough to pick up on them?
Just a general comment about the press and The Smiths. I think the article posted in this thread, by itself, is probabaly accurate and therefore reflects poorly on Johnny.
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