The Smiths - Jeane
As requested by a loyal reader in this blogspace a few weeks ago, I'd like to talk about The Smiths. The Smiths formed in 1982 when Johnny Marr, a guitarist who had been in several failed bands and was writing record reviews for the Record Mirror, asked a chap by the name of Steven Morrissey to write lyrics for some of his songs. According to the website askmeaskmeaskme.com, the pair named themselves The Smiths "as a reaction against all bands who chose complicated names to emphasise their music". They enlisted Marr's mate Andy Rourke to play bass and Mike Joyce to play drums for the band. The music which would inevitably be birthed out of this marriage was, quite simply, legendary. In spite of their immense influence and several successful full-length albums in the UK, The Smiths never broke the top 40 in the United States during their official 5-year tenure as a band. It is fitting tribute that their music has continued to grow in popularity over the past 22 years.
The Smiths are one of the very few bands I can say I fell in love with from the instant I first heard them and that, as I have grown up, I have never lost my love for. The people I know had a tendency to immediately identify with Johnny Marr's uncopyable guitar style and the handsome square-jawed glare of Morrissey. The larger-than-life looming figurehead of Morrissey as the tragic leading man, whose public denouncements of popular causes mixed with equally public pronouncments of irrepressible celibacy, complete sobriety, and veganism (combined with obsessive interest in Oscar Wilde, flowers, and young men) startled me. Yet the mysterious mixed messages of both their music, and of the man himself, were involving and alluring. "All men have secrets and here is mine/So let it be known" he would howl in the song "What Difference Does It Make?", and, as if I were standing in front of a mirror and suddenly recognized myself for the first time, I was a part of their world.
In 2002, NME called The Smiths "The Most Influential Artist Ever", and if you listen around, you would find it hard to disagree. A slough of modern artists, including Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Decemberists, and Gene (who named themselves after the song "Jeane") have followed in their footsteps. It has been suggested that The Smiths are the godfathers of the emocore movement (though the scope of their music certainly falls outside the modern interpreters of the genre) and were the primary influence to a series of indie rock, punk rock, and alternative bands throughout the last two decades.
Way back in 1983, the group recorded what came to be known as The Troy Tate Sessions. Produced by the ex-guitarist for band The Teardrop Explodes, the 14 tracks were eventually scrapped as being poor quality by the band's label, Rough Trade. Rough Trade released 25 copies of a test pressing single from the sessions, featuring "Reel Around The Fountain" as the single. Today, it is the single-most prized collectible in the entire Smiths catalogue, fetching upwards of $4000-6000 on the collector's market. Quite an ironic price to pay for a collectible item by a band whose cynicism with the industry brought on its demise. As Oscar Wilde himself once noted, "A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Johnny Marr himself knows the value of these rare recordings, and in 2003 he publicly attacked WEA for their handling of The Smiths' back catalogue.
They're a bunch of barrow boys," Marr told [Planet Sound]. "I can't say howFans and reviewers alike continue to talk about the importance of these sessions, and it is difficult to discern the status of the album. I purchased this off of eBay some time ago in a volume from Undercover Records (the cover art from which is the original scrapped cover art to The Smiths self-titled album), but I do not know if it is a legitimate release or merely a bootleg. If you know, please leave a comment indicating where they can be purchased. For your listening pleasure, these tracks come from those sessions, including the b-side of the "Reel Around The Fountain" single, what was considered until recently to be the rarest of all Smiths songs, "Jeane". If there is enough interest, I will gladly put up additional tracks in the coming weeks.
much it upsets me that they own the rights to The Smiths' work until we die."
Marr added that he and Morrissey had approached WEA with reissue ideas.
"They didn't reply," he said. "I've given up offering. They're too busy
misspelling song titles to show any courtesy to the band."
EJ SAYS: Thanks to morrissey-solo.com for providing the quotes from Planet Sound.
BONUS TRACKS:
Pretty Girls Make Graves
Handsome Devil
What Difference Does It Make?
Jeane (Featuring Sandie Shaw)
