So I just had a crazy idea, to raise money for Salford Lads Club by holding an event for Smiths fans," she says. "That struck a chord because Morrissey sang about people lifting the lead off Holy Lane church in the song 'Vicar in a Tutu'.
But organising a Smiths-themed bike ride, a 16-mile loop that took in landmarks immortalised in Morrissey's lyrics, is the most unusual thing she has ever done through her love of the band.Ī news story about criminals stealing lead from the roof of Salford Lads Club, which featured in a photograph taken by Stephen Wright on the inside cover of The Queen is Dead album, sparked a desire to do something to help. Now a 42-year-old lecturer in film and music at Trafford College, Manchester, she is a regular at the Morrissey Smiths Disco at the Star and Garter pub and, thanks to listening to Meat is Murder, a committed vegetarian. She was 15 years old, nuts about music and given to listening to the John Peel show under the bedcovers at home in Guildford. "They really spoke to me," says Ruth Martin, remembering the first time she heard the Smiths, their songs copied from a cassette lent to her by a friend from her technical drawing class at school. Ruth Martin outside the Salford Lads Club, Salford. John Savage 'We were all cycling, listening to the Smiths' The Smiths were outsiders and made music for people like themselves: the fact that they remain popular and relevant shows that, for all the jibes, they made great art. If somebody affects you in a positive way, by giving you hope and, further, an idea of how you could live your life, then that's a very powerful bond. When you're young, you can feel as though you're the only person in the world. They were humorous, bitter and spoke about situations and feelings that were rooted in everyday experience but nevertheless rarely the subject of pop songs. Their songs ranged from the almost unbearably poignant ("Hand in Glove") to the frankly vulnerable ("How Soon is Now"). In the 1980s, they offered a real alternative to the mainstream pop and indeed politics of the time.
They had that particular Mancunian quality – the ability to self-start – as well as a fierce regional pride. The music is always tough, as is the attitude: the Smiths were all from the northwest, when that wasn't fashionable. The cliched view of the Smiths – assisted by Morrissey's own self-mockery and, later, mannerisms – was that they were miserable and wimpy. Morrissey's sometimes awkward persona and scansion were transformed into concise, exciting, memorably melodic, and above all graceful songs that have stood the test of time. These emotional states – not often explored with such precision in popular music – were uplifted and dramatised by Marr's abilities as a guitarist, songwriter, arranger and producer. Morrissey did not just write from within: the almost forgotten "Girl Afraid" is a closely observed masterpiece of stunted teenage courtship. It's all there: sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, the oscillation between feeling abject and worthless and wanting to take over the world, the fantasies of power and revenge.
His witty, allusive lyrics – sometimes literary, sometimes extremely blunt – deep-mined the less palatable sides of adolescence.
Right from the off, Morrissey displayed an almost supernatural ability to tap into the teenage psyche: not the fizzy surface of marketing and mainstream pop culture, but the muck and dirt. The rhythm section is strong: occasionally stolid, always solid and sometimes – in particular on their career highpoint, the extraordinary "damn you, England" rant called "The Queen is Dead" – totally inspired.Īt the centre you have the partnership of Morrissey and Marr. The eight albums remastered by guitarist Johnny Marr and reissued by Rhino last week display an extraordinary diversity of melody and mood – an outpouring of well over 70 songs. Much of this has to do with the quality of the music. But what's interesting about the Smiths is how they have crossed the generational divide to appeal to current, real-time teenagers. That was their soundtrack, and now they are turning 40, they are revisiting their youth. T he Smiths existed for only five years, between 19, and so appealed to those born in the late 60s and early 70s.
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