Johnny Marr to David Cameron: I forbid you to like The Smiths

I felt a bit sick when he had them as one of his desert island discs.

I hoped it would be like the time when asked in an interview, Dubya said his favourite book as a child was the hungry caterpillar (published when he was about 15!), ie he made something up about his past becuase it sounded like what he thought people wanted to hear.

[edit] raises an interetsing concept though doesn’t it?

Ie “do not try and make yourself cool or less Old-Fashioned-Tory-Boy by associating yourself with my carefully crafted Lefty Legend -you will tarnish my reputation as an artist.”

-should that be allowed? Is there a ‘Smiths Citizenship Test’ Cameron could sit? I’d like to see him look at the photos and then name the people on all their record sleeves. I bet he’s get about one in ten of them right…

i think the smiths are a pretty good fit for the condems, hardly crass or killing joke were they ?

I’d have though the Smiths = old labour, Crass/Killing Joke were/are more like ‘no politics: they are all swiiiiines!’.

Tthought he had disowned that fool Morissey then. V disaapointed. God he sucked a lot of you in with his sensitive soul, vegetarian Oscar wilde reading routine didnt he 🙄
Where is he now oh yes LA 😯
The smiths are rubbish he can have them

The smiths are rubbish he can have them

BURN THE BLASPHEMER!!!!!!!

he’s got a point though. i mean, johnny marr came up with a handful of great riffs, the rest is just drippy nonsense with a whole bunch of references that you’d only get if you’d spent your evenings reading books rather than hanging around wasting your life and generally being a normal teenager.

perfect for lord snooty and his pals.

ive been listening to my ‘the the’ old albums (marr played on mind bomb)
matt johnson’s writing is spot on.

I listen to The Smiths a lot, I vote Tory too.

I’m amazed anyone still buys into that ‘born in’t North, die in’t North’ Labour voting automaton thing.

Still, I have more time for Marr than I have for Morrissey, he’s bailed out the last three times I’ve tried to see him. I don’t think it’s personal, but I’d be forgiven for wondering.

I’m amazed anyone still buys into that ‘born in’t North, die in’t North’ Labour voting automaton thing.

You saw, that famous northener, Paul Weller’s quote at the bottom of the page too.

Johnny Marr now lives in a massive country house in Cheshire…
Down the road from Dunham Massey apparently

johnny marr came up with a handful of great riffs

I think he came up with more than a handful!

And most of them were brilliant!

It’s a bit of a silly statement isn’t it? You don’t like the smiths, i forbid you. Has he got a new album coming out or something?

JM is overatted imo. Same jangly stuff on the Smiths, Mind Bomb was a good album and then what? Whats he done since did he play with the seahorses?

I don’t think it’s personal, but I’d be forgiven for wondering

Bravo, that’s almost good enough to be a Morrissey lyric.

Chapeau!

LOL @ Marr using twitter to feign his disapproval. Do you think he got his butler to tweet for him ?

#veryrockandroll

JM is overatted imo. Same jangly stuff on the Smiths

If all he ever did in his career was How Soon Is Now, that would be enough. But there are a score or more of wildly inventive Smiths tracks I could point you to, there’s the melancholy of The The (just listen to the sparse guitar of Love Is Stronger Than Death), there’s production (and touring with) Modest Mouse, there are the three albums with Electronic…..

Nah, you’re right. The man’s done nothing much.

bravohotel9er – Member

I listen to The Smiths a lot, I vote Tory too.

I’m telling Johnny Marr on you. 😉

I think the issue might be whether Cameron really likes the Smiths, or if he just said so because he thought it was cool.

(Is it possible to only like them ‘a bit?’ -i thought they were a bit of a marmite band really.)(And is it cool? Of course not!)

Isn’t he also the lead guitar in the Cribs?

I reckon Dave really does like them, fits in with the timeframe of his “formative years”. Unlike Gordon Brown’s declaration that he was an Arctic Monkeys fan 😆 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5375988.stm

As i said Mind Bomb was a good album, in fact superb album- one of my all time favourites, but I’m a big Matt Johnson fan. I’m not big into the Smiths but I like a few of their songs and others irritate me. Probably I don’t give Marr credit for his technical guitar playing, but maybe it’s because some of the bands he’s been in or collabrated with Smiths, Electronic, Pretenders, Oasis, the Healers have never really rocked my boat.

Ah Electronic how could i forget Electronic. I did, and I’ve forgot all bar a few of their songs. Even though I went to see them. Lasting impression or my memory.

Never heard Mighty Mouse, recommend me a few tracks and I’ll give them a go. Still think its a pretty silly statement though.

I love the way Lord Snooty tries to appear like the rest of us. When quizzed about his apparent love of football, he confessed that he was a Villa fan because one of his relatives had been the chairman 😆

Exactly why I support them too Your Lordship.

Never cared a great deal for The Smiths, but my opinion of Johnny Marr has gone right up today.

Morrissey is still a bell end though.

Johnny Marr now lives in a massive country house in Cheshire…
Down the road from Dunham Massey apparently

The House that Johnny Marr used to live in was big but really wasn’t that big when I used to have to walk past it every day. And since then Mike Joyce and thingy Rourke have had a small fortune out of him and Mozza.

The funniest thing about Dave on desert island disks was him saying how he went to a Radiohead gig and wrote to them beforehand and told them that he really liked ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and low and behold they played it! Imagine that Radiohead playing Fake Plastic Trees at a gig, thats special, them having to dust off that old number and try and remember the words, just for him.

Right, Radiohead will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes now.

they were always going to be anyway. miserable, pretentious weasels.

This year he’s going to a new years party and is writing to the organisers before hand to tell them he really likes “Auld Lang Syne” and quite likes fireworks too.

his son played a cameo on stage with Broken Social Scene at Koko in camden a couple of weeks ago, and the man himself did the same at their leeds gig

should have gone to leeds really 🙁

Thanks for making me laugh this morning guys.

[tangent]
My wife and I have an in-joke about me saying Radiohead are miserable and tuneless. I bought her their last LP and she only listened to it months later.

When I heard it playing downstairs I had no idea who it was so walked in and asked “what’s this miserable dirge?”.

I thought it was supposed to be more tuneful. Just sounded like Radiohead, but covering Yo La Tengo.
[/tangent]

Broken Social Scene are good. Nice to see them giving washed-up former Smiths members a career boost.

😉

Was a Smiths fan, but that’s just pathetic.

Jonny Marr

Filthy-rich “still working class” pop star throws his toys out of the pram shocker.

Anyway, Cameron can like or dislike whatever he wants, same as anyone else, can’t he?

And what’s all this crap about Morrissey living in L.A. So what if he does? Good luck to him.

Phtt. Griping nonsense. Complete drivel.

I don’t think you need to be working class to relate to The Smiths – the songs are about feeling alienated to the mainstream (amongst other things) and I’m sure you could feel alienated whilst stuck at boarding school being rammed by one of the prefects.

But full marks to Marr for having a swipe at “Dave”

What doesn’t sit well with “Dave’s” background is the socialist manifesto of Weller and The Jam.

And what shows him up to be as big a fraud as Brown liking The Arctic Monkeys is him saying Eton Rifles is one of his favourite songs. He’s obviously never listened to the lyrics.

“What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?”

I wonder if he likes early UB40 as well?

Billy Bragg?

I don’t think you need to be working class to relate to The Smiths

Hurrah, the point I’ve been trying to make from the start. In fact I can barely think of a band more squarely aimed at a middle class audience ( apart from Radiohead ).
As much as a shock as it might seem, Oscar Wilde didn’t really figure on the radar of an 18 year old working class lad in 1983. Probably doesn’t now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XpjjSKVJkk

Back of Cameroons neck perhaps ?

Royston. The article quotes Weller, when told, as saying

“Which part of it didn’t he get? It wasn’t intended as a ****ing jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.”

Dave was on a trip to Salford before the election and had expressed his desire to have his picture taken outside Salford Lads Club. In the only example of the truly hideous Hazel Blears doing anything useful, she apparently said ‘not on my ****ing watch, he isn’t.

They organised a noisy protest where they erected signposts pointing south to Eton

They organised a noisy protest where they erected signposts pointing south to Eton

More full marks!

Liking The Smiths is one thing, turning up at Salford Lads Club is possibly a photo-opportunity too far!

And what’s all this crap about Morrissey living in L.A.

in terms you undestand imaginge Hitchens has the last rites read to him- bad taste example was specifically to help you get it – you do undersatnd selling out dont you ?

the songs are about feeling alienated to the mainstream

Presumably the multi millionairre Eton educated bullingdon member felt this ennui also then- who knew their appeal was so universal.