Autobiography (21 page)

‘What does he want me to do? INSIST that he be a Smith?’
says Johnny reasonably. It is not announced that Craig has departed and this is largely because his name is never again mentioned, and the press make no comment on Craig’s disappearance. Like mist he evaporates, and it is confusing to think that he had ever been present.

Instantly, Craig sues for ‘loss of earnings’ (
how? where?
), and also claims co-authorship with Johnny of certain Smiths songs (
how? where?
). Although Craig’s claims are whimsical frolic, the court leaps to his favor and the case is settled for
almost
whatever he wants.

I have no tears left.
The law is a ass.

And.
Yet.

The only thing we can possibly control is ourselves. Under shocking circumstances the Smiths assemble in the city of Bath to record our final album for Rough Trade. Stephen Street is once again the link between our writing systems and technical language. Stern-faced, he detangles all parts. He is still very shy, but it is the Smiths that have made him grow, and he finds his confidence with each scholastic session. These days and these days alone will begin his extensive career as a recording producer, and will procure for him a stylish reputation that, to his credit, he will always measure up to.
Every combination of chords has been done, but Johnny somehow manages the most imaginative bursts of sound on these final sessions, and the three other Smiths follow. I talk about the sad lilt in Johnny’s chord structures, but as usual everyone offers iffy squints my way, as if I am being far too sappy.
Strangeways,
Here We Come
is the most joyful and relaxed Smiths studio session, with crates of beer wheeled in at the close of each day and no war in sight. Andy’s playing is exalted, and Mike registers St George’s explosion blissfully. I begin the vocal for
Stop me if you think you’ve h
eard this one before
, when Stephen stops me, even though he
hasn’t
heard this one before.

‘Er, Morrissey, I think there’s a grammatical error here – “who said I lied because I never”
...
’
he aids, helpfully.

‘Yesssssssssssssss,’
I hiss, like an adder on heat,
‘it’s meant to be there,’
and
now
I know how Joan of Arc felt.

‘Ooh,’
he sinks, and allows me to proceed. I am an instrument.

A window-ledge in a forgotten corner of the Wool Hall Studios showcases a peculiar stringed instrument from 1777, which Johnny instantly grabs –
‘Oh, let’s see how this sounds’ –
and, by second run-through, he can play the oddly stringed lyre that has no sound hole. The strings are possibly horsehair, and there is a barely usable tuning bar, but the sound Johnny finds is mesmerizing, and the song
I won’t share you
is alive. It is a fascinating moment when Johnny’s inner ear leads the way to somewhere unknown – somewhere mistrusted by all until the final depth of thought strikes. The technical term is
bling.

The vocal room houses an old Red Lion piano that I decide to bang during a run-through of
Death of a d
isco dancer.
More Lieutenant Pigeon than pianoforte, the Donnybrook punch-up pianner nonetheless remains in the track, and for the first (and last) time I am loosely listed as a musician.

‘Do you mind if I re-do it and make it better?’
asks Johnny.

‘Yes, I do,’
replies Mrs Mills.

My leap into multi-instrumentalism equals Johnny’s sky-dive into song, as he tackles his first ever vocalism. His tremulous quaver on
Death at one’s elbow
is a honeyed flow, although he insists that he cannot sing.

At the close of the
Strangeways
sessions there took place a glut of meetings with accountants and lawyers at the Wool Hall Studio, and in the context of such, the Smiths breathed a last exhausted sigh, and folded. It happened as quickly and as unemotionally as this sentence took to describe it. No high-octane squabbles, no screams at midnight, no flying furniture, no one dragged head
first into the snake-pit, no animated yelps from unused outbuildings (these would, of course, come eight years later, eight years too late, at the Smiths High Court trial). In 1987, at Roland Gardens, Johnny and I stood – he smiling, I not master but servant.
Sing me to sleep|I’m tired, and I|I want to go to bed.

Strangeways, Here We Come
was, we both knew, the Smiths’ masterpiece, with everything in its perfect place. The search for wisdom had ended, from womb to tomb, and here we are – wanting to live yet longing for sleep. Johnny and I were both drained beyond belief, and there was no one around us to suggest that we disappear somewhere to rest, and apart. We do not telephone each other for two weeks, and then suddenly the press is rife with Smiths split stories. To obviate doubt, we hold off with communications, and I sit, watching the situation as if behind glass. An unnamable insider tells all, and the press launches stories of bitter feuds during catty sessions for
Strangeways, Here We Come.
These, we are all assured, are the facts, and professional fusspot Anthony Wilson jumps in with
‘The Smiths have broken up because Johnny has had enough of Morrissey.’
Of unmerited renown, Wilson was never too busy to stick the boot in. His career had not lasted, yet he quite luckily managed a lengthy and slow decline which some thought was actually an ongoing career. The rumor is more important than the truth, and as soon as the rumor is half-uttered it gains strength. It is all too much, too sickening, and press reports tell us confidently that Johnny has left the country to work with Talking Heads; monogamous I, polygamous he. What erupts from such situations, when there are so many harmful and hurtful opinions darting about, is that we wind in on ourselves in a squalid effort to put up a defense against the noise, to save our reputations from the hoodoo chants who want you snuffed out; and no story is complete without blame, blame, fatal blame.

Everyone suddenly has an expert eye, and you just might find yourself contemptibly savaged or disadvantaged by scientific studies of what went wrong, even though those who announce
‘something rotten in the state of Denmark’
cannot possibly have any way or means to account for their misinformation.

‘Well,’
smiles Geoff Travis ruefully, ‘the general opinion is that side 1 of
Strangeways
is terrific, and side 2 is very weak.’ By ‘general opinion’ Geoff means solely his own opinion. Geoff makes this statement knowing that side 2 tucks away
Paint a v
ulgar picture
, which vibrates negative electrons at someone in Geoff’s humanitarian position.
‘I’ve played
Coma
to the Jesus and Mary Chain and they think it’s very funny,’
he goes on, as if such a red seal might finally give me the will to pick up the pieces.

As I stand up to leave Geoff calls to me,
‘I can get Roddy Frame to replace Johnny,’
and before I have time to burst into tears (for I don’t quite know what Roddy Frame’s name is expected to mean), Geoff is up and out and gone. As quick as lightning, Frame proudly issues a ‘
Morrissey asked me to join the Smiths, but I refused’
badge of honor to the press – as if the mere request alone from Geoff had lit up his lunchtime.

Could things get any worse?

Why, yes, little one.
Be patient.

The split is our final loss of innocence, and Johnny suddenly appears on television playing behind Bryan Ferry, as if this is what it had all been for, all along. Geoff brings in another guitarist to replace Johnny, and a session takes place in west London with Andy and Mike suddenly pledging allegiance, aware of the impending precipice. The session is de trop, and I have awoken to writs from both Sire and EMI telling me that I am, in legal piffle, their artist, and that I am legally bound to fulfill what are known as ‘the Smiths contracts’. Dim and confused, I meekly obey without fuss, certain that no other ex-Smith had found themselves quite so entrapped. Equal partnerships, anyone? Oh no, not at this stage, when there is nothing to gain but burdens! Leave that all to Morrissey. We other three Smiths are as free as coaltits darting from hedge to hedge, but we’ll be back later on, when the rough seas settle and there’s a financial surplus. Sire and
EMI
both threaten me with legal action should I refuse to supply an album in order to mop up the Smiths’ liabilities. There is no one I can turn to for sane judgment. In willowy isolation, I reflect on how Johnny and I had signed to Rough Trade, and then, by extension, to Sire Records, with no legal representation. The term ‘sitting ducks’ seemed far too mild – we were without doubt prize sapheads of the most embarrassingly gullible type. My doctor had prescribed a ‘mood’ tablet known as Pastalin, with which I scum-wrestle for a few dreadful months, and I begin not to recognize myself – saying things that I would never usually say – and my recalcitrant behavior is noted with concern by passers-by. I clamber back to Harley Street to complain to the doctor who prescribed this hideous mood pill, but I am told he is dead, and I am hardly surprised.

‘If you want the singles from
Strangeways
to succeed, then you should quickly take part in these promo videos,’
says Geoff, as he encircles the open grave. ‘
We have a budget of twelve thousand pounds.’

Director Tim Broad steps in to make sense of it all, hotch-potching two videos for both
Girlfriend in a coma
and
Stop me if you t
hink you’ve heard this one before.
The results for both are frustratingly unwatchable, although Tim did his best with such a mealy-mouthed budget. In the event, Rough Trade decide against releasing
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before
due to the lyric’s reference to ‘mass murder’, and I argue that it is surely a bit late in the day to worry about offending anybody.
‘Yes, but radio won’t play it,’
offers Geoff, his cadaverous smile as colorless as an Islington sky.

‘But they don’t ever play ANYTHING anyway!’
I choke, finally ready for the taxidermist.

Progress is made in the US, where
Strangeways
zaps to number 55 – Sire finally slapped from mummification now that the Smiths are stuffed.
On a late-night talk show, Lorna Luft (daughter of Judy Garland) is asked about modern music.
‘Well, I’ve heard
Girlfriend in a coma
,’
she laughs (for, would one not laugh?), and the Smiths finally enter having exited. The
Collins English Dictionary
furnishes its 1987 edition with
Smiths: a Manchester pop group
,
an entry I read and reread until my eyes weaken. I tear the page out and I post it to Johnny. He does not reply because he is now far away and bleached free of emotional attachment – no solo commitment demanded from Johnny by either Sire or
EMI
, clever, clever boy.

The brain speculates but the heart knows.
Strangeways
becomes the fourth Smiths album to enter the UK chart at number 2, and the following year Rough Trade will gasp out a live
Rank
that will become the fifth chart entry at number 2 for a band of habit-forming sadness, now cold in its grave. It may close as a mournful experience, but at least I had known and felt the possible.

‘If five Smiths albums enter the chart at number 2, what is stopping them from entering at number 1?’
I ask Geoff (although, at this stage, with Rough Trade looking more like an old soldiers’ retirement home, I wonder why I bother to fire the question).

‘Because when the majors see that we’re coming in at number 1 they up their mid-week promo and they keep us at bay,’
says Geoff, delighted with his prognosis.

‘So why don’t WE therefore up our promo in order to keep THEM at bay?’
I go on, like a jockey in search of a bolted horse. To this, Geoff laughs weakly, as if I’d suggested immediate space travel.

In flies a handwritten letter from honored British music writer Nick Kent, writing to ask that he be auditioned as ‘guitarist/tunesmith’ if the Smiths continue without Johnny. He is deadly serious.

Dear Morrissey,

...
I am not a good self-salesman but I can confidently boast an encyclopaedic knowledge of the chord structures, dynamics etc. of Johnny’s contributions to date
...
My ardour is strictly from aesthetic dictates, not financial, vainglorious etc. ad infinitum.

Being musically associated with your very good self would signify the very apex of my crusade for immortality
...

Please keep me in mind.

Nick Kent

It is a methodical scrawl on yellowed paper, but I am still in shaky-split twilight zone and I cannot reply, for I scarcely know what to say. Nick Kent’s parting shot appears in
The Face
magazine’s March 1990 issue, a mediated slap-and-swipe Morrissey burial. I look suitably deathbound on the cover, and the piece within falls midway between tyranny and envy, as Kent outlines the ridiculousness of Morrissey, in unanswerable print. Ah, revenge!

When a Nick Kent book seeps out, its jacket bears a shambling quote attributed to me as I warn how the contents within will
‘take the curls out of your afro’.
I contact the publishers, explaining that this quote is not mine – quite apart from the fact that there are no curls in an afro. The publishers reply with a
‘We will remove the quote in the event of a reprint,’
which is meant to send me skipping off in delight.