Gladiolas & Hearing Aids

Count me among those who believe that the 80's produced a lot of great music. U2, Blondie, Pat Benatar, The Cars, and a host of one-hit wonders like Tommy Tutone and Modern English. I grew up with that music and I love it.

But for my money, nobody did the 80's better than that textured and doleful band from Manchester who took the simplest and least pompous name they could think of: The Smiths.

I was slow to pick up on this band. After all, despite enormous success in England, The Smiths were almost unknown in America outside the universities. But my brother Brian played them incessantly, and he slowly wore me down. Over time I became a reluctant listener, and then, later, a rabid fan.

Now I guess you could call me a Smiths Manic, because I go through regular phases where I listen to nothing else for a month at a time. And then I drift away again to "everything else" before returning once more.

The Smiths had a fantastic sound. Johnny Marr, their guitarist, was influenced by the bright, chorus-heavy sounds of The Birds' Rickenbacker guitars and he gave the band a shimmering sound that was very different from the synth-heavy norm of the day.

The Smiths' front-man, the sardonic and sharp-witted Morrissey, always served up a fresh and intelligently slanted take on life. He loved the writings of Oscar Wilde and was very familiar with all manner of classic literature, and he used these ideas and clichés in the band's lyrics. He would come on stage with great presence, wearing a fake hearing aid and "National Health Service" glasses, and with gladiolas stuffed into his back pocket. He would often sing odd verses off-key on purpose, but his voice was always very melodic and interesting.

I like almost everything The Smiths put out in their short (1982-1987) time together. One of my favorites is "Cemetery Gates", a grim realization that many people just like us have lived out their lives and died, and all they have to show for it is a tombstone bearing clumsy, misattributed poetry.

Much of The Smiths music is overtly somber like that, but in a knowing way, and not in the end really depressing.

Please, don't just sit there letting me rave on about them, go listen yourselves. If don't, you are quite possibly missing out on the best band of the 80's.


Cemetery Gates, from The Queen is Dead

A dreaded sunny day
so I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
so I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side
while Wilde is on mine

So we go inside and we gravely read the stones
all those people all those lives
where are they now?

With loves, and hates
and passions just like mine
they were born
and then they lived and then they died
it seems so unfair
I want to cry

You say: "Ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn"
and you claim these words as your own
but I've read well and I have heard them said
a hundred times (maybe less, maybe more)

if you must write prose and poems
the words you use should be your own
don't plagiarise or take "on loan"
'cause there's always someone, somewhere
with a big nose, who knows
and who trips you up and laughs when you fall
He'll trip you up and laugh when you fall

You say: "Ere long done do does did "
words which could only be your own
and then produce the text
from whence was ripped
(some dizzy whore, 1804)

A dreaded sunny day
so let's go where we're happy
and I meet you at the cemetery gates
Oh, Keats and Yeats are on your side

A dreaded sunny day
so let's go where we're wanted
and I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side

but you lose
because weird lover Wilde is on mine