Strangeways Here We Come

Certain Songs #2314: The Smiths – “Paint A Vulgar Picture”

March 11, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Strangeways, Here We Come
Year: 1987

. . .

“On their hands – at last! – a dead star”

Have you ever had a relationship that seemed to end because a switch went off? And somebody who loved you suddenly didn’t?

That’s kinda what happened with Johnny Marr just after the recording of Strangeways, Here We Come in May of 1987. In the previous , they’d recorded two albums worth of high-quality material (if you count all of the singles & b-sides, and you know you should) as well as embarked on long tours. And he was also kinda managing the band. And Morrissey. The upshot was that he needed some time off, and was planning to take a couple of weeks vacation here in sunny Southern California. Two weeks! Recharge, and figure out what was next for The Smiths.

My guess is that the next album would have gone even deeper on the relative lack of guitar and the over orchestrated songs that characterized Strangeways, Here We Come, and I might have disliked it. But I would have loved their 6th album, the return to their roots.

Certain Songs #2313: The Smiths – “Girlfriend in a Coma”

March 10, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Strangeways, Here We Come
Year: 1987

. . .

“Do you really think she’ll pull through?”

Even for The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come was a morbid album, starting with a song narrated by a ghost, and featuring several songs about recently deceased — rock stars, disco dancers, etc — or in the case of “Girlfriend in a Coma,” soon to be deceased, people. And while it’s not really a competition, “Girlfriend in a Coma” just might be the most morbid. Also, it might be the darkly funniest, a George Constanza plotline before that was a thing.

Certain Songs #2312: The Smiths – “Death of A Disco Dancer”

March 9, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Strangeways, Here We Come
Year: 1987

. . .

“Love, peace and harmony”

“Death of a Disco Dancer” just might be my favorite Smiths song.

It’s right up there with “How Soon Is Now?” “The Headmaster Ritual” “The Queen is Dead” and “There is A Light That Never Goes Out,” and sometime I think I love it even more than all of those worthies because it was so much more weirder, more experimental and more powerful than the songs that surrounded it on Strangeways, Here We Come.

That, of course, includes the song before it “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” which is yet another big glam rock stomper, but had too many fake horns, 80s snare drum and not enough melody for me. It also reminds me of a song that a band that wanted to sound like the Smiths would write, and the song after it, the too-meta-by-half “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.”

Certain Songs #2311: The Smiths – “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours”

March 8, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Strangeways, Here We Come
Year: 1987

. . .

“There’s too much caffeine in your bloodstream”

Even by my normal standards, there was wayyyyyyy too much going on in my life during the autumn of 1987.

For one thing, I was on the verge of turning 25, which seemed like a milestone in and of itself in terms of getting old, though it was just the beginning of what will probably stand as the five most fully-packed years of my life. Secondly, I had joined a band and was teaching myself to play drums for said band. Thirdly, I was preparing to become the manager of Video Zone. And I was still holding down the late Friday afternoon shift at KFSR, making radio spots for various shows, and maybe even attending classes at Fresno State.