Somewhat Delayed

How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths

video (which, apparently, the band despised. Then again, they were Thatcherite brits and dour northerners,/Lancastrians so they probably hated everything)

Released in 1985 on the album Meat is Murder, this song has a pretty patchy history - Love Spit Love's cover version of it was used as the title theme for the TV series Charmed (and voted one of the top ten television theme songs of all time), it's been covered by Russian pseudo-lesbian-jailbait duo t.A.T.u, it was critically lauded despite being considered unrepresentative of the Smiths' oeuvre and it was nowhere near as successful as Johnny Marr and Morrissey expected it to be.

It's also quite good, suprising as that is, because I always considered Morrisey a turly execrably whiny exponent of truly British "birch twigs and cold showers at public schools" self-flaggelation. Of course Morrissey would probably consider that a compliment. The other upside of this song is that I can't hear it without thinking of Alyssa Milano. And that is something that makes me very happy indeed.

Back to the song, which starts with shimmery, tremolo chords in F#, while faded in and out slide guitar adds tension as Morrissey sings lyrics about alienation, including a line stolen from Elliot's Middlemarch, with a bit of slap bass and fiddly guitar adding that unique 80s flavour of excess and cod-funk. You can almost see Morrissey prancing about, prat-like, as he talks about being human and needing to be loved. The structure is very much verse, chorus, (same) verse, bridge.

I like it. I'm almost warming to music from the era of the Iron Maiden (the Iron Maiden, not Iron Maiden, who are also quite good). Anyone who knows me will be suprised to hear that because my view until recently was always that I liked it as much as genital warts.

It's still no Love Will Tear Us Apart though.

Verdict: Even a combination of Lancastrianism, Margaret Thatcher and self-flagellation can produce a winner (see Joy Division).

Tomorrow: Paul Simon - Graceland