Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …

… the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even Morrissey, saw it coming”

… the first Smiths rehearsal and impressions of “Steve” the singer

… how the songs were written - “we never asked what they meant”

… and how they were arranged: “I locked with Johnny like Charlie with Keith, and Andy played a bass song over the top”

... memories of Johnny at X Clothes in Manchester and Morrissey in ‘82 - “funny, dark, so Manc”

… the “almost anti-punk” appeal of the Buzzcocks and the urge for a John Maher red Premier drumkit

… “Morrissey’s articulacy was both his strength and his Achilles heel”

… echoes of Motown and James Honeyman-Scott in Marr’s guitar

… “Singers need to feel they’re the most important person in the room”

… on-stage gladioli versus “the austerity of the Hacienda”

… and Morrissey today - “very angry” - and the legacy of the Smiths.  

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