The ultimate GEN X anthem.

If ever there was a perfect song, a sound that evoked the zeitgeist of a whole sub-genre of Gen Xers, I think that song would have to be How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths.  It was the perfect Gen X song for those who felt un-liked and un-popular.  Who felt “other”.

For the original Gen Xers, The Smiths’ How Soon Is Now was EVERYTHING Gen xers loved. As Johnny Marr said; it was swampy. The title of the song was originally called Swamp.  It was dark, dank and melancholy.  It was about alienation. It described to a T the Gen X experience- feeling completely at odds with the world.  Feeling like you didn’t fit in.  Alienated.  Not good enough- not chosen.   You leave alone, and you go home and you cry and you want to die…..right, fellow Gen Xers?

I was never the biggest Smith’s fan back in the day.  I was not a goth, although I did have a thing for goth guys- you know the Doc Martin wearing, black eyeliner loner types. BUT this song just does something to me, even now, forty odd years after it was released.  For me, it’s all about what Johnny Marr did with that Epiphone Casino and Fender Telecaster.  I know basically nothing about guitar effects but I do know that he alchemized one of the most mesmerizing, delicious, guitar parts in the history of modern music ever, period.  The intro to this song was absolutely transcendent, iconic.  I used to listen to music superficially.  I never paid close attention to the actual musicianship.  But the older I get the more deeply and carefully I listen to guitar parts.  A guitar well played, and the guitarist who  plays said instrument moves me so in ways that are hard to describe.  It’s like I feel it in the deepest parts of myself, in my cells, in my hair and my fingertips and my eyelashes and my, well, everywhere. And this particular song does so more than most.

The Smiths hailed from Manchester, UK where Johnny Marr and Steven Morrisey originally met -at a Patti Smith gig at Manchester’s Apollo Theater in 1978- how completely apropos- and they formed a band, the most well known line-up of which consisted of Morrissey, Marr, bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce.  Morrissey chose the name The Smiths for the band as a sort of tribute to regular people- an ordinary name because he thought ordinary people ought to be recognised, not just the rich and famous and popular.

If you are a Smith’s fan then you already know about the band’s story, the infighting, and all the blah blah blah.  It’s part of what makes the band alluring I suppose and adds to its gothic aura.

The lyrics to How Soon Is Now were written by Morrissey and Marr and in very Gen X fashion the song wasn’t originally thought to be a hit.  Record company Rough Trade released it as the B side of the 1984 single William, It Was Really Nothing instead.  It was released as an A side by Sire Records in the US and later as an A side in the UK in early 1985 when it was also included on the album Meat Is Murder. Several things influenced the recording of the song, including a ton of weed plus the music of Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley and The Rolling Stones, all of whom Johnny Marr greatly admired.

As per the course for many songs in the heyday of radio, it was night-time DJs playing the song that gave it legs and it became one of the most requested songs in the fall of 1984.  In the US, it was a video that the band hated, and airplay on college radio that made the song popular. The song became a Gen X anthem and has since been recognized as one of the best, most iconic alternative songs of the 1980s.

This is one of those songs that I always associate with fall- I don’t know why- maybe because that’s when I first heard it? Maybe because of its darkness?  Maybe it’s that swampy sound?  Not sure, but there are a number of songs that harken back to a mid-80s fall, dark-out-early vibe and this is definitely one of them.  It’s a song you listened to when you got too much in your head.  When you thought the world sucked and you wanted to kind of revel in your depression.  Because being depressed, or cultivating an air of angst, was kind of low-key cool.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  Maybe you had to be an 80s kid to understand.  I think there are a few people watching this, some kindred spirits who can relate.

So for my friend Tim, who may or may not know what the hell I’m talking about here, but who I hope enjoys my little chat, and whom I had great fun getting to know on our recent rock and roll tour, and anyone else who wants to reminisce about how great music was in the 80s, even if it was dark, put on something black and hop into the time machine that is music and be thankful that you’re not an angsty young adult anymore and look back at that time in your life with relief – that that teen-age pain is in the rear view mirror.   Maybe look back with a little a wistful-ness. Because the 80s were a ton of fun too, in a way that seems to have disappeared for young people in the modern world we now inhabit.

How Soon Is Now by The Smiths, is THE perfect song.

The Smiths at the entrance to Salford Lads Club, Manchester