Mojo Magazine, April 2011, featuring the free cd PANIC: 15 tracks of riotous ‘80s indie insurrection by Orange Juice, Madness, Robert Wyatt, Billy Bragg, Felt, Redskins, Half Man Half Biscuit, Wah! and more! with cover art featuring the Oli Scarff photo covered here on fuckyeahmoz not so long ago.
Photo - Oli Scarff @ Getty Images.
IN THE PICTURE WITH THE SMITHS
When British Prime Minister David Cameron had the cheek to name The Smiths as one of his favourite bands the public laughter was drowned out only by the words of the band members themselves.
Johnny Marr and Morrissey both used the internet to tell Cameron his support wasn’t required or desired.
Quite simply The Smiths was always a band for those under the cosh, not for those wielding it and a pro-hunting Tory should know you can’t hunt with the pack and sympathise with the quarry.
As his political policies inflict misery on humans and his personal hobby cruelly slaughters animals he has nothing in common with the passion and compassion that was The Smiths and he shouldn’t be allowed to misuse the band for his own selfish interests.
If Cameron is in any doubt about the gulf between him and all he stands for and the rebellious truth that is still represented by The Smiths he should take a look at one recent photograph from the anti-government protest in London.
That something so simple as a design on a shirt can say so much in these circumstances is in a way a reflection of the songs of The Smiths themselves. Straightforward, no-nonsense and deep but with humour and attitude that you either get or you don’t, Mr Cameron.
The young woman in the photograph, who does not want to be named, gets it, as she explained to me:
“I wore that tee-shirt outside of my jumper as a nod to Morrissey and Marr’s par to David Cameron… his being a ‘fan’ has been vaguely annoying me for the past few years … and also because I feel the country is spiralling backwards into hopelessness, etc, etc.”
At a time when we are supposed to all crave fame at any price this working-class student from the north-east has no desire to take advantage of being the subject of such a powerful and iconic image. When I contacted her to talk about the protest and her choice of shirt that day she was anxious to play down her appearance in the photograph.
“I am just like millions of other people who love The Smiths. I don’t want cheap fame off wearing a tee-shirt for something great that someone else has done and I don’t want to contribute to the over saturated analysis which to me only weakens the importance of what is going on, as well as individual things about it, like the photograph itself for instance.”
“The world has very little mystery and romance left in it now that everything is explained, analysed and commercialised as soon as it comes into existence.”
So I’ll leave it at that, except to say that as a journalist it is my job to ask questions and try to delve into interesting and important issues. As a supporter of the protest and a lover of The Smiths I couldn’t help but do a little investigating when I saw this photograph to find out more about the woman towering over the riot police and confronting the seat of political power in Britain.
She could have been a poet or she could have been a fool.
On the evidence I found she has the soul and spirit of the former and nothing of the latter. - http://www.kevinmarinan.co.uk/
