AS YOU MIGHT expect, Marr’s memoir is clear, unfussy, down to earth, and a reminder of how different he is from his onetime songwriting partner in the Smiths.
He is especially good at conveying his excitement about music, which goes back to some of his earliest memories, and at capturing the euphoria of the extraordinary takeoff of the Smiths.
As to the breaking up of the Smiths, in Marr’s telling it seems somewhat comparable to that of the Beatles. Like McCartney, Marr wanted to entrust management to a certain party, and the other three wanted a different party, and they could not settle the question. So no more Smiths.
Marr is full of praise for his many later collaborators (e.g., Bernard Sumner, The The, Modest Mouse, and the Cribs), but this part of the book is anticlimactic, I have to say.
Set the Boy Free came out in 2016, by which time Marr had started making solo records, beginning with The Messenger in 2013. I saw him live in I think 2014, in Omaha. It was a not-very-large club, and the crowd was not that large either, but Marr gave us a fiery, no-holds-barred set that even included great Smiths songs such as “How Soon Is Now” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” It was a glimpse into the molten core of rock and roll for the two hundred or so people who were there--one of the best shows I have ever seen. The encore included “I Fought the Law,” in the Clash arrangement. Stunning.
I saw Morrissey about a year later, and he fully lived up to his reputation for petulance. His Smiths cover was “Meat Is Murder,” which might be the consensus pick for the Smiths song one is least interested in hearing played live. No encore. Yes, Morrissey and Marr are different indeed.
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