The Smiths formed in 1982 when Johnny Marr knocked on Morrissey’s door at 384 Kings Road, Stretford. That’s not a myth — it actually happened. Within three years they were the most important guitar band in Britain, and Morrissey was the most quotable man in pop music. Within five years they’d split up and left a hole that indie music has been trying to fill ever since.
Four albums between 1984 and 1987. The self-titled debut, Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, Strangeways Here We Come — named after the prison on the edge of the city centre. Every record is tied to Manchester in ways that go beyond geography. Morrissey’s lyrics are full of specific places, specific feelings about those places. Cemetery Gates is about Southern Cemetery in Chorlton. The whole thing drips with rainy Mancunian misery turned into something beautiful.
Salford Lads Club on Coronation Street in Ordsall is the big pilgrimage. Stephen Wright’s photo of the band outside it became one of the most reproduced images in indie music. Fans still queue up to recreate it. Inside there’s a Smiths Room with memorabilia — the club kept going and embraced its accidental fame. The Iron Bridge in Stretford appeared on the inside sleeve of The Queen Is Dead.
Morrissey’s gone off and become a problem for a lot of people who loved him. That’s his business. The Smiths as a body of work — Marr’s jangle, Rourke’s bass, Joyce’s drums, those lyrics — remains untouchable. They made Manchester mean something different to a generation of kids who didn’t fit in.