Episode 3 - The Smiths and where did music go?

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd

we're here today talking about the

english band the smiths it was a

band that i really liked growing up

meant a lot to me early on in the days

and so we're gonna go through and talk

about

all the things that the smiths did in

their

short-lived career that they had

in england i know this sounds like a

rather

strange topic three podcasts in but

as you mentioned you and i both love the

smiths

for very different reasons you being

from texas i mean i don't know how the

smiths reached you

and what relevancy they had to your life

but for me growing up in england

that it really shouldn't have uh

connected with me either because you

know i'm a very handsome man

um not as handsome as i am but

yeah you're all you're there will be a

poll on the website

eventually where people can decide that

and i'll make sure that that

is directed towards me yeah you can't

send people money through paypal to vote

for your attractiveness

oh be careful i'll figure out a way to

do that oh yeah okay

but anyway the point is um

there was no reason really i should have

been attracted to the smiths lyrics or

to the music

why so because i was very into the new

romanticism of duran duran

spandau ballet at that point in time

uh just kind of music which yeah i

couldn't relate to in

terms of living that lifestyle but the

smiths

came out and you know the first song

i heard was how soon is now i think that

was the first one or what difference

does it make

and i listened to those lyrics and i

couldn't decide whether it was

johnny mars guitar or

morris's voice because there was a long

period of time before i really kind of

truly listened to the lyrics and

you know there are parts of the smith's

lyrics which apply to everybody when

you're a teenager

especially back then when you couldn't

find

i guess a support group you know we

didn't have the internet you couldn't go

on a forum and be

oh let me find everybody who's depressed

about this

well sure sure we're talking about the

mid 80s we're talking about 1982

1987. that is when the smiths were

actually out there they were officially

abandoned and

they disbanded somewhere around 1987

but of course way back in those times

there was no internet it was

in its obvious infancy

yeah i mean the internet was there it's

been around since the 70s and we're not

going to get into the history of the

internet with this but

for the general public there was no way

to see the internet

so you still had the normal music

machine

pumping out music that you were going to

hear

yeah and the smiths came around in

that time yes you had how soon is now

which was the big hit for the united

states that's how

most people know the smiths most people

know that song

probably don't even know that it was by

the smiths

they just know that song they say oh

yeah i like that song

that was in one of the john hughes

movies i remember that song

and maybe they just listened to it on a

soundtrack from

a john hughes movie yeah but it still

hit certain kids certain people

especially in the 80s yeah it was kind

of strange that

they were a band who produced

well i mean rough trade were the um i

think

first first label they went on and they

exploited the smiths pretty badly

because after one album the eponymously

titled the

smiths hatful of hollow came out and

it's like oh rail

a greatest hits album after one album

but it was made up of john peele

sessions who's a

bbc radio presenter who did some

awesome sessions it's like uh the

equivalent i guess of mtv and

sure uh just but on an audio basis yeah

and i know you and i have talked about

before where

over in the united states it was always

mtv

but then you had uh the british show

yeah uh what was it called that you

first saw him on

uh the the pops yeah the top of the pot

so see we didn't really have that in the

united states but

top of the pops was a big deal for the

scene yes

yeah and um

it was weird when i first listened to

hatfield hollow because i didn't know

the smith's first album

i listened to a hatful of holo and i

listened to songs like

back to the old house real around the

fountain

and you know for the life i had at the

time

like i said i was a lovely looking

person i was doing pretty good with

soccer

it shouldn't have maybe resonated with

me

but there were just lyrics or maybe

something in johnny mart's guitar which

just brought me in and i can't say i

listened to a song like william it was

really nothing

and try and think all right well i know

what this is talking about because i

really don't but and in that song it's

purely about johnny mart's guitar

but she go to please please let me get

what i want

the lyrics on that you know as i've said

to you before i don't think there's a

teenager anywhere

who can listen to those lyrics and not

identify with those lyrics

please please please let me get right in

and there's

obvious

connotations with please please please

let me get what i want

i remember growing up with friend of

mine

good friend of mine when we were growing

up we actually were in a band together

years ago he was a big deftones fan

loved the death tones and the deftones

released

a record that they called it b-sides

and they covered the song please please

please let me get what i want

and so we my friend plays this song for

me

he's like man i really like this song

and i think it's a cover song but i'm

not really sure

and so he plays the song for me and i

said

dude this is a smith song

do you know who the smiths are he's like

the smiths

you mean the family that goes to church

with us i'm like no

no it's a legitimate band the smiths

you really haven't heard of him he's

like no but

but listen how great this song is and i

said

why do you think this song so great he's

like

well just listen to the lyrics and the

music

and i said well the music is

probably written by johnny mars in this

song

i remember hearing the original version

then the duff time

version the lyrics are obviously the

same

like this is legitimate smith so then i

played the smith's version

for him and i had it on my ipod you know

that we're talking about way

back in the day right yeah so so now

i've got an ipod i'm like hey

you know you got to listen to the

original version it's like

wow that that's amazing the

actual original version is better than

the deathtown version you've got to

remember this guy

loved the death tones right and the

death tones they're a great band

but he listened to the original version

and he said wow that this is a great

song and i'm like

absolutely it absolutely is it is an

absolute great song in the message as

simple

as that song is that is on that hat full

of hollow

compilation album is such a great song

yeah and the songs on hatful of hollow

which were from the

john pills sessions were taken in one

take they weren't produced

and so i think the version on there it

was just a one-off

song but the lyrics of please please

please

let me get what i want is almost poetry

to me

it absolutely look at um there is a

light that never goes out

is modern poetry if you want to look at

the modern age you listen to that and

somebody being in love

and it doesn't matter whether you're 15

years old and being in love for the

first time

i think there is a light that never goes

out just touches a whole

you know different different chord

because you know lyrics like another

double decker bus crashes into us

to die by your side is such a heavenly

way to die

i mean it's not classical poetry

but it's current poetry that you know

kids can feel adults can feel

but again the riffs that johnny marr

played on that song i mean those two

songs please please please let me get

what i want and there is the knight

sorry there is a light then it goes out

though i think those are the two most

covered smith songs and for very good

reason because the music is

almost perfect but the lyrics are

absolutely pure poetry

sure so if you look at the song please

please please let me get

what i want by the smiths and you

seriously just go into google look up

the lyrics

the lyrics are very short but it is very

poetic

if if you look at the lyrics it's good

time for a change see the luck i've had

can make a good man turn bad so please

please

please let me let me get what i want

this time i haven't had a dream in a

long time

see the life i've had can make a good

man

bad so for once in my life let me

get what i want lord knows it will be

the first time yeah

that is no kidding right there in

what did that take me 20 seconds yeah

that that's the whole song

yeah it's so much better than what we

have now

yeah as far as lyrics because we've gone

so

dirty we've gone so

beyond what we should be doing in music

and the power that those

lyrics have in that one song which

wasn't even a

big huge famous smith song right yeah

it was just one of those ancillary songs

it's not

how soon is now it was one of those

kind of off-the-cuff besides smith songs

it's a powerful

set of lyrics it's powerful poetry it's

speaking to so many people yeah

and i've heard that song in so many more

movies

a decade or so after the smiths split up

then you know it was ever used in

while the smiths was still in existence

i mean without that hat full of hollow

album i would have never

possibly for a decade i've heard that

song

but you know i have a good friend uh

danny who i used to coach in soccer

he's a huge smiths and morrissey fan

and what is a really smart guy

but what really touches him about the

smiths is the lyrics

you know i think he was i don't even

think he was born by the time the smiths

broke up but he appreciates the lyrics

and he can see the poetry and how

a lot of those words it can speak to

somebody in 50 years time

you read please please please let get

what i want to somebody

they will identify with it sure and

you know you you can pull the deftones

version out but

believe it or not hootie and the

blowfish actually

covered this song i mean it yeah

hootie in the blowfish i remember when i

was

younger uh way back in the day

my wife went to a lot of concerts

a lot of concerts my first concert

i ever went to was hootie

in the blowfish and i had a friend of

mine

it was really my dad's friend but then

became my friend as well

and he worked for a company that

did promotional things and he gave me

some concert tickets and he said do you

know who

hooty and blowfish is i'm like yeah it's

like here's four concert tickets and we

went to

at the time it was called star starbucks

episode yeah and so no kidding

i remember my first concert was

hooty in the blowfish and i'm sitting

there saying

i'm not really a big hootie in the

blowfish fan but

this is kind of cool yeah seeing live

music

and nowadays in taking the covid stuff

out because depending on when you're

listening to this if you're listening

right now in you know september of 2020

or you're listening to this in the

future we're still in this

coven mess where we can't go do anything

right

but before you would go to live music

shows and maybe you'd go to an

intimate show in some little club and

there might be

50 people watching it or maybe you go to

a big

festival show or whatever so my first

concert experience was

hootie in the blowfish and they covered

this song

wow mine was to round your hand no

kidding

i was the first band i saw live in

concert

um and that's why partly you say

that there should have been no real

reason why the smiths

there should have been any attraction

for me

but i was always really good at english

english literature

and morris's lyrics and listen to the

lyrics of those songs

just hit something with me it resonated

with me

now you take some of morris's later

songs where

he really doesn't pull any punches if

you have titles like

you're the one for me fatty or uh i hate

it when our friends become successful

surely but but you're also talking about

morrissey

when he's morrissey yes not in the

smiths yeah but

you go how soon is now and that is a

beautiful title i mean you think about

even on a philosophy terms how soon is

now

i mean what a beautiful title for a song

and what difference does it make you

listen to the lyrics in that song and

what difference does it make

i mean it like i said i think the smiths

i think morrissey

and johnny marr whoever penned most of

those lyrics it was

pure poetry and that's why i think so

many

people nowadays still identify

love the smiths and you've got new smith

stands

because they can see it was brilliance i

mean the guitar work

was fantastic the lyrics are brilliant

absolutely and you you turn around

and you think about johnny mar the way

he

played guitar and knowing the fact that

he was i'm not saying he's the first

person

to figure out a way to make the guitar

sound different

because there were plenty of people

before him if we had johnny mars sitting

here right now he's going to say

i'm not the greatest guitarist in the

world

i remember there was a interview i think

it was with

eric clapton where they whoever was

interviewing

eric clapton said how does it feel to be

the greatest guitarist in the world he

said

i don't know ask this guy because all

the great guitarists they never

want to say they were a great guitarist

but most people

don't really know about johnny marr

sure they they don't and it's kind of

sad because

now we're in the the age of music where

everything's computerized

everything goes into a macbook pro

and you can control the way your voice

sounds you manipulate the music

you create it on the computer you don't

need somebody creative like johnny marr

playing stuff

but i can imagine johnny mars sitting

there playing a song

and i think you and i have talked about

this before about

johnny marr going into the studio

playing at a certain riff and

saying okay yeah you know

go ahead and hit record right and they

hit record and he plays that

and then the sound engineer saying okay

well because of the way

we record music you need to go ahead and

play that again the exact same way you

did it before and johnny

looking at that guy saying i can't do

that again

i'm sitting here and i'm just playing by

feel

i'm playing what's coming to me right

now and

and there's actual feeling there's

actual

just emotion behind the music and we're

missing that now

and i think there's a lot of bands

and you know i say bands but maybe it's

just

solo wax whatever that are trying to

replicate that and they just can't

figure out

how to replicate it because you have too

much production

value behind it you've got the feeling

out of the music

you've got the perfection just kind of

being

loaded in saying okay well i'm going to

put this into

some kind of computer program

to say oh your bead is off a half a step

here so i'm going to do this

i'm going to drag this this way look at

it

on the computer screen and look at the

the wavelengths and all this

and we've lost a lot of that

music feeling that we used to have

would you not think that obviously

today's music is

more beat driven it's not

lyric driven i can't remember too many

songs

you know there are some artists who i

don't even really like

that much who i do actually like the

lyrics

but you know again going back to the

titles of the smith songs of

how soon is now what difference does it

make

and even when morrissey you know his

first solo album

every day is like sunday you know

i mean if you expand you know on a

philosophy basis

on that just on that title every day is

like sunday

what what's that really saying i mean

just even the title itself forget

even reading the lyrics of that song

just the title just to me is just pure

brilliance

sure but what is the

attraction for a young

person to make music

they don't really even care about the

part about making music

they really care about being famous

right i don't think

morrissey or johnny mars cared about

being famous

they cared about giving their message

i don't think jimi hendrix cared about

being famous

he had a message that he was trying to

get out

i don't think that several of the

artists

from way back when cared about being

famous

they had a message that they wanted

everybody to hear they would go to

festivals they would go

on different tours they had a

message they wanted everybody to hear

nowadays it's how many streams do you

get

how many likes on instagram do you get

how many

likes do you get on your tick tock how

many

social media hits do you

get because that is what is interesting

now

and i've read an article today

and i'm glad we're kind of talking about

this today because

i saw this article and i was shocked

that for the first time and we're

talking in september of 2020

for the first time in 30 years

final sales actually

surpassed cd sales since the mid-80s

so of course streaming

is taking over everything

but for the first time in 30 some odd

years

vinyl surpass cds in the record

companies can't figure

out why right

i have uh obviously you know stood there

with you in your garage and

you know you've had your vinyl record

player there and you put on

hat for the hollow by the smiths and

there's

just definitely something about a pure

sound that comes from vinyl

and i know you know you're a big

smashing pumpkins fan and i think

some of their earlier albums some of the

lyrics and the titles

again resonated with a

disenfranchised youth that felt

separated

from the rest of the pack or what the

rest of the pack was supposed to feel

like

but what is there one song

that you and i mean forget you know the

famous one how soon is now over here in

the united states

is there is a one set of lyrics or one

song

which just really hit home with you with

the smiths

no i i think to me it's the story

behind all of their songs they they tell

a story

yeah with everything my big thing with

music

has always been i want to be able to

drop a record onto the turntable right

put the needle there hear the scratch

hear that

you know when it goes on there and then

say oh oh there's some dust on here

maybe i need to clean this off or you

know we're in the garage like you said

oh you know i i left the lid

off of the turntable and now i need to

clean the record off

i want to be able to play a

record one side from

the outside of that rim to the inside of

that rim

yeah and then after the 20 some odd

minutes

that it takes for that record

stop and say wow

that was great there's not many meanings

nowadays

look let me go up and flip that over

and go to side two let me hear

what side two has to say nowadays

you don't have that it's let me

write a song or let me

let somebody else write a song for me

and just put it out there and get some

streams get

get some whatever you want to call it

some social media backing some

viral marketing whatever it is to get

people to

play it for a few months so i can get

some streams so i can get some hits so i

can get some lights so i can get

whatever is going on make it popular for

a while

so i can make a little bit of money on

this and then i can go on to my next

project

now with them the smiths i think i

mentioned earlier the

first record label they were on was

called rough trade

yeah tell us tell us a little bit about

that well there wasn't

there wasn't a great relationship i

think

i i don't know if rough trade their

management felt the smiths

were you know a very temporary thing it

wasn't very popular thing so let's try

and make a lot of money from them

and again the early smith songs in

england

really didn't go anywhere it wasn't

until later on when you had panic

and ask that they got anywhere near the

top ten

you know i think panic got to number two

but

you know the early songs even when they

did collaborations

um just really didn't go anywhere and i

think

rough trade again i don't know what

other bands they actually had on

on the label but i think they used the

smith's because they realized the smiths

had kind of got this little kind of

niche of again disaffected youth

and you know kind of bastardized the

whole process like i said

who makes the greatest hits album after

one album

right now and sells it now i don't even

know you know if they even asked

morris's and johnny morris you know

permission

at that point i think they just had

overall autonomy over everything and did

it

but you know going forward with that you

know by the time

it got into the latest stage of you know

the smith's

existence i know they had a live album i

can't remember the name of it

now but you know they also had um

louder than bombs which was a

compilation album

and i think they had another album which

was a compilation album

and some of it was you know collections

of b-sides and all their stuff

but you know at the time i still bought

every single one uh you know but

now even bands are like

i would not buy a whole album by

somebody because i know i'm going to get

two good songs

and 11 songs of absolute trust i mean

what point

did we get so commercial and

record labels have always obviously been

commercial i mean especially emi

all these you know sony whatever but at

what point did we get

where yeah if you buy an album you know

you're gonna get two good songs and the

rest of it is just gonna be absolute

trash

right so you also have to go back to the

fact that

if you look at back in the 80s and you

think about morsi and johnny mars and

the other guys and

by the way it forgive me for forgetting

the other members of the smiths because

you know

apparently legally they are not members

of the smithsonian

that's what the whole law sees wow why

can't he move to california

uh yeah well maybe we'll get into that

in a second

but absolutely

if you think about in i hate that i

continue these word absolutely but

if if you think about the

way they had to look at what they were

doing

they were young guys right that

they had to be young i'm gonna picture

them in their 20s

right and they've got these record

executives saying

do this dance for the camera be our

monkey just just you do this

and we're going to pay for you to tour

the world

we're going to pay your hotel bill we're

going to

make you famous just like what's

happening

today with the streaming and everything

else

and so those guys were saying well we

like

making music and we're getting paid for

it

and these guys in their

three-piece suits over here with their

perfectly tied ties

in their nice pressed white shirts with

their

cufflinks on are telling us to do this

why would we fight with them why would

we say no we don't want to do that now

can i ask you an off-the-cuff question

here

absolutely what do you think about the

beatles

i hate the beatles and you knew that

going in

i hate the beatles well i and and now

all of a sudden

and before everybody just all of a

sudden

turns the podcast off and says oh my god

i hate puppies yeah and now i hate these

guys

just don't don't hate me yet right

but i do hate the beatles i i know

i'm in one of those just very

confined areas of people

that loves music played music played in

a band but hates the beatles but i do

hate the beatles i am honest to god hate

the beatles i think

they were a band if you could ever find

the most perfect

being in the right place at the right

time

but they weren't necessarily that great

they in all the bands of history i think

fit that profile

now don't get me wrong i think a song

like yesterday

i think is a good song i think they did

a few other good songs but a lot of

their songs

if you listen to their albums it's just

it's just noise it's honest

honestly i remember when i

bought pulp fiction on vhs

when it came out i bought the special

edition that had

deleted scenes right and quite honestly

i think the deleted scenes

on that movie were better than the movie

right

and there was a whole deal about being

an

elvis man or beatles man and

i'm not saying i'm a big elvis fan

because i'm not

really a big elvis fan but

in the movie in those deleted scenes

mia wallace is talking to john

travolta's character

and saying you're obviously an elvis man

and you

cannot like elvis and the beatles

equally right and when i

watched that i thought i'm obviously an

elvis man

right i just i if you

if you met me you you knew all my

background

and what i liked about music you would

pin me as a beatles person

right but i guess i'm really an elvis

man

because i just there's something about

the beatles

that i just can't get behind i

understand why people like it but i

attribute the beatles

the same way that my daughter likes

taylor swift

right versus elvis

to me was so much better

yeah but i'm not saying i'm a huge elvis

fan

because i i will give the beatles their

due

i i will that there were a couple of

songs in there that i'm like okay

you know those are good songs i i can

understand that the way they recorded

certain things

they were pioneers in that aspect

if you want to get into the audio file

portion of

how they set up the microphones how they

did things or whatever

but if you

are honestly a beatles fan

and you got behind everything the

beatles did

and you go on to youtube right now and

you

watch yoko ono screaming

oh yeah and and you when the mic was

late yeah and you still get behind that

yeah then you and i have a problem yeah

where elvis you know he was i guess

you know a good looking guy right

and then he got fat and he got on drugs

but you know what

elvis didn't know how to be a rock star

yeah the beatles didn't know how to be

rock stars

right there there was nothing before

any of this i honestly think it was the

perfect storm for the beatles i think it

better been

five years earlier five years too late

i don't think they would have become

what they became i mean in england

it was the beatles against the rolling

stones not the beatles against elvis

right but

remember it way back in those days and

and this was

actually before you and i signed but

the beatles were the quote-unquote

british invasion right and all of a

sudden this

this british band came over and of

course you know we're talking about the

smiths

but the beatles kind of predated that

and so it was kind of the same thing and

then the beatles

all of a sudden they show up and it was

that

that first british invasion i think i

think what a lot of

specifically american fans of the b

tours or people who say they like to i

mean let's be honest now i mean they

split up

what close to 50 years ago um has it

been that long yeah like early 70s

paul mccartney filmed wings

but you know they forget the amount of

songs like yellow submarine and

octopus's garden when

the beatles went through their drug

infused

you know lyrical phases where yeah the

music just wasn't that good i think they

had and they reminded me very much of

oasis who uh

you know noel gallagher who um

i i like the gallagher brothers and i

remember

growing up it in listening to their

stuff and and them having their problems

yeah

but they um no gallica specifically said

you know i compare everything we do

to the beatles right about his biggest

guitar hero

from what i can remember was johnny mars

yeah because there wasn't i mean when i

started trying to learn guitar

and i was terrible at it because my

fingers point in different directions

which are unearthly um

you know the first songs that try and

get you to play were songs by the

beatles because they were very simple

they were three chords for most of their

songs very simple songs

i'm not saying that makes the song bad i

mean if you take it it doesn't if you

take a song like from oasis like

wonderful

very quick very easy there's the old

joke

of the goofy guy with the horrible beard

sitting around the campfire that brings

his acoustic guitar and says

hey everybody you want to hear

wonderwall yeah you know everybody knows

how to play wonderwall

if they have a guitar but they're a very

easy song to play

but there is no equivalent song i don't

think with the beatles that

you know you have to remember they were

most of their fans and girls all right

and i'm not

i'm not nothing wrong with that i'm not

saying that's just there's no

problem with that but that is the

biggest market in southern music

it's females right and

you know male driven bands if the lead

singer

isn't good looking traditionally they

don't tend to do very well

you know you have to kind of hide the

lead singer

you have to have nowadays a good video i

mean rem

nobody bought rem's music because

michael's site was a stud

right and you've got this skinny guy you

know with

before long you know after out of time

whatever he had a shaved head

yeah he looked like he had cancer before

he did he looked like he

he honestly looked like he had aids and

i think that was the big thing at the

time there was his rumors for decades he

had sure

everybody thought he was gay everybody

thought he had aids

and the poor guy is just sitting out

there saying

you know what i'm skinny i've got a hair

problem

yeah why are you hitting me with this

but

yeah i could i could have cured that

problem by just making him a few good

sandwiches i think

absolutely but at the point though the

point is music

take him to chili's and give him some

baby back ribs yeah

and we can fix that in two weeks and

outside of

you know the indie crowd you know there

wasn't a big female following of ram

right now you went to their concerts you

know you'd get

like i said the college crowd um the

indie crowd but it didn't have a big

female following and now i think music

has pretty much all pushed towards

females

whether it be taylor swift taylor swift

uh rap music

i mean the funny thing about rap music

is that it's not aimed at the black

community

it's aimed towards 12 to 14 year old

white girls

sure because those are the ones who have

the expendable income

whose parents or grandparents have

bought them the itunes gift cards

right and they download and pay for the

music rather than just

listening to it on the radio or their

parents are

paying for their spotify memberships and

they they screen those songs and

everything

which goes back to the smiths where if

if they were a band right now

they would have failed the smith would

have helped i think they would and they

wouldn't

no because no they absolutely would fail

because that is why

in today's music the smith songs

are not those songs that you want to

listen to oh they wouldn't work

yeah no they wouldn't reach number one

but i think there are bands like

either smashing pumpkins i mean how many

number ones you know outside of

and i mean i don't even know this i mean

did tonight tonight even reach number

one over here

honestly i don't remember but i i do

remember

when the mtv music awards came out or

the

the music video awards whatever the hell

it was right

i remember tonight yeah the yeah there

you go the

the vmas i remember recording

that yeah because the smashing pumpkins

played tonight tonight with an orchestra

yeah at the beginning of that show

and then it you know i was big smashing

pumpkins fan i remember

going to see them live on that tour

and that's when jimmy chamberlain was

in rehab and so they brought matt

cameron in

who was the drummer for soundgarden

right and

i talked my now wife at that point

girlfriend into going to the show

because she loved sound

garden wanted to see matt cameron and

so i got to see

billy corgan and i got to say

see james e haw got to see darcy

play bass and then matt cameron sitting

there on the drum set

and i'm saying this isn't smashing

pumpkins

because matt cameron's sitting on the

drum set yeah

but she was excited because matt cameron

was playing the drums and i remember

that show sitting way

far away from them in hearing tonight

tonight

played without the orchestra

yeah or everything and billy corgan not

being able to

sing the song that

we all knew was tonight tonight yeah

and i was so disappointed because i

didn't get to see him on siamese dream

tour

right i got to see him on the melancholy

tour which melancholy was such a great

freaking record but i was so

disappointed

and i said to myself i never want to see

smashing pumpkins live again now do you

think

with bands and this is almost along a

manifest destiny type

idea that they reach one point of

perfection

you know i think with smashing pumpkins

i mean to me melancholy and the infinite

sadness is one of the most

beautiful pieces of instrumental music

that i've ever heard i mean

hundred percent put that up with

beethoven

or anything but the same thing yes i

think they hit a point

where really towards the end of that

first album the music they were making

where it hit the heart of

every disenfranchised youth like i said

with please please

sorry please please please let me get

what i want and there is a light that

never goes out i think there's a period

that they just hit perfection with the

lyrics and with the guitar work

i think the same thing with the smashing

pumpkins you know even with

other british fans like coldplay um

oh let's not get started that's another

podcast

yeah but there's actually another yeah

it is but there's a period

where you know you take the scientists

or fix

you and the lyrics and the music the

piano the guitar work was perfect and

the same thing with you too

you know when they were at this you know

point in the early two or three albums

they broke out of this stuff about

singing about religion and kind of got

into love

but still had a little bit of politics

they never regained

that fandom ever again and you know as a

youtube fan at the time

i didn't understand i think that was the

first band i never understood

why they couldn't get back to be as good

as they were

i i think most of those

bands are always going to struggle with

that yeah that

there's never going to be a way that

they're going to

recoup that initial

just shock factor bacteria here is

here is my message here is my music here

is

what i have to say yeah and

once i say it

now i don't have anything more to say i

agree with that

i think you get it what's what what more

do i have to say

yeah i i just yelled at you i just said

here's what i had to say and you listen

to me

and now you heard me and now i think

well what what do i have left to say

i absolutely agree and and then some of

those

bands then start thinking well i gotta

find

other things i gotta talk about i gotta

let's see

yeah i i've gotta sing about other

things i i've gotta

yell at you about some other things

because i now i have

your attention yeah so these are the

things i

really cared about yeah now you're

following me

it's kind of like the instagram person

that says

okay now you followed me because i'm

pretty

now i'm gonna tell you about this yeah

music invited

that factor of now you've heard what

i've had to say

now i'm going to start saying some

things that i really don't care about

but you know what

this old white guy over here wearing the

three-piece suit that doesn't

give a care about what we're singing

about or our music or hadn't heard of us

is saying i'm going to write you a check

for 25 000

to go ahead and and make a

speech about this and get all these

youth guys to get behind

this stuff i think that's what we're

facing yeah i think

there's been very few bands which

have evolved through time

that have actually produced quality

albums i mean i'll go back to rem

you know especially with michael skype

you listen to the first

few albums going around stuff like dead

letter office

but when they went you know coming

through out of time which had losing my

religion

great stuff i mean it's the best

breakthrough

songs ever because it broke every rule

in terms of videos

let the song scarlet song should never

have been popular whatsoever

but you know they moved and made the

shift into monster

which at the time i mean their own fans

were like

this is an abomination but you listen

back to that record now

it's fantastic i mean it's absolutely on

the street

and then i agree and then they went back

to more of their kind of focus

and did stuff like around the sun and

their stuff and i mean i think rem were

one of those

few bands which went on past a decade

where they absolutely evolved through

the times

and actually continued making beautiful

music with beautiful lyrics and i don't

think there's been too many bands

which have had a long lifespan which

have actually been able to do that the

smiths

as much as i would have liked them to

have gone on for another two albums

i think as raw as it was and without

morrissey and johnny marr together

that was really the rawness so when

morrissey went

to his first solo album the lyrics were

good

but i think they went along exactly the

lifespan they were supposed to have

right in and possibly the smiths

might have bowed out too early maybe

they bowed out at the right time maybe

they made the right decision

maybe if you look in the history of

what happened with the smiths and the

disagreements between morrissey and

johnny mars maybe that was a blessing in

disguise

so we uh would like to thank you for

tuning in to

this episode of the wolf and the

shepherd uh

hey we extremely appreciated

all of the support and we will see you

on the next episode