Morrissey, singer for The Passage and what could have been …

Supposedly, Morrissey tried out for the position of singer for the Manchester band The Passage. But vocalist Lizzy Johnson was chosen instead.


'As we were spineless about singing we once auditioned a bunch of hopefuls, including a certain Steve Morrissey, who we thought a bit too glum for the likes of us. But this explains gorgeous Lizzy Johnson's presence on Devils and Angels.'

The Passage | Biography | LTM Recordings

Manchester new wave group The Passage were fronted by Dick Witts and recorded for Object Music and Cherry Red

www.ltmrecordings.com

Just imagine, Morrissey could have had quite a different life if he was chosen, and may have possibly sang on this single … the 1981 …






Musically, it’s a far cry from The New York Dolls and the 60’s girl groups that inspired him and Marr. What I find interesting is that this seems to have taken place in 1980/81, which adds some credence to my speculation that Morrissey had much more drive during that time, pre-Smiths, then he or others have led us to believe. If Marr never came around, of course both of them wouldn’t be who they are today, but I do believe there was the possibility that Morrissey would have eventually found some band to express his vision through. Even in obscurity, I believe he would have made and left his unique mark.

Thanks to @goinghome and @DaveC for the link and pointing out this bit of information.

 

[Gray Fruit]

The point is what?

Another dead end for Morrissey and how much he needed Johnny and the Smiths to succeed.

 

[BrokenFrame]

Thank god we had the smiths as they were. I wouldn't have changed a thing.

 

[Seymour Glass]

Morrissey without Marr would still be successful. Marr without Morrissey would be a session guitarist that you've never heard of.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Another dead end for Morrissey and how much he needed Johnny and the Smiths to succeed.

to be fair, they needed each other.

 

[gashonthenail]

Morrissey without Marr would still be successful. Marr without Morrissey would be a session guitarist that you've never heard of.

I disagree - I think the opposite is the case. Johnny was always going to play in a band, that was inevitable. Maybe not a band as big or as historically significant as The Smiths, but he was always going to play guitar for a living. Whereas if Johnny hadn't come knocking on the door, I think Moz might be dead in a ditch by now. I think he said something along those lines himself.

 

[Dazza]

I disagree - I think the opposite is the case. Johnny was always going to play in a band, that was inevitable. Maybe not a band as big or as historically significant as The Smiths, but he was always going to play guitar for a living. Whereas if Johnny hadn't come knocking on the door, I think Moz might be dead in a ditch by now. I think he said something along those lines himself.

I don't think he'd have been dead in a ditch but you have a point - Johnny would always have been in demand for local bands and probably reputable ones who would have gone on to achieve something, although perhaps not on the same level as the Smiths.

I've always wondered what might have happened had Bernard Sumner and Johnny had a conversation first - ok Electronic isn't for everybody's tastes but they had a definite chemistry, appeared to get on well and both had great musical ears, even if Johnny was clearly the better musician from a technical point of view.

As I understand it pre-Smiths Moz was seen as a bit of an outsider and regarded as bordering on deluded (rightly or wrongly) about his future prospects - the meeting with Tony Wilson springs to mind. You could imagine Moz trying his hand as an author had music not come calling, although we can't be too sure what the results might have been.

 

[Mimi Ramone]

I don't know. It's a lot of speculation. Fact is it just didn't happen for him for a long time, although it's clear that he had tried. Why he himself always omits the fact he tried out/got tried out for other bands remains a mystery.
And then it DID happen and it was great, so all good. But why always keep dragging Johnny in the conversation? They both found each other and made magic happen. And they both admitted that the Smiths were the best of them both because they did it together with the respective other. The "who was the Smiths thing" with repective Johnny bashing is so tiring, because not even Morrissey would ever question Johnny's contribution and talent nor would Johnny doubt Morrissey's. Would Morrissey have made it? I don't wanna know, because he did and it was great!

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting, thanks. Lack of guitars aside, I don't think this is stylistically too far removed from The Smiths aesthetic, and could easily imagine Morrissey singing over such a musical backing.

 

[Mimi Ramone]

I think nobody but Morrissey paints it that way (interestingly and tellingly enough). There are people that hung around with him (because he was going out etc.) that said, "and his magpie eyes were on the prize" (Richard Boon). He hung around, socialised, tried to make a name for him (through writing, sending potraits of him to magazines etc.) and tried out several bands. In fact he did a hell of a lot to get attention back then. There are a lot of books that researched that on the account of the people that were there. Johnny Marr said in his autobio that Morrissey was connected. He even heard of him/found him through others. Marr also said that Morrissey had a very clear vision of himself what a singer he wanted to be at the beginning of the Smiths. So there is absolutely no doubt that he was driven and obsessed to become somebody back then. But it didn't happen for a long time. As every story that ends in something big he got his lucky break and he used it.

 

[Amy]

I wonder. I think the idea that Morrissey would have died, if Johnny didn’t come along,
has been greatly exaggerated and romanticized by people, and especially by Morrissey.

But if that's how it felt when he was jobless and skint and living 'in the arse of the world', who is anyone to argue? Even if it was exaggerated, it makes for great rock and roll mythology like Lieber and Stoller, McCartney first meeting Lennon etc and that's what they wanted. Johnny said that M used to ask him to tell him 'the story' of how he found him over and over again. It is a miserable sign of how bitter and poisonous things have become that we can't even have the origin story of The Smiths without turning it into a pissing contest. It was a lightning bolt, a piece of magic, that's all that matters.

 

[general disarray]

I don't think he'd have been dead in a ditch but you have a point - Johnny would always have been in demand for local bands and probably reputable ones who would have gone on to achieve something, although perhaps not on the same level as the Smiths.

I've always wondered what might have happened had Bernard Sumner and Johnny had a conversation first - ok Electronic isn't for everybody's tastes but they had a definite chemistry, appeared to get on well and both had great musical ears, even if Johnny was clearly the better musician from a technical point of view.

As I understand it pre-Smiths Moz was seen as a bit of an outsider and regarded as bordering on deluded (rightly or wrongly) about his future prospects - the meeting with Tony Wilson springs to mind. You could imagine Moz trying his hand as an author had music not come calling, although we can't be too sure what the results might have been.

Bulbous salutations my friend, Bulbous salutations.

 

[gashonthenail]

I think nobody but Morrissey paints it that way (interestingly and tellingly enough). There are people that hung around with him (because he was going out etc.) that said, "and his magpie eyes were on the prize" (Richard Boon). He hung around, socialised, tried to make a name for him (through writing, sending potraits of him to magazines etc.) and tried out several bands. In fact he did a hell of a lot to get attention back then. There are a lot of books that researched that on the account of the people that were there. Johnny Marr said in his autobio that Morrissey was connected. He even heard of him/found him through others. Marr also said that Morrissey had a very clear vision of himself what a singer he wanted to be at the beginning of the Smiths. So there is absolutely no doubt that he was driven and obsessed to become somebody back then. But it didn't happen for a long time. As every story that ends in something big he got his lucky break and he used it.

The birth of The Smiths is indeed now part of myth and an example of the magic that comes from random events coming together in time and space.
Did Johnny use that word about Moz, 'connected'? I don't know if he was so much 'connected', more like on the music scene people would say - here's that weird, shy guy who thinks he's going to be a singer. Johnny though saw something in Moz, thank God. Not sure how many others would have seen it back then when Moz was still stuck in his bedroom?

 

[ACTON]

That took a while to come out.

 

[Dazza]

Bulbous salutations my friend, Bulbous salutations.

well there was THAT, although he may have progressed in that regard as he no doubt did as a songwriter after 1984. His peak as a writer was probably between the Queen is dead and Vauxhall for my money?

 

[gordyboy9]

video above sounds musically like early human league,being boiled springs to mind.

 

[gordyboy9]

as i look into my crystal balls and see that the smiths never happened which left M to head onto euston to become a music journalist with the new musical express.

 

[Lujan369]

I disagree - I think the opposite is the case. Johnny was always going to play in a band, that was inevitable. Maybe not a band as big or as historically significant as The Smiths, but he was always going to play guitar for a living. Whereas if Johnny hadn't come knocking on the door, I think Moz might be dead in a ditch by now. I think he said something along those lines himself.

Well, I disagree. Moz entered the music scene, writing about music, he was getting into that world. Marr didn't go knocking on Morrissey's door out of nowhere..., Johnny had good references about Moz and that's why he went looking for him. I think Linder is the link between the two. But Morrissey planted his path, he was the creator of his own dream, to have a band. Moz didn't stay working in an office, it's cause and effect... The seeker finds.. So it's not Johnny Marr's work that Morrissey became the singer of the Smiths.Moz struggled with depression and pulled through, he had a good friend who pushed him. Also after The Smiths, Moz continued alone, no one knocked on his door, and here we have 40 years of career and celebrating with world tour. That's Moz for me. Long live Mozuchisss

 

[Mimi Ramone]

The birth of The Smiths is indeed now part of myth and an example of the magic that comes from random events coming together in time and space.
Did Johnny use that word about Moz, 'connected'? I don't know if he was so much 'connected', more like on the music scene people would say - here's that weird, shy guy who thinks he's going to be a singer. Johnny though saw something in Moz, thank God. Not sure how many others would have seen it back then when Moz was still stuck in his bedroom?

I didn't quote Johnny, I paraphrased loosely from what I remembered. In fact he did say, that he was given the impression that Morrissey was a "social hermit with absolutely no friends, but he introduced me to quite a few people" and that they "had piqued the interest of the Manchester old guard, who had known Morrissey from being around gigs during the punk days". Oh and that "the only guy I'd heard was any good was Steven Morrissey, who Billy Duffy (...) had been in a band with a few years before". In Tony Fletchers book "A light that never goes out" there are a lot of accounts on what he all tried, whom he tried to connect with etc. I didn't mean that he wasn't the depressive guy often at home and maybe he got more and more depressive along the way, because that also seems to be a common fact. I just don't see the story mentioned in this threat as new evidence that he was driven, because from what I read (of course I don't know him) it's already obvious that he was very driven. But that doesn't equate to success and I don't think it's necessarily evidence that he would have made it anyway, because he was not getting anywhere until the thing with Johmny happened (although he tried!) And that's the beautiful magic of fate, of things just falling into place sometimes. Anyway to quote from the horse's mouth "When we met you and I were not successful. We both helped each other become whatever it is we are today. Can you not just leave it at that?"
Yeah, can we not just leave it at that?

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

But if that's how it felt when he was jobless and skint and living 'in the arse of the world', who is anyone to argue? Even if it was exaggerated, it makes for great rock and roll mythology like Lieber and Stoller, McCartney first meeting Lennon etc and that's what they wanted. Johnny said that M used to ask him to tell him 'the story' of how he found him over and over again. It is a miserable sign of how bitter and poisonous things have become that we can't even have the origin story of The Smiths without turning it into a pissing contest. It was a lightning bolt, a we piece of magic, that's all that matters.

I’m sure he felt that way, a lot of undiscovered talent will give the same sad story, a story we all love and want to believe. And of course Morrissey wants to be that damsel that’s depressed saved by a knight with Rickenbacker.

My belief is that he wasn’t really as disabled by depression and on his deathbed as he or others like to spin. Around 1980, example this thread, he was reaching out to other kindred spirits, making positive efforts to reach his goal, maybe more than we know. Also around this time, if you read the Mackie pen pal letters, they are very witty and cheerful ( for him, that is) anyway, not the signs of someone that’s about to give up if Johnny never arrived. But … thank the gods he did!