When did you become a Smiths/Morrissey fan?

[++++++]

I'm almost embarrased to admit it's only been this long, but it was when I saw the Irish Blood, English Heart music video. My only awareness of him prior to that was seeing the strange man with the quiff on the cover of Maladjusted in music stores and from the studio version of Jack the Ripper, which someone included on a mix CD for me. You Are The Quarry turned out to be a great album to cut my teeth on... I've loved the guy (and The Smiths, of course) ever since.

 

[Math Tinder]

My friend in school had Hatful of Hollow on cassette.
When I heard William... my jaw dropped.
"The rain falls hard on a humdrum town..."
The most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.
I think it was early 1985.

That was the song for me too, Jose. I heard How Soon Is Now, or part of it rather, in the trailer for a terrible movie called Cruel Intentions, around the end of 1998. I asked for The Smiths Best I for Christmas, and when I heard William, It Was Really Nothing, that was it. The words that made me crumble were: 'I don't dream about anyone / Except myself'. God. Kill me now.

love, math+

 

[Life_Is_A_Pigsty]

In 1989 I heard a compilation tape which contained Suedehead, a single from the previous year, and the vocals were just very strange at first and then very interesting and then very addictive. I then got a selection of Smiths stuff taped for me and bought the new solo single Ouija Board, Ouija Board...And thinking about it now, it all seems very exciting...

 

[endoman]

Bought hand in glove as a single, then loved Jeane on the b side of Charming Man,

The LP, the smiths, seemed to take an awful long time to come out. I have the whole lot of Smiths on Vinyl, I must by a decent turntable to hear it properly again.

 

[girl in a drab dress]

I heard the line "I would go out tonight but I haven't got a stitch to wear" played at an Indie club and loved the sentiment!!! HAd to find out what it was - we all know the answer - and ruched out and bought thte cheaper option at the time, The New York 12" remix. From then on I've been hooked!!

 

[girl in a drab dress]

Make a note....must use the spell checker!!

 

[Shifty]

Perhaps like many people I really got into Morrissey in my mid teens when the horrors of adolescence arrived. 'November...' was the first single I bought for myself (rather than nicking my sister's) and every day after school I'd devotedly watch the Hulmerist video, almost as if I was looking for clues that would make sense of things.

 

[ivanhoe]

The queen is dead, long live the king.

I have to confess that i whole heartedly resisted the Smiths at first, i have always run a mile from anything that holds mass appeal on the grounds that it could never hold any interest for me.
As a die hard punk i shunned and too my shame derided them until the queen is dead when a good, and very persistant friend, finally broke my withering resistance.
From then til now my support hasnt wavered and i truly beleive Morrissey gets better and better. As wonderful as the Smiths were they did have a precocious and dare i say slightly pretentious air .
Moz has matured into an untouchable artist of unswerving integrity and i'll shut up now.

 

[Alexandra]

The queen is dead, long live the king.

I have to confess that i whole heartedly resisted the Smiths at first, i have always run a mile from anything that holds mass appeal on the grounds that it could never hold any interest for me.
As a die hard punk i shunned and too my shame derided them until the queen is dead when a good, and very persistant friend, finally broke my withering resistance.
From then til now my support hasnt wavered and i truly beleive Morrissey gets better and better. As wonderful as the Smiths were they did have a precocious and dare i say slightly pretentious air .
Moz has matured into an untouchable artist of unswerving integrity and i'll shut up now.

Please don't!
I enjoyed what you wrote - and agree with you whole heartedly!

 

[Vauxhall95]

Posting the year might have been better. I still remember the fateful night, after I'd driven my girlfriend home no less, listening to an independent AM radio station and they played "Bigmouth Strikes Again". They didn't state the band, but somehow I knew enough to know it was The Smiths. I went out the very next day to buy the best of The Smiths I and then the love affair began, one fateful night in 1993.

 

[WhatSheSaid]

In 1984 when I was 15. I saw them for the first time in 1985, Morrissey walked off the stage and refused to go back on. Still remember it clearly 21 years later and still love him!

 

[Kuiper]

I became a fan sometime in 2004 or 2005, but it wasn't because of You Are the Quarry. Just at that time, I became familiar with some of his early solo songs, and gradually became a bigger fan as I discovered more of his work with The Smiths and solo.

 

[Rushes]

In 1984 when I was 15. I saw them for the first time in 1985, Morrissey walked off the stage and refused to go back on. Still remember it clearly 21 years later and still love him!

Why did he walk off? It wasn't the "sausage incident", was it?!

 

[MrRoboto]

sadly, i missed the smiths/moz when i could have used them most: during my adolesent years. But i thankfully gave Moz a chance randomly in 2004 after doing my best to avoid him after i first heard him in 1994 and have never looked back since!

 

[ivanhoe]

Please don't!
I enjoyed what you wrote - and agree with you whole heartedly!

Very kind Alexandra. Thankyou.

 

[darling]

It was 1989. My best friend was already a fan and she borrowed me "Meat is Murder" album.

 

[slimjim]

I started listen to Morrissey/Smiths in 1998, before that ive been listening to Punk since 1978 and i havent even heard Smiths because i always thought that they where too gay for an old punk like me.
But in 1998 when i was putting up new wallpapers in our daughters room i borrowed a Smiths - Best of CD on the library and got really stuck to them, now i really enjoy listening to Morrissey and started to collect all records and alot of bootlegs to.

Funny thing that i done much work in our house and i listened to a special band to each room ive done.
Kitchen - Cock Sparrer
TV room - Primal Scream
Our Daughters room - the Smiths
Our boys room - Sort Sol

 

[linder]

1988 Rank, I was 14 at the time
I used to go to the library a lot to check out LP's. One of them was Rank. Ask did it- "Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you..."
I thought: yeah, that's it, so true, and nobody ever sings about that!
I vaguely remembered Bigmouth and Girlfriend in a Coma. It wasn't till '91 that I ever saw Morrissey on TV, the Sing Your Life vid and then i properly fell in love with the Man. I still have a soft spot for that song

 

[lilybett]

My best friend's been into him for as long as I've known her, and I used to scoff at her about it because I thought he was oooold and past-it and all that (now, of course, I'm 10000x more of a nutter-fan than she is)

I always quite liked There Is A Light... and Bigmouth... but that was it. One day she insisted on making me listen to Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and I (as she knew I would) was like "oh, my God! This man is singing about my life!"

And it went from there. This was just before ...Quarry came out, because I remember rushing out to buy it and not being disappointed. So I've been into him for about 2 years now. I honestly don't know what I did with myself before Steph led me to Morrissey haha! What was I listening to?! However did I convince myself someone feels the same way I do?!

But yeah. I'm only 21 (and 3 days!). I wasn't old enough to have liked The Smiths at the time. I am SO envious of those of you who got to see them live.

 

[Sandy Shore]

A friend played a tape with Panic on a socialistcamp in a cabin the outskirts of Halden, Norway early 1990, I was 16 years old. That song opened a brand new world to me.

A girlfriend gave me Bona drag later the same year, and Kill uncle was the first Moz-album I bought.