Back in '83, I listened to The Smiths' Peel Sessions, but didn't immediately get it. The clincher for me was a BBC2 TV special, introduced by Mark Ellen with a wry comment on the outlandishly colourful name of the band (at least that's how it was in my memory). And in particular it was the song This Night Has Opened My Eyes that got me hooked. You would always say that this reflected my morbid taste, and it's true that my other early favourite was another baby-in-jeopardy song, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, with its wardrobe towering like a beast of prey. That chorus, with all its ambivalent complexity, still gets to me. On the principle that everything makes its way on to YouTube in the end, I had a search and I'm pretty sure this is the same TV performance I saw (I remember Johnny Marr's jumper, though it's possible he just had the one stage outfit in those days).
Hmmm, not in great voice, was he? It was the inclusion of This Night…, along with the (then) recent singles and B-sides that I hadn't bothered to buy, that sent me scurrying off to Parrot Records to buy this LP as soon as it came out.
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