Maria Majsa
London, 1985
On Valentine’s Day this year I didn’t get roses, I got a bike. A handsome, shiny black upright. You might think that a bike isn’t a particularly romantic gift, but I disagree.
Exhibit A: If bicycles aren’t romantic, why do they keep turning up in songs?
I could quote four right now, but my favourite has always been Back To The Old House: When you cycled by, here began all my dreams. Even as I write that line, an entire scene unfolds in my head: Suburban street. Pretty girl on a bike, hair flying. Shy lad, doomed to watch her pedal by. Will he ever be able to tell her how much he really likes her?
Absolutely not. This is a Smiths’ song, after all. He never talks to her, and her family moves away and all is lost, except the memory of the vision of her sailing past him in the street. There is a world of bunched-up adolescent URST* in that line. Anyone who has ever been a teenager could relate. And although things get a tad morose after that, you get my drift: the vision on a bike lingers. Bikes have their own romance.
On Valentine’s Day this year I didn’t get roses, I got a bike.
Exhibit B: It is possible to fall in love with pretty much anyone on a bike ride.
I used to go for rides with a friend who was a fellow Smiths fan. He had a bad stammer and couldn’t pronounce his Rs, but his politics were sound and his taste in music exemplary. On our first ride he verbally unpacked the lyrics of an obscure B-side single by The Smiths as we explored Chiswick, a pretty district of west London which occupies a meander of the River Thames.
The song was Jeane: three minutes of hollow-eyed desperation and kitchen- sink drama so raw and full of urgency, it could easily be mistaken for a live track. I remember him saying, “This song categorically means business”. And he was bang on. From the stomping force of the opening bars to the closing gasp of her name, someone is clearly getting something off their chest: Jeane, the low-life has lost its appeal and I’m tired of walking these streets to a room with a cupboard bare …
Lyrically it is a deft word sketch; the final demand on a relationship that has exhausted its line of credit. Musically it is as stripped-back bare as the cupboard in the room shared by the downtrodden lovers. The solid, workmanlike rhythm could be someone demolishing a house, or hammering the final nail into a coffin: There’s ice on the sink where we bathe, so how can you call this a home, when you know it’s a grave?
My cycling colleague said he loved the way it swept you into a black and white film of heartbreak, squalor and the promise of something better. He said it had a fierce purity and a determination which made you love it all the more for trying. I remember thinking how perfect the romance between ideas and music could sometimes be.
We stopped at a riverside pub called The Old Ship to order drinks and compare favourite lines and I fell momentarily in love with him. Even now, by association, there is something inextricably romantic to me about stammering and bike riding. Especially when combined.
© Maria Majsa
The author, 1985
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MM
I spent the 80s in London working at Penguin and Aladdin Books, living in squats and seeing loads of bands. After returning to NZ, I wrote scripts for a local soap, Shortland Street, also features for blogs and magazines, and a novel. I live in Auckland with my husband, three children and cat.
Love your piece Maria.
Johnny Marr was like a location scout, always finding the right riff to match the scene written by Moz.
Pretty sure the Jeane referred to here is his sister of the same name. The lyrics align with the first part of Moz’s autobiography and his upbringing (the opening gambit is absolutely brilliant prose, pity about the 2nd half of the book).
Thank you, JD.
Nicely put. Never thought of Marr as a location scout, but he absolutely did provide the setting and tone for those extraordinary words.
If we’re going to geek out on details – I think Mozzer’s sister was called Jacqueline, or Jackie. The song Jeane is more or less a musical version of the Shelagh Delaney play [and b+w 1960s film] A Taste of Honey. Morrissey wholesale nicked lines from this, including: ” I dreamt about you last night and I fell out of bed twice”. He also put images of Delaney on a Smiths single and album cover.
Like you I found his autobiography patchy. Loved the stuff about his childhood and 60s Manchester, but glazed over once all the score settling began later in the book. What I found most entertaining were his descriptions of people endlessly ringing his doorbell and him sitting up there in his flat ignoring everyone. In the 80s I worked very near the street where he lived. I often used to buy a big bunch of lupins on my way home and go sit on his stairs, hoping he’d come down and invite me in for tea. Seems I was one of the annoying multitudes he steadfastly ignored … Mx
Love this story.
Cheers, Alice, that’s very sweet. Mx
Thanks for this story, Maria. Really enjoyed it.
Alas, I never really got into the Smiths until well after
their demise, but I very much appreciate them now.
Isn’t that the lovely thing about music – how we can all discover things in our own time? Even if a band is no longer, that fantastic body of work is still sitting there, like Tutankhamun’s tomb, just waiting to be opened.
I saw The Smiths five times through the 80s and they were extraordinary. The atmosphere was almost hallowed – so devotional. I imagine it was similar to being at one of those massive football matches in the UK where everyone in the stands behaves like one giant creature. Flowers rained upon the stage, Mozz was in his full glory and god was in his heaven …
I remember various photos of Moz on a bicycle in the NME during the 80s. These days every hipster owns one but back then it was quite unusual. Lovely story and you look a bit like Tracey Thorn in the photo.
Hah, yes. As I mentioned to Vin – I think there’s actually a thesis to be written on The Smiths and bicycles.
You mean the photo from the 80s with all the sticky-up hair? I read Tracey Thorn’s bio the other day and was surprised to learn what a slavish Smiths/Moz fan she was. Her and Ben both, actually. She admired Moz so much she started to dress like him, write lyrics like his and pretty much saw herself as a female version of him. Who’d have thought?
Tracey Thorn, like Johnny Marr, comes across as one of the nicest and most down to earth music people of that time. I enjoyed her bio, too. She has written some beautiful lyrics but they are not much like Mozza’s! Your photo with the hair reminded me of TT at this era https://www.google.com.au/search?q=tracey+thorn+pillows+and+prayers&client=ms-android-hms-vf-au&prmd=ivsn&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMIqpWCu-jfyAIV412mCh0wAg_N#imgrc=A9jijhV_0UwkZM%3A
I agree. I follow Tracey on the Twitter as well and she seems like a really good sort. Yes we both favoured the post-punk hair. My hair inspo was Robert Smith at the time. Loved watching his barnet evolve through the 80s from flat-top to palm tree and finally, haystack. No wonder there’s a hole in the ozone. Could’ve stopped a buffalo with the amount of spray I used on mine …
Not often you post a comment 7 years after the last one, but… great story, thanks for writing it. Jeane is a haunting song, though I prefer the version with Sandy Shaw.
Good to know that a story can rise to the surface seven years on. This was one of Maria’s first Stereo Stories. We had the pleasure, about five years ago, of performing the song at one of our Stereo Stories concerts, with Maria narrating the story. She is a terrific writer.