The Smiths, Cemetry Gates

The Smiths were active from 1982 to 1987 but I started listening to them about a decade after they broke up. I’ve always been a bit slow (I haven't watched ET yet.) Morrissey and Johnny Marr wrote Cemetry Gates (misspelt) which was on the B (for boring) side of a single but it's not boring. The title refers to the gates fronting the sprawling Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy and here am touching them.

In the song the narrator is walking through a cemetery and is crestfallen with the loves, hates, and passions of people who have died. The misspelling of "cemetery" was an unintentional error by Morrissey who said he always had trouble with the word (I struggle with "Mississippi" and "aneurysm".) It’s on The Queen Is Dead album, my favourite. Johnny Marr had the idea for the song while on a train but thought the guitar riff was too bland to fit over a song. Morrissey disagreed and encouraged him and it baked itself into a decent song.

Morrissey was obsessed with death and used to stroll through Southern Cemetery. It was a ten minute car journey from his home in Stretford. I’ve spent many a Sunday afternoon there with some sandwiches, flask and a slab of chocolate cake. I know where most of the famous occupants are and have often shown some curious people where Sir Matt Busby or LS Lowry is buried. Sometimes I sit in the car and people-watch. One evening I was there in my motor home and darkness was falling. The engine wouldn't start, no sign of life, no lights on the dashboard. Bummer. I guessed the council man who locks the gates would be forced to leave me in there for night. Thankfully I replaced the battery with the leisure battery and the engine fired up. A night with thousands of dead dudes averted.

Inside the gates...