One of the most powerful things about music is that it is the soundtrack of our lives. Fellow music fanatic Sharon Hepworth started a music challenge on Twitter for the month of July. Each day, fans around the world will select a song from their life and describe what it means to us. These are my songs. #SoundtrackToYourLife
Day 4
During my early high school years, there would be occasional weekends when my parents had shopping or errands to do in the city. I eventually found a way to turn this drudgery into an opportunity. I started asking my parents if we could stop off at Tower Records so I could use my allowance money to pick up a couple of new cassettes. Soon, these previously dreaded trips to the city became treasured moments. Well before the days of streaming and even before CDs were universal, I was building my cassette collection with albums I bought from Tower Records – ones that I was exposed to through Long Island’s WDRE/WLIR or via Spin Magazine. The Queen is Dead was my most treasured album – and the song that grabbed me the most from the outset was “Bigmouth Strikes Again”.
Johnny Marr’s opening guitar riff hooked me in immediately. Crafted and played with a sense of urgency, Marr showed that jangle pop could have razor sharp teeth. “Bigmouth Strikes Again”, as a title, piqued my interest immediately – and then held me captive with some of Morrissey’s most captivating lyrics. “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt. As the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt.” No one else was writing songs like The Smiths. “Bigmouth” also highlighted every member of this legendary Manchester quartet – not just Moz and Marr. Rourke’s bass line snakes about like a live fire hose, while Joyce’s drum fill at the 2:03 mark transforms his snare kit into a machine gun.
“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt. As the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt.”