“How Soon is Now?” – The Smiths
(Words/music: Johnny Marr and Morrissey, available on Hatful of Hollow, Sire 1984)

I owe a considerable debt to the Allmusic Guide; for years, this has been one of my favorite resources for learning about music and filling in the gaps in my own personal history.  I’ve told countless people about it, even if it pained me to have to describe it as “the IMDB of music.”  It’s an apt description only because this site is to me what IMDB is to many of my friends – a crucial resource, a great starting point for a deeper knowledge of the medium, and a tremendous timesuck.  If I had even the most remote curiosity about a band or an album, I went straight to Allmusic.  Hell, they also employ (among others) Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom and “Hollywood” Steve Huey of Yacht Rock fame.  If a ten ton truck crushed the internet and only left me a handful of sites, Allmusic would be one of them.

That being said, I take issue with Tim DiGravina’s synopsis of “How Soon is Now? (linked here).  In it, he cites Johnny Marr’s guitar as the focal point, and I don’t take issue with that.  He also compares the track to New Order, suggests that Morrissey whistled on the track because he “knew the band would continue to be revered by a growing army of fans and discussed in tones the British press hadn’t used since the Beatles,” and uses the term “confident depression” without defining the term.  The suggestion that the whistle was Morrissey’s way of putting himself on par with Lennon and McCartney seems like a bit of revisionist history; in 1984, much of the critical acclaim was yet to come, and “How Soon is Now?” was stuck on the b-side of a single (“William, It Was Really Nothing”) that reached number 17 – an impressive showing but not quite the “swagger” DiGravina retroactively imposes on the song.

The New Order comparison, while somewhat dubious, interests me though.  Like I did with “Bizarre Love Triangle,” I see an alternate reading in the lyrics.  The standard (and probably intended) interpretation reads the verse as “I am the son / and the heir / of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.”  However, once I started thinking about the homonyms, I read the line as “I am the sun / and the air.”  With that, DiGravina’s concept of “swagger” gained some steam; rather than feel trapped by a common and pedestrian life he’s doomed to inherit, the narrator revels in his shyness, comparing himself to heavenly bodies.  It’s a sort of existential suburban alienation where the narrator feels empowered (and an elitism) by being excluded rather than being depressed.  Then again, it also feels like sour grapes – it’s easy to put down the mainstream when you’re not part of it.  Regardless, it’s an alternate spin on the protagonist’s predicament; in both cases, he’s looking in from the outside.  On one hand, he’s the shy wallflower moping in the corner, and on the other hand he’s liberated by the exclusion – if nobody cares about him, then he can be as weird as he wants!  Of course, this alternate reading falls apart later in the song – even if he finds empowerment occasionally, he also has that same base desire for acceptance and the same depression when he’s excluded.  In that case, “sun and air” makes it even more stifling – even the basic life-giving elements doom him to an existence of watching while the cool kids have a blast, with the reminders buzzing around his head just like Marr’s divebombing slide guitar. 

Regardless, it’s hard to look towards the lyrics for what DiGravina calls “swagger,” as it’s a little too self-indulgent and mopey to pass for bravado.  Instead, it’s Marr’s relentless tremolo and slide overdubs that make the song feel assertive and remotely confrontational.  Without his punch, the whole thing would collapse upon itself into a heap of wallowing.

More on The Smiths: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm