The Smiths In Twelve Videos
A visual history of The Smiths in a dozen clips
I know what you’re thinking: The Smiths didn’t make videos. Yes, but there’s even a video about that, and I of all people should know as much! Besides, this is 2025, we live in the YouTube era, and if it made it on to a camera – and even if it didn’t - there’s a chance it’s been archived. And so, following on from my presentation of May 31st, “How Soon Is Now? The Smiths 40 Years On” in which I included several videos of Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce at their collective best, here is largely different, hopefully objective, chronologically listed Top Dozen Smiths videos, as now collected on a You Tube playlist.
1) “MISERABLE LIE,” THE HAÇIENDA, FEB 8 1983.
It’s The Smiths’ third ever gig, their second with bassist Andy Rourke, their first without dancer James Maker, and their debut at The Haçienda, where they are opening for 52nd Street. There is no reason to express greatness. And yet here they are, fully formed, and just about the finished deal already. Morrissey, in particular, after years of rejection and frustration and isolation, is a front man unleashed: “he stalks the stage and occasionally crouches on it,” wrote a certain biographer, “and though his voice lacks for range, his confidence in it is apparent in its volume, the way he pronounces the lyrics meticulously, the occasional yelp for effect…”
It’s a significant mark of The Smiths’ early momentum that all eight songs performed at this gig would make it onto record, one of them - “Handsome Devil,” the B-side to debut single “Hand In Glove,” itself making its own first outing here – as recorded at this very show. Still, my own personal fave is the finale, that definition of love as just a “Miserable Lie,” especially for when Morrissey breaks into falsetto on the lines “I need advice, I need advice/nobody ever looks at me twice.” There is quite a lot of live footage from The Smiths in 1983 – including the Brixton Ace, the Derby Assembly Rooms, and a return visit to the Hacienda – and all of it is arguably “better” than the Feb show below, but this earliest footage is a wonderful thing to behold.
2) “THIS CHARMING MAN,” as filmed for THE TUBE, SEPTEMBER 1983.
Aired on November 4, 1983, this special promo “film” shot by Channel 4’s The Tube represents the first time The Smiths were seen on British television, and therefore as an introduction for many people not just to a much ballyhoo’d band but to the incredible second single that was “This Charming Man.” The clip formed part of a longer profile on two independent labels: London’s Rough Trade and Newcastle’s Kitchenware label, and having just been hired by The Tube as an occasional co-presenter for the second season, I was engaged in the late summer to interview Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis (off-camera), largely about his hopes and expectation for The Smiths.
It’s a clip that I can’t find on YouTube right now, but it’s okay because you don’t need to watch that; you need to watch this - The Smiths looking truly retro psychedelic resplendent as they lip-sync/mime on a bed of flowers in their Portland Street, Manchester headquarters. Morrissey waves a bouquet in what would soon become trademark fashion, and he is shown at the expense of Johnny Marr and his moptop; director Geoff Wonfor mistook the guitarist’s carefully curated “wasted” look as the real thing, and decided not to promote a mistaken impression of drug abuse.
You may notice that this is referenced by The Smiths’ “official” YouTube channel as the equally “official” video. It was nothing of the sort; The Smiths refused to make promo videos for as long as they could get away with it. I am not going to show you the clip of Morrissey declaring as much to the world in his debut TV interview, for fear of a) too much of The Tube (given what follows at Number 3), and b) to save my own embarrassment. Suffice to say that clip is here, and it went out live on national TV from the balcony of The Hacienda, on January 2, 1984, by which time “This Charming Man” had served as the group – and Rough Trade’s – first hit single.
3) “BARBARISM BEGINS AT HOME,” THE TUBE, March 16, 1984
Barely four months after their first TV exposure on the show, only two months after my “entertaining” interview with Morrissey at the Haç, The Smiths return to grace The Tube again, this time as headliners and show closers. It’s their first time at the Tyne Tees headquarters in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and their three-song live performance is introduced by a blond geezer in a blue shirt who to this day feels fortunate to have been in attendance, especially given that for the next two years, The Smiths opted not to perform live in television studios. Credit then to everyone involved that this remains such a stellar, arguably seminal performance. The group, whose three playing members have an average age of 20, are already meticulous musicians, with Morrissey in especially fine fettle, brandishing his bouquet, twirling his scrawny frame, and at one point, collapsing to the floor in suitably dramatic fashion. The in-studio director has none of Wonfor’s antipathy for Johnny Marr, whose seemingly effortless guitar picking is shown in close-up as is Andy Rourke’s perfectly pronounced bass plucking. (Mike Joyce, however, is barely seen.)
To start with, the group run through a validation of “Hand In Glove” and that other early stalwart “Still Ill,” before giving over the second half of their 15-minute slot to a song still ten months from release, the angst-funk classic – and it is a classic – that is “Barbarism Begins At Home.” For those in the studio (some of whom are shown dancing madly in the back rows) and for those watching from home, “Barbarism” is early confirmation that The Smiths are much more than the (mildly disappointing) album that was The Smiths and a couple of hit singles. They have greatness within them.
4) THE SMITHS WITH SANDIE SHAW: SPLAT! April 1984
Every group does something daft for television in their early days - some even in their later days - and thankfully, The Smiths were no exception. Here, for a segment of a children’s show I didn’t even know about at the time, they let their hair down alongside their guard for an open-top bus ride with kiddies who ask fanzine-like questions such as “How did you get the name The Smiths?”, before all and sundry disembark into Kew Gardens. There, Morrissey comically attempts to act surprised while exclaiming “Look! It’s Sandie Shaw,” a name that shawly says nothing to the kids about their lives. Nonetheless, Johnny has brought his acoustic guitar, Sandie has brought her charisma, and we are treated to a wonderful rendition of “Hand In Glove,” the other Smiths looking on gleefully at the sweet silliness of it all.
5) “WILLIAM, IT WAS REALLY NOTHING,” TOP OF THE POPS, August 1984
For many tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, it was the group’s first appearance on the national British chart show, back in November ’83 with the aforementioned “This Charming Man” that sold the Smiths to a new, “indie” generation. But we’ve already featured that song and my own personal TOTP favourite is from August 1984, when they mimed to another truly perfect pop song, “William, It Was Really Nothing,” while the audience claps along relentlessly and balloons are floated stageword in TOTP’s inimitably immature fashion.
Immune to these exterior factors, the group exude cool-as-fuck chic: Johnny Marr with a perfect coiffeur, eye mascara, and sporting a delectable pink button-down shirt; Andy Rourke with hair dyed blond and wearing shades; Mike Joyce in work vest. Yet again though, it’s Morrissey who steals the camera, not just because he is at his most beautiful, most televisually comfortable and most effortlessly commanding, but for that moment when he strips away his surprisingly stylish shirt to reveal the words “Marry Me” scrawled on his chest, performing the second half of the song – i.e. all of about a minute – all but naked from the waist up. He clearly has not been working out, but he is nonetheless fit. It’s evident even to my very heterosexual eyes why he was fast becoming an equal-opportunity sex idol.
6) TONY WILSON interviews THE SMITHS for GRANADA REPORTS, Feb 21, 1985.
Steven Patrick Morrissey and Anthony Wilson had what can best be described as a complicated relationship, one that extended back to around 1976, and which I write about it in some detail in my biography. Suffice to say that both had strong opinions that they were more than ready to share, often about and even with each other, and especially on national television. In this clip featuring Wilson at his day-gig with Granada TV, the Factory Records and Haçienda co-owner, possibly still smarting from his failure to even try and sign The Smiths in1982-83, decides that attack is the best form of excuse and takes turns assailing, first, the rhythm section, then Johnny, and finally Morrissey himself for apparent crimes against Manchester and each other, and for daring to take on social-political subject matter such as on “The Headmaster Ritual.” To his credit, Morrissey does not rise to the bait as much as he carefully removes it from Wilson’s mouth, chews on it, digests it, then regurgitates it and hands it back to Wilson in the form of articulate, calm and persuasive soundbites that sound much more reasoned than the questions they answer. Game, set and match, The Smiths.
7) “RUSHOLME RUFFIANS,” La Edad d’Oro, MADRID, May 18, 1985
A latter era Morrissey might have used the word “criminal” to describe the lack of quality live concert footage of The Smiths from 1984 onwards. Thankfully, on May 18 1985, at the end of a long day spent checking in and out of different hotels dodging official publicist Scott Piering, who had shown up looking to cement his informal role as manager, and various other “executives” from Rough Trade, who had received a legal notice that morning in London via an American solicitor that The Smiths planned to walk away from their (water-tight) recording contract, The Smiths nonetheless gathered themselves for a killer outdoor show at “The Gold Stage” in Madrid that was filmed for national television. The clips that have survived onto YT are not of the best quality, but you can still see, hear and feel the collective magic of a Smiths live show – and sense from audience reaction that what had started as a British phenomenon was now truly pan-European. The whole concert is available, but I’ll choose, from that year’s album Meat Is Murder, “Rusholme Ruffians,” simply because I love it so.
8) “HOW SOON IS NOW,” “promo” video, 1985
As we all know by now, The Smiths did not ‘do’ videos. Sire Records did, however, and when “How Soon Is Now?” – foolishly initial wasted as a bonus track on the “William” 12” – gathered Stateside steam as an import, Sire choose to promote it as a US single, repackage Meat Is Murder with the song leading out Side 2, and, The Smiths’ feelings be further damned, make a video for “How Soon Is Now?,” going so far as to include video footage by Grant Showbiz, who like the band themselves claimed to know nothing about it until presented with the fait a complis. For all the use of the home footage and scenes of what Johnny Marr called “collapsing buildings in Cleveland,” it was the appearance of a female model that made the clip work. She doesn’t do much, but that’s partly the point; she just is.
In deference to The Smiths themselves, I might not have chosen to include this clip, but I defer instead to my perennially close if physically distant friend Denise Alexander, a fellow Londoner of the era who commented under Part 1 of my Johnny Marr interview extracts, “Had I seen the American clip for ‘how soon is now’ at the time I would’ve played it on repeat. I love the vibe. I love the chick in the red.” So did a generation of Americans, for whom this served as their “This Charming Man” on Top of the Pops. Sadly, no footage seems to exist, at least on YT, of the band’s subsequent US tour that year.
9) “BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN,” “VICAR IN A TUTU,” THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST, May 20 1986.
In 1986, perhaps emboldened by the addition of Craig Gannon on second guitar, The Smiths began performing live on television again, beginning with an incendiary appearance on the BBC’s Whistle Test, introduced competently and confidently (for once!) by Andy Kershaw. New single “Bigmouth Strikes Again” is so tight it almost passes for a lip-synch, but the subsequent “Vicar In a Tutu” crackles and pops with fire and frenzy, leaving no such doubts. This was, for many, the introduction of The Smiths as Rock Group, and it looked promising.
10) “THE QUEEN IS DEAD” by Derek Jarman, 1986.
The Smiths had boxed themselves into a corner with that early declaration that they would never make a promo video. When it became apparent that The Queen Is Dead album was too good all around not to have something visual going for it, the decision was made to commission director Derek Jarman to make short films for the title track, its standout ballad “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” and the associated glam rock single “Panic.” (This, it should be said, was a process that R.E.M. had figured out back in 1984, when their own early antipathy towards MTV saw them turn in a Left Of Reckoning film instead.) Of the three, it’s the title track that works best, perhaps because we associate Jarman with his QEII film of only ten years earlier, Jubilee. Nobody I know of has subsequently heralded this thirteen-minute short film for its Greatness, especially compared to the music it depicts, but it was Art, and that was enough to buy The Smiths some credibility, without losing face.
11) “LONDON,” Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, October 21, 1986.
The Smiths toured as a five-piece in 1986, though again there is a frustrating lack of footage available for visual evidence. A clip of “How Soon Is Now?,” shot in a venue unstated (UK, USA? Anyone?) from what was probably the balcony reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the twin-guitar line-up: while Johnny Marr was entitled to have a support player, and groups should experiment and expand if need be, there are few Smiths fans who won’t acknowledge that the addition of Gannon upset the equilibrium and surely sped up the subsequent disbandment, and in that clip, “How Soon Is Now?” loses its subtlety and comes across as more of a Rawk Anthem.
But in Nottingham, on the group’s late 1986 tour, there are no such concerns. The show is helped by the audience, who have room to dance – furiously! – and by the group’s reciprocal energy. Though the audio lacks finesse and the footage is fuzzy, this is one show I could watch and watch, and I was initially hard pressed to hand pick a single song. But it just has to be “London.” That this is one of the greatest of Smiths’ B-sides was later confirmed when it showed up on Side 1 of 1987’s UK compilation The World Won’t Listen, sandwiched in-between four A-sides, but for the Nottingham audience that was all in the future, the song still months away from release (on the flip of “Shoplifters Of The World Unite”) and therefore largely an unknown quantity. Nonetheless, it is already an explosive full-throttled three-minute anthem, the instrumental section at the end seeing Morrissey dancing as if fully possessed – with comparisons to Mick Jagger (and, it has to be said, Michael Stipe) justified when you watch him shadow-box and gyrate. The Smiths are rocking hard here, but they aren’t Hard Rock, and that’s a crucial differential.
I have always loved this song, and though the lyrics – opening lines “Smoke lingers 'round your fingers/Train, heave on to Euston” - always suggested reference to the closing scene of the film Billy Liar, they were on my mind and my lips on Saturday May 17 of this year for a different reason. That was the day I entered that same Euston station on my way to the FA Cup Final at Wembley where I mingled with many a Manchester City fan fresh off that heaving train to London, and found myself singing (to myself), the subsequent chorus, “Do you think you’ve made the right decision this time?” May 17 2025 duly belonged to (South) London. But in 1986, the whole of the UK belonged to The Smiths.
12) THE SOUTH BANK SHOW, October 18, 1987.
As noted above, with The Queen Is Dead The Smiths transcended the indie rock world to become – already – a British institution, further confirmation of which came via news that the esteemed South Bank Show was preparing a documentary on them in 1987, intending to double up as promotion for their fourth album, Strangeways Here We Come. By the time the album was released and the show lined up for broadcast, however, the group had imploded – or rather, Johnny Marr had exited stage left, with temporary ideas by The Other Three of replacing him soon to be wisely abandoned. A “posthumous” introduction for the South Bank Show was quickly cobbled together by/for host Melvyn Bragg, along with a reassembled finale, but otherwise the show went out as originally edited, demonstrating what not so much what still could have been, but what was. And that was something uniquely special in the annals of British music history.
In fact, in many ways, given The Smiths’ convoluted, complex and frequently contrary artistic and business practices and processes, this was the most fitting of visual swan songs. Subsequent attempts at posthumous documentaries would follow with increasing frequency down the years, but frankly (Mr. Shankly) this was already the definitive statement.
Thank you for reading! If you have your own suggestions, challenges or contradictions, leave them in the comments. If you like what you read, subscribe. If you really like what you read, up that subscription for a nominal monthly or annual charge and you’ll get bonuses like my two recent Johnny Marr interview extracts. And if you want to share this post or this page with this friends, there is a handy button for that as well!
Thanks for this. When The Smiths were at their heyday, I was popping out babies and the only music I heard was Sesame Street , but I'm totally fascinated by them now. Thanks!
I seem to recall that Johnny Marr took a far amount of camcorder footage during the recording of ‘Strangeways…’. , I wonder if that will ever see the light of day...