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Next stop, Morrissey's childhood home at 384 Kings Road, Stretford. It started raining like no tomorrow just about the time Paul and I had gotten to the end of Kings Road and were walking towards number 384. I didn't want to trip so we were just walking along the road with our umbrellas, trying not to get too wet. It was that day I realized why no one in England wears white trainers, like I was that day. Because when it rains, all the ash flies up from the road and gets on your shoes. Plus, I was wearing khakis, and while that was better than wearing jeans (which would have been a nightmare to dry out at the hotel later), they got dirty too, and since I've always been a staunch nonsmoker, it was grossing me out. |
Where one of the greatest songwriting partnerships was cemented over 2 decades ago between one Johnny Marr
came up to the house to find (Steven) Morrissey and asked him if he wanted to start a band with him.
In England, all the street signs
are attached to sides of buildings, unlike in the U.S., where are there poles marking roads at an intersection in residential neighborhoods).
As you can imagine, the 384 number on Morrissey's old house probably had been pinched innumberable times, and the most recent tenant
probably didn't bother to replace it. On the right, just to prove where I was, I took a picture of the house right at Kings Road where it meets the main
road.
| Last stop on the Morrissey tour for today: Salford Lads Club. We took the Metrolink and another bus to the SLC. By then, thankfully, it'd stopped raining. Name-checking Coronation Street, Morrissey's favorite serial (it hasn't been of late, as he complains that the new characters no longer have the gentility that he recalls with tenderness from her earlier years). Below, two shots from inside the Smiths room. I didn't take too many pictures in there, except for the photo of the shirt worn by Morrissey in the promo video for "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" and the lone Johnny Marr poster in the place (see below). Rather than let people scrawl on the walls inside the Smiths room, they provide colored Post-Its, and you can write whatever you want. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of "Words can't express what you all mean to me...viva the Smiths!" or something like that. The people at the SLC laminate these and stick them on a wall, but make room for more submissions as time goes on. We watched a short video in the SLC canteen (minimal Smiths content) and I bought a Stephen Wright black and white print for 2 quid before we left. |  |
And you knew it was coming. Here's the obligatory photo of me outside the SLC. If you like, you can send in your own photo of yourself posed outside the club and send it in electronically or by snail mail with your location; they print them out as Polaroids and hang them inside the Smiths room. So, if you'd like the fame, there you go...
posted 06/06/06
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