The Smiths were never really a band I believed I truly liked until I received my high school diploma and then it all suddenly made sense. There's something beautifully haunting about Morrissey's voice as he croons you into your sweet wanna-be-veganism/celibacy. Yes, Morrissey was celibate for a short period of time. You can't write songs about heart break, misery, and sex if you're celibate. You have no frame of reference for those things other that in the past and let's face it...... Those memories are always going to be distorted. Or so science says. But fuck science, that shit is for the birds, dudebroski.

I was in love with the Smiths a few months ago (now closer to a year) and I had lost my touch until I heard the recent cover (Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want) that Zooey Deschancel destroys (Because her voice is that of a seraph [Deal with the vocab]). I should also note that M. Ward, her partner in indie-folk stardom/indie-folk star of his own fame, totally destroys Marr's guitar parts. The song is made from being the typical Manchester pop-rock/new-wave-y upbeat jangle to being hauntingly empty; drenched in reverb and delay. To wrap up this little She & Him promo (As I await, along with the legion of fans they have farmed for themselves), Zooey and M. (errr, Matt, but does anyone call him Matt?), have an amazing sense for what they need to do to a cover song to really make it great (See the Vol. 1 covers of Smokey Robinson's 'You Really Got A Hold On Me' and The Beatles' 'I Should Have Known Better').

Now, we all know the Smiths were all over the world for the brief history they had as a band (It would seem that many great bands only last a few years. With the exceptions of "great" [Via context] bands like the Rolling Stones, etc [Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that music, but the style is static and it sounds dated now], great music occurs in short bursts. The Smiths were around from 1982 through 1987 and released a mere 4 albums (Including like some 19 singles and a few random non LP occurances). That's far less than even a band like The Beatles (Who probably a had a greater effect on society due to years active and the state of the music industry then), but still leaves me wondering how a band who released four records would be able to really jump start a scene that would give birth, in my opinion, to the early roots of bands like The Promise Ring. Perhaps not greatly, but, I can see where people, like The Promise Ring's Davey Von Bohlen, would and could pull influence from.

None the less, I guess, The Smiths rule.