Set the Boy Free

by Johnny Marr

  I had to think about that. No one had ever asked me that question before. I wanted to give her a genuine answer, so after pausing to think for a minute I said, ‘Colours.’

  ‘Colours?’ she said. ‘What colours? Trees? Nature? What do you mean?’ She was intrigued.

  I thought again, a bit unsure of how to reply. ‘Bikes,’ I said, ‘and … clothes.’

  She laughed, but I was sincere and she said, ‘Right, of course.’

  I walked home, thinking hard about our conversation. An artist … it sounded good, and it felt good, as if a door had been shown to me, a door that was wide open.

  My answer about colours and bikes and clothes wasn’t actually as abstract as it sounded. I’d become fascinated by colours, and I would obsess about a specific shade of green or blue in the way that I did about songs. It started in Ardwick when my dad got me a bike he’d bought off a mate. My Uncle Mike had showed me how to take it apart and respray it, and what had been an old purple junker had been transformed into a stunning machine of metallic bronze, which was a colour I didn’t even know existed. A few weeks later I sprayed my bike metallic gold, then silver with dark red touches, and then another colour, and on and on it went. I loved painting bikes. I would examine the colours up close and would be mesmerised by them, and I wondered why I’d get a different feeling from one colour to another one.

  When it came to clothes my environment couldn’t have been more perfect. Working-class people are mad about fashion: they use their clothes to express who they are and who they want to be. If it’s not exactly 100 per cent true that ‘clothes maketh the man’, then it’s definitely a fact that clothes can maketh the man look a bit more interesting to girls and to other boys too.

  The trends in my neighbourhood changed rapidly – you had to be fairly vigilant to keep up. Sometimes it was just about a colour, and this was the case with Oxford bags: extremely wide trousers that covered your shoes and came in an array of colours that became more desirable with every passing week. Dark red Oxfords were referred to by everyone as ‘wines’, and I coveted and obsessed over the vibrant ‘electric blues’ and beautiful ‘bottle greens’ until my parents bought me a pair just to shut me up. Best of all though were the ‘petrol blues’, a shade so perfect it would always be my favourite colour, and I would go to a shop in Moss Side called Justin’s just to look at them. When it came to colours, however, nothing was ever as beautiful as the jackets and trousers called ‘tonics’, which were made from pieces of cloth that changed from gold to green, or maroon to blue, and which were so sublime that I sometimes thought of them as supernatural.

  My favourite place for clothes was the Wythenshawe Park Fair, which came to the neighbourhood for three days every Easter. It was a ten-minute walk from my front door and was the highlight of the year for kids from all over south Manchester, who came to find adventure and engage in all sorts of teenage activity while trying to avoid the inevitable threat of violence that could break out at any time. Every minute was action-packed, and I’d be there from when the first ride started in the morning until the last ride stopped at night. I’d hang around the Speedway and the waltzers and take in everything. Girls would be screaming as they whizzed by, and ‘Blockbuster!’ and ‘School’s Out’ would blare out from loudspeakers above the racket and commotion. There was a brand-new movement in pop music that was reclaiming the brash energy of rock ’n’ roll and was built on trashy guitars, tribal drums and stomping beats, and I loved it. The bands all dressed garishly, with lots of make-up. They had names like Sweet, Bowie and Roxy, and played songs with titles like ‘Teenage Rampage’ and ‘All the Young Dudes’. It was for rowdy young kids looking for excitement, and it went under the name of glam rock.

  The best new band of all for me was T.Rex. Their song ‘Jeepster’ was the first record that I bought with my own money. I found it in Rumbelows, a furniture shop that sold electrical items and record players that were known as ‘stereograms’. I’d gone in there because I knew they sold records cheap, and in a box of ex-chart singles I came across this amazing record. The label had a picture of a guy with a guitar on it; he was standing in the grass with his bandmate and was obviously wearing make-up. I was nine and I’d never seen anyone look like that before. I handed over my ten pence, and as I walked home I kept taking it out of the paper bag to look at it. When I got to the house I raced to the front room, switched on the family record player and put it on. The song kicked off with a drumbeat and then a guitar and handclaps. It sounded like people were playing in some room somewhere, not at all like the other pop songs that were around with their orchestras and pianos and boy-band harmonies. This song sounded odd, more alluring, a bit weird. Then I heard the singer’s voice: ‘You’re so sweet, you’re so fine …’ I pictured the enigmatic man in the make-up on the label, and he sounded like he looked. Within seconds the record got to the hook ‘Girl, I’m just a Jeepster for your love’ and hit an unexpected chord change that was strange and moody. Forty-five seconds into it I was already planning on playing it again. I was on a journey. Hearing ‘Jeepster’ for the first time wasn’t about hearing a song, it was about discovering a sound. I didn’t care what he was singing about, it just sounded right with the music. The phrase that jumped out was ‘You’ve got the universe reclining in your hair’, which to a nine-year-old was odd but striking. Somehow it all made sense.

  Marc Bolan became my idol. I collected every poster and photo of him I could find, usually from girls’ magazines like Jackie, and I went to the cinema to see his film Born to Boogie. Like George Best and Bruce Lee, Marc Bolan was small, audacious and good-looking, but best of all he was a pop star who played the guitar. He was also about to go on a creative streak, releasing a string of brilliant hit singles that would make him one of the most important figures of the decade. In 1972, not long after I bought ‘Jeepster’, T.Rex released the single ‘Metal Guru’, a record I thought was so beautiful, it sounded like it came from another world, yet was strangely familiar to me. I watched him perform it on Top of the Pops, and was so ecstatic after seeing it that I got on my bike and rode off down the roads until I got lost, then had to find my way home when I came back to my senses. Shortly after this I started to think about how Bolan had changed the spelling of his name from Mark to Marc, and it gave me an idea. If I ever changed my name from the seemingly unpronounceable Maher, a good way to spell it would be Marr.

  Buying ‘Jeepster’ as my first record was a total fluke. It could have worked out differently had it not been for the picture of Bolan and Mickey Finn on the label. There’s no doubt that I would have been a Marc Bolan fan eventually, but the significance of owning that first record at that point in my life went deeper, as ‘Jeepster’ and the B-side ‘Life’s a Gas’ became the first songs I taught myself to play on the guitar, and that started me on the road to writing songs of my own.

  A year earlier, my dad had taken me to Reno’s guitar shop on Oxford Road and bought me a new acoustic. It was decent enough to play properly, and the practice I was putting in was starting to pay off. I didn’t have my own record player, so I’d drag my parents’ one off the sideboard in the front room and into the middle of the floor, and when everyone was out or in the kitchen I’d sit and learn from the records I’d bought or borrowed from my friends from the estate – usually Mark Johnson and Mike Gallway, who had the same tastes as me. In studying the records closely I picked up incidental things about arrangements and production, and I noticed that different instruments would come in and out for effect or that a vocal line would be doubled with a guitar or organ to make it stronger. The records in the early 1970s were unconventional and quirky, and instead of focusing solely on what the guitars were doing I would try to play what I was hearing on the whole record, giving me an accidental ‘one-man band’ approach. When the constant playing on the floor in the front room finally got too much for the rest of the family, they’d send me into the hallway so they could watch television, until eventually I got my own record play
er.

  For me, having my own record player in my room was like a scientist getting his own laboratory, and I made the most of it. Now I could experiment all I wanted, and although I was sharing my room with my new baby brother, he would have to grow to love it.

  My brother Ian’s arrival was a new chapter for the family, and it brought us all even closer together. My parents were delighted, and it was especially nice for me and Claire to have a new sibling to fuss over. Having Ian around made me more grown up. Not only were Claire and I given the responsibility of chipping in and looking after him whenever it was required, but I was now a little boy’s much older brother and it was a role I liked. I doted on Ian and he would follow me everywhere.

  My family usually went away to North Wales for two weeks in the summer to stay in a caravan. We still didn’t have a car, so we’d get a lift from a neighbour or my dad’s boss; the journey always seemed to take for ever. I liked those times in the caravans. It was a nice break from work for my dad, and my mother could relax on the beach as Claire and I played with Ian in the dunes. We’d stay out by the sea all day until it was getting dark, and then we’d go up a long, steep road to a pub at the top, pushing Ian in the pram. We’d spend the evening in the family room round the back, and I’d stand on a chair in front of the jukebox all night, taking money off people to make their selections. Every so often Ian would toddle over with ten pence from my mum and dad for me to play something myself. At closing time we’d head back down the hill to the caravan, my dad carrying me on his shoulders, and we’d play cards and have something to eat. It was at times like these that I was aware that my parents were a little bit different from other kids’ parents. They were still young, and would stay up late, having a drink. They were pretty laid-back.

  My dad got involved with the local social club and he would take me and Claire with him when he went to see bands to book them. We’d go on a Sunday afternoon to a club somewhere out of town, and my dad would buy us Cokes and crisps and we’d sit with a bunch of agents and club owners while the bands and singers would audition. The acts would come out in their stage gear and do their routines and sing the hits of the day. I’d watch them plugging in their equipment and messing around with echo machines and I thought it was like being in the music business.

  My best friend on the estate was Chris Milne. He had moved from Ardwick at the same time as us, and he lived just six houses away from me on the square. Chris was a blast. He was funny and outgoing and he liked pop music too, and we were put in the same class at Sacred Heart. His family were original Mancunians, warm-hearted with a lot of banter and an open-door policy, which meant I went round to his house a lot. We’d often play things from his sister Catherine’s record collection, which included an album by The Supremes. Chris had three main interests: Rod Stewart, Manchester City football club and girls – all of which meant that he was a great best mate.

  Chris and I would hang out together, and when we’d finished kicking a football around I’d bring my T.Rex collection over to his house, which now included ‘Ride a White Swan’, ‘Metal Guru’ and ‘Children of the Revolution’, plus some Sweet and David Bowie. Chris would play me his Faces records, I’d find tracks off The Supremes’ Greatest Hits, and he would sing along to everything. I don’t know who suggested we should form a group – maybe Chris wanted to sing with his mate who was a guitarist, or more likely it was the other way around – but either way it seemed like the obvious next step to me, so I dedicated myself to learning how to write a song that Chris could sing. My first efforts at songwriting were basically steals from Bolan, which was impressive seeing as I had no idea what he was singing about. I doubt that he knew himself. I was able to do it without too much difficulty though, and with some songs of my very own and my mate singing, all I had to do now was find some other eleven-year-olds to make up the rest of the band. But before I could do that, Chris and I had to put world domination on hold. We had somewhere else to go: Maine Road, home of Manchester City FC.

  Terraces

  I WAS TEN when I first went to see Manchester City. I was already well into football, but hadn’t yet committed to either City or Manchester United. All my family and relatives were United fans, and they had assumed I would be falling into line. My Uncle Mike had even supplied me with one of his United shirts, which for some reason I never got round to wearing. Don’t get me wrong, I thought George Best was a totally cool dude, but everyone knew that. I’d even been to a United match, with my cousin Martin and my Uncle Christie, when United played Chelsea at Old Trafford and lost one-nil. But instead of it enticing me into the Red Devils’ fraternity, the experience had the total opposite effect: when I got into the ground, I just didn’t like … the vibe. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t go for it. The next week Chris Milne and I took off on our own to watch Man City, and within a mile of their ground at Maine Road I knew I was in the right place and that the world would be forever sky-blue. There was another reason I became a Manchester City fan, and that was because at the time City were the better team. It was fortuitous for me that I was at the right age at a rare time when the blue side of Manchester was the more successful. I started going to the games when City were in their heyday and had legendary players like Mike Summerbee, Francis Lee and Colin Bell. I loved the fact that my team were formidable and had style. Things would get even better with the arrival of Dennis Tueart from Sunderland. He was tricky and tenacious, and had the right amount of flash and attitude to go with it. Dennis Tueart became my footballing hero, and would take his place in Manchester City folklore by scoring the winning goal in a Wembley cup final with an overhead kick. The only way he could have been any cooler was if he had been playing a Gibson Les Paul while he was doing it.

  Going to a football match in Britain in the early 1970s was scary for a kid, and like nothing else at all. It was a parade of tribalism, boorishness and aggression. Boys and men with feather cuts and skinheads pounded the streets in boots and braces, and with scarves tied to their wrists and belts, in a procession of loud menace. No one gave a damn about your size. If you were in, you were all in, and if it kicked off, which it always did, then no one cared that you were ten or eleven or whatever, you’d better run and be prepared to give someone a kicking or get a kicking like everyone else – either that or make sure you stayed well on the fringes. Getting jostled around on the terraces amidst all the older blokes pushing and shouting abuse was an education. On the terraces you’d see men with earrings, dyed hair and shaved eyebrows; customised trousers called ‘skinners’, turned up to the shins, with twenty-four-hole Doctor Martens, and home-made tattoos done with a pin and Indian ink. It was all completely eye-opening to me.

  I went to every home game, and sometimes I’d get to an away game. Going to away games was downright perilous, as you were venturing into enemy territory and asking to get beaten up. I went to watch City at Middlesbrough, and from the moment I got off the coach at Ayresome Park I knew it was a mistake. After the game the City fans were fenced in the car park, while a couple of hundred Middlesbrough fans were baying for us and attempting to pull down the gates that were keeping them out and us in. After five minutes one of the fences got destroyed, and as the gates crashed down a horde of monsters rushed at us. It was total panic. I got caught in the swarm of City fans and was swept out on to the street with everyone screaming and shouting and policemen on horseback charging about the place. I darted across the road and ran at top speed until, completely lost and alone, I came to a side street. I carried on to the end, and as I got there a young Middlesbrough fan ran into the street from the opposite direction and stopped right in front of me. We looked at each other for a few seconds and neither of us knew what to do. I didn’t want to get beaten up, and I didn’t want to try to beat anyone else up either. I sized up the enemy: we were about the same age and he was scared; we were both in the same predicament. I instinctively put my hands up and made it obvious I didn’t want any trouble, then he stuck his hand out to shake mine
. He took the red-and-white silk scarf from around his wrist and said, ‘Do you wanna swap scarves, mate?’ Getting a scarf from an opposing fan at an away game usually meant taking a scalp from a battle. I took his scarf and gave him mine off my wrist, and he patted me on the shoulder as we both took off in opposite directions. I ran frantically around more streets until I eventually hitched a ride home from some City fans in a van.

  I went to other away games and I got chased a few times, but I never got another scarf and I never had to give one away either. I kept the scarf from the Middlesbrough kid and wore it at some City games. People assumed it was a trophy, but I knew otherwise and I liked the way I’d got it.

  Wythenshawe

  THE SIX-WEEK SUMMER holiday break was the schoolkid’s ultimate reward. After school broke up, a whole six weeks of freedom from the rigours of school would stretch gloriously before me, and I’d anticipate adventures – some planned, some a mystery, but either way I knew something was bound to happen.

  The 1975 summer holidays were significant for me as I’d finished at Sacred Heart Primary School and it would be the last big break before starting at St Augustine’s Grammar School, which I’d got into after passing the eleven-plus entrance exam. On the first day of the holidays it had become a custom for a bunch of us boys and girls to head out on our bikes to the River Bollin, which was about a ten-mile ride away. That year, after a day of swimming in the river and hanging out in the sun, we started to cycle home as fast as we could. I was on a second-hand racing bike that was too big for me, which I’d painted purple. We flew up a steep hill, and as we shot down the other side at top speed I leaned forward to pull the brakes and my foot slipped into the front wheel. The bike jammed instantly, and I somersaulted over the handlebars and into the air, followed by the bike, and then crashed on to the brand-new road, skidding along at full speed and ripping a lot of the skin off my arms and my back. When I came to a stop and my friends helped me up, I noticed my friend Mike turning green when he saw my mangled wrist and my hand flopping around in the wrong direction. All I could do was to ride the seven miles to the nearest hospital while trying to use my arm in order to stay on the bike.