Johnny Marr records for BBC documentary

Johnny Marr was at Bluepoint Studios in Manchester to record an acoustic version of ‘Unhappy Birthday’ and Bowie’s ‘Queen Bitch’ for a BBC documentary about the acoustic guitar that will air in the Spring 2011. In 1987, Johnny played his Martin 12-string acoustic guitar on the studio version of ‘Unhappy Birthday’ recorded at Wool Hall for Strangeways, Here We Come, which has never been played live.

Recorded in under 24 hours, Marr nominates it as one of the best examples of the musical synchronicity between himself and Rourke and has ofter suggested that – hypothetically speaking – it represents the musical direction he’d have like The Smiths to continue in. “The sound just hangs in the air. I’d thought a lot about going a bit more acoustic because I was bananas about ‘Unhappy Birthday’. That was my favourite Smiths track for a long while. And I still think that it would have been a great idea for us to go down that road.”

Mozipedia by Simon Goddard