Episode
How Soon Was Now? The Smiths Take Britain and Break America
- Published
- Jun 12, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 826
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Summary
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit tonyfletcher.substack.com Welcome to the 17th episode of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast — a.k.a. the podcast in which music journalists/obsessives Dan Epstein (the Yank) and Tony Fletcher (the Brit) clash and connect over music from either side of the pond. This time out, our subject is The Smiths , the most iconic British indie band of the 1980s. Specifically, we discuss the period bookended by the August 1984 release of their fifth UK single, “William, It Was Really Nothing,” and the conclusion of their first US tour at the end of June 1985. During that frantic 11-month stretch, the band released the odds n’ sods collection Hatful of Hollow and their second studio album Meat Is Murder , and their epic B-side “How Soon Is Now?” became a massive underground hit in America, thanks in part to a video that Sire Records commissioned and released without the band’s awareness or permission. Meat Is Murder , the first Smiths album released domestically in the US, reached #110 on the Billboard 200 in May 1985 — which, while not quite as impressive a feat as knocking Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA off the top of the UK charts, was still a damn fine showing for a band that had only played one US concert date (New Year’s Eve 1983 at Danceteria in NYC) prior to its release. The record stayed on the US album charts for 32 weeks in all; and on June 7th of that year, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce kicked off their first US tour with a show at Chicago’s 5,000-capacity Aragon Ballroom. Although Dan was living in Chicago at the time, he happily passed on attending that now-fabled Aragon show. By his own admission, he spent many years stubbornly resisting the charms of The Smiths — so much so, in fact, t…