I first became aware of the song somewhere around the tail end of year 11, I think — happened to hear it a couple of times on the radio in reasonably close succession and it caught my ear. First off, it was the sound — the shimmer of the guitar bed and the swirling siren line that cuts through at intervals, the drama of the drums, the intoned vocals, and the generally epic vibe (the only words that I initially retained, I heard as “I am the sun and the air”). So somehow I became a bit obsessed with the song — I can’t remember whether this was before or after I worked out what the words were actually about — and I went out and bought Singles and for ages I just couldn’t get past “How Soon Is Now?” to appreciate the rest of the band’s canon because we really are talking obsession here (and, no doubt, because it sounds rather different from the most of the rest of their oeuvre)…when I made a ‘top 100’ list in the same vein as this one at the start of 2000 (year 12/first year uni), I had it at number 2,[*] and it would’ve basically stayed at around there (ie, one of my very, very favourites) for the next four or so years, I reckon.
It’s always felt like one sustained swoon, a shuddering extended fall and cry of desperation and hopelessness, form and content in some ways oddly matched (but then they always were with the Smiths) but in some ineffable but vital way undeniably complementary. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt precisely the way that Morrissey seems to in “How Soon Is Now?”, but there was definitely a time when I more than recognised the shape of it and it rang deeply true in its general tone even if not in its specifics; it’s a song about atmosphere and mood and state of mind, after all, more than about details.
So do I still love this song? I guess I do. These things go beyond words, or memories, or associations. Feel something deeply enough for long enough and somehow it burns itself into the patterns of your thoughts; here, it’s the song itself as much as, if not more so than, what it carries with it — I will insist on trying to make these distinctions, because they reflect how I immediately feel, even if not always what I convince myself of later — and, well, it’s still great.
* * *
[*] By way of historical snapshot, the top 10 as at 1/1/00:
1. “Lightning Crashes” – Live
2. “How Soon Is Now?” – The Smiths
3. “Comfortably Numb” – Pink Floyd
4. “Creep” – Radiohead
5. “Spark” – Tori Amos
6. “Epic” – Faith No More
7. “Paranoid Android” – Radiohead
8. “Cornflake Girl” – Tori Amos
9. “Stinkfist” – Tool
10. “Glory Box” – Portishead
