This Charming Man
“This Charming Man” is a song by the English rock band the Smiths. It was written by guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey. Released as the group’s second single in October 1983, it peaked at number 25 on the UK Singles Chart. The song has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in 2019.
About This Charming Man in brief
“This Charming Man” is a song by the English rock band the Smiths. It was written by guitarist Johnny Marr and singer Morrissey. Released as the group’s second single in October 1983, it peaked at number 25 on the UK Singles Chart. It has been widely praised in both the music and mainstream press. In 2004, BBC Radio 2 listeners voted it number 97 on the station’s \”Sold on Song Top 100\” poll. Mojo magazine placed the track at number 1 on their 2008 \”50 Greatest UK Indie Records of All Time\” feature. In a 1983 interview with Barney Hoskyns that he used to revive some involvement with the word ‘handsome’, Morrissey observed that he had already used the word in a song called ‘Handsome Devil’ in a title—in the B-side to ‘Hand in Glove’ The song is about a male cyclist who is offered a lift by a man in a luxury car. After much deliberation, the cyclist accepts the offer. While driving together the pair flirt, although the protagonist finds it difficult to overcome his reluctance. The lyrics of the song comprise a first person narrative in which the male protagonist punctures one of his bicycle’s wheels on a remote hillside. The motorist tells the cyclist: \”it’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care”. His words ‘hillside desolate’,’stitch to wear’, ‘charming’ are used to convey a more courtly and courtly world of England, and evoke a style of language that has no longer been used in the daily life of people in the north-Eighties.
The song has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry in 2019. It is one of the most successful singles of the 1980s in the UK, reaching number 8 on the charts in 1992. The Smiths entered Matrix Studios in London on September 1983 to record a second studio version for release as a single. However, the result—known as the ‘London version’ was unsatisfactory and soon after, the band travelled to Strawberry Studios in Stockport to record the more widely heard A-side. On the same night that he wrote ‘Still Ill’ and ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’, Marr wrote the music for the Peel session. Marr believed the band needed an up-beat song, \”in a major key\”, to gain a chart positioning that would live up to expectations. The previous October Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their iconic track ‘Relax’, which was seen as an anthem to an out alpha male self-assertiveness, and alien to many UK homosexuals. The guitarist admitted to feeling a little jealous, and his competitive urges kicked in when Aztec Camera began to receive day-time national radio-play with their track ‘Walk out to Winter’
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This page is based on the article This Charming Man published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
