“We were high with it, and after just a few takes, we had one of our best ever songs – something that felt like pop music and beyond”: The making of the Smiths’ 1986 classic The Queen Is Dead

Johnny Marr plays a chord on his white Stratocaster as he performs live with the Smiths in 1987.

It was the summer of 1985, and Johnny Marr was a man out of time. Three years earlier, while still a teenager, the guitarist had co-founded the Smiths in Manchester, England, with vocalist Morrissey (bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce completed the lineup).

But the crystalline chime of his Rickenbacker 330 was still a lone voice in the era of sweep-picked flash. “The ’80s shredders were a joke,” Marr told this writer in 2009. “That’s guitar playing as an Olympic sport. If you’re into decent music, it’s just offensive.”