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I sometimes wonder whether we're the last dying breath of that '60's grim working class thing! I often feel like we're that one solitary clog left in the middle of the Arndale Centre!
The idea of taking that spirit of optimism and of possible change and trying to use it in '84 I don't see anything wrong with at all. But more important than that are the images we grew up with: smokey chimneys, backstreets, the impressions I get from Morrissey's lyrics. It isn't just nostalgia, it's a Northern spirit, a working man's spirit - and here I'm trying to not sound like Gary Kemp doing the working class bit. But we're more about the working class values in the '60's than Rickenbackers and Brian Jones haircuts...
Certainly we don't feel restrained musically in any way by the period. What I'm saying is we do not confuse roots with formula. The formula we're prepared to slash away at, musically try things we've never done before. But the roots are the reason why we're here. That's something I'll never get away from. I'm always aware of why we started and I think that's a good thing. Those reasons are still valid.
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from "A suitable case for treatment", New Musical Express (December 22/29th, 1984)

 

Johnny Marr

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The working class must be emancipated by the working class.
Woman must be given her true place in society by the working class.
Child labor must be abolished by the working class.
Society must be reconstructed by the working class.
The working class must be employed by the working class.
The fruits of labor must be enjoyed by the working class.
War, bloody war, must be ended by the working class.

 

Eugene V. Debs

 

I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else... to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.

 

Morrissey

 

America meant freedom and what is freedom? To Hoffer it is the capacity to feel like oneself. He felt like Eric Hoffer; sometimes like Eric Hoffer, working man. It could be said, I believe, that he is the first important American writer, working class born, who remained working class — in his habits, associations, environment. I cannot think of another. Therefore, he was a national resource. The only one of its kind in the nation's possession.

 

Eric Hoffer

 

You have much more power when you are working for the right thing than when you are working against the wrong thing. And, of course, if the right thing is established wrong things will fade away of their own accord. Grass-roots peace work is vitally important. All who work for peace belong to a special peace fellowship — whether we work together or apart.

 

Peace Pilgrim

 

The welfare state disempowered working class people people by taking away their ability to self-organise, by taking away their ability to work with each other. It atomised working class communities and also prevented innovation and aspiration for those at the bottom.

 

Phillip Blond