(Credits: Far Out / EMI America / University of Salford Press Office)
Mon 26 January 2026 14:00, UK
There’s a strange blockage in the mind when it comes to connecting different musical eras, where it feels all wrong, like trying to get yourself to realise that Fleetwood Mac released Rumours the same year that Sex Pistols released their debut.
It feels wrong because one band are in the hazy desert of rock and roll, the other in the gritty streets of punk, so how could that possibly be the same time, but the same strange fog descends too when you realise that the 1960s and ‘70s icons were still around and still listening to music in the decades to come. I know it feels wrong, but it’s a fact that David Bowie was, in fact, a fan of The Smiths.
They’re another pair of musicians that seem to exist on opposite sides of a huge, unmovable wall, where Bowie exists in the realm of glam rock, of ‘Starman’, of ‘70s sequins, and sure, he also existed in many iterations across many decades, but the instant view that comes to mind is of a more spiralling and psychedelic time still. In short, Bowie seems to exist quite firmly in the past, whereas there is something about The Smiths that feels far more modern.
Despite being active at the same time, The Smiths represent a different world of music, representing Manchester, the rise of indie, and the change of the industry. They were signed to Rough Trade, and that alone makes them feel too contemporary to exist in the same place as Bowie, but they did, and as Bowie was always a tested and true music fan, as well as a maker, no band making waves was getting past his radar.
His unending passion for music surely stemmed in part from his insatiable desire to seek it out. There are countless stories of moments when a newer, younger band had the absolute scare of a lifetime as they looked out into their crowd at some random gig, and there he was.
The Smiths in 1984. (Credits: Far Out / Paul Cox / Sire Records)
Glenn Gregory, the lead singer of Heaven 17, told Far Out about one of those time, when he began to hear whispers around the venue claiming that Bowie was there. He responded with a resounding, “Don’t be daft, what would Bowie be doing here?” But he was, and when he came bounding into their dressing room after, he was buzzing, like any music fan would be after a good gig.
That was the early 1980s, and Bowie was especially excited by new music as he seemed to be getting involved with the new sounds of indie and alt-rock early, so naturally, when The Smiths began making noise, he was tuned in.
Unlike other new bands who came and went, The Smiths stuck around in his life as an enduring favourite. “I still rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain,” Bowie said in the 1990s, remaining a fan long after the band itself had called it. In particular, he kept one song on repeat, telling Q magazine that the band’s 1987 song ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ stayed as a personal favourite track.
It’s a song that seems to have the magic, even for the band members themselves, that angsty tune stands out with both Johnny Marr and Morrissey counting it as their favourite.
“I’m often asked what’s my favourite Smiths song,” Marr said once and the answer remains the same. “I’ve always been able to say it’s ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ because I think it captured all those things that are transcendent, esoteric, that spiritual quality that means so much to me, that was captured not just by me but by every member of the band.”
While Morrissey himself remains committed to only begrudging the band, Marr recalled a kinder time when they agreed on the power of Bowie’s favourite song. “Last time I met Morrissey, he said it was his favourite Smiths song,” Marr said in a 1993 interview, and given the names sharing their love for it, he added, “He might be right”.
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