![\"Morrissey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_ABNM_MEN_22052023_ANDY_ROURKE__69985JPG.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe singer has said the decision to take the photo at the Salford club was seen as ‘more unnecessary Morrissey lunacy’<\/p>\n
Morrissey has said the iconic photo of The Smiths outside Salford Lads Club was all his making(Image: Manchester Evening News)<\/p>\n
Morrissey<\/a> has alleged that the iconic photo of The Smiths outside Salford Lads’ Club<\/a> was all his idea, saying it ‘wasn’t, isn’t, and never shall be’ a decision made by the band.<\/p>\n The former frontman of the iconic band has been in the headlines recently having just released his 14th studio album Make-Up Is A Lie. Last month, the musician also upset fans after cancelling a European show just a few hours beforehand due to \u2018sleep deprivation\u2019.<\/a><\/p>\n Using his website for his musings, the 66-year-old from Urmston has now made comments regarding the photo of The Smiths<\/a>, which was shot by renowned photographer Stephen Wright in 1985 for the inside cover of their third album The Queen Is Dead.<\/p>\n Click here <\/a>for the latest on Manchester’s food & drink scene, gigs and more in our CityLife newsletter<\/p>\n Once hailed as the \u2018Abbey Road photo of the 80s\u2019, the black and white photo led to the Ordsall<\/a> recreational club, on Coronation Street, serving as a spot of pilgrimage for fans of the band. One of the images from the collection is also exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery.<\/p>\n In a post over the weekend, Morrissey said the photograph came about because of him, disputing any claims that it was a mutual decision by the rest of the band, including Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce.<\/p>\n The singer wrote: \u201cFor those who care about detail, being photographed outside of Salford<\/a> Lads Club was not a Smiths idea or design, it was solely my idea, to which as usual the other three initially viewed as more unnecessary Morrissey lunacy.<\/p>\n Stephen Wright with a print of his iconic image of The Smiths taken outside Salford Lads Club<\/p>\n \u201cNow that millions of people come from all over the world to be photographed on that very spot, it is claimed as a Smiths idea. It wasn’t, it isn’t, and it never shall be. If I had suggested a photo outside Kellogg’s the likelihood is that the other three would have done that instead.”<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear what sparked the post in the first place, but it is something which photographer Wright has also previously pointed out. At the time a young photographer, Wright shot five reels of film with 36 pictures on each, with a \u00a3150 Nikon camera. He later got a card from Morrissey thanking him for his work, adding he felt that ‘a sweeter set of photos were never taken’.<\/p>\n In an interview with PRS For Music in 2016<\/a>, Wright said it was ‘Morrissey’s choice’ to head to the Lads’ Club. Speaking to the M.E.N<\/a>. in 2015, Wright recalled of the shoot: “It was shot on a dark dismal day. I met them at Piccadilly Station. I had the most nerve wracking night the day before. I couldn\u2019t sleep because of the excitement of meeting them.”<\/p>\n He added: “The picture is not very posed. They were moving around and I was moving about. It\u2019s not the picture that is a classic – it\u2019s the band that are classic. It\u2019s a combination of Salfordian folklore and the greatest band of the 80s.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The singer has said the decision to take the photo at the Salford club was seen as ‘more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,2461,44785,128,184655,2447,184656,44786,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-533905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-manchester-music","tag-morrissey","tag-music","tag-ordsall","tag-salford","tag-salford-lads-club","tag-the-smiths","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_121225StephenWrightJPG.jpg\")
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