you don't need The Smiths right now. Try A Hard Day's Night.

Commiserations on all counts..but don't play anything by them at the mo. "I Know It's Over" might just be the straw that broke the camels back.
They're good albums, but you need to approach them in a certain frame of mind. If you're up for a bit of self-pity (and who isn't at times?) then go for it, otherwise..
Go and put some Half Man Half Biscuit or a bit of Little Feat on. Something that reminds you that there is always life and dare I say it, laughter?

is what you need. Life affirming and uplifting. I'd initially prescribe 'Caravanserai', to be taken over headphones, accompanied by a darkened room and a nice glass of something soothing.

It's Morrissey's finest solo album and doesn't have one duff track on it. A beautiful feel to it. Maybe more accessible than the two Smiths albums you have.

But this doesn't answer your quesion, so to answer to that... The Queen is Dead is generally regarded as The Smiths finest; and my opinion is that Meat Is Murder is their worst.

and go with the Little Feat suggestion.

Stay away from all sad songs, in fact.

I am sincerely sorry to read what has been happening and I hope that life turns a more positive corner for you soon. It nearly always does, when you least expect it.

but I didn't listen to them at the early stages of my divorce. I think you may want to wait a couple of weeks.

At the time I found Ben Folds and Ryan Adams (Gold) pretty good. There ain't much more life affirming than Firecracker by Ryan Adams (and I realise its each to their own).

Have started an Up spotify list ->

http://open.spotify.com/user/leedsboy/playlist/7x5QVApXhO1fRX0mdEM16t

We should all add a couple I reckon.

Just to say I'm very sorry to hear about your troubles and I hope things get brighter for you soon.

Actually, if anything, put on something familiar and comforting; the Fabs maybe?

you need to forget about the woman and rise above the gloom.
Buy The Gourds latest cd Haymaker, put it on loud and dance around the room like an idiot. My divorce was painful but the 13 years since have been the best years of my life and I was lucky to find a real partner to go through life with. Sounds to me like its her loss.

You just need to crack open a bottle and stick on "Exile On Main St."

It's a long road that has no turning Dan (says he who's marriage is collapsing around him).

Nothing to say on the music front fella - just stick with you know makes you feel good - but I wanted to wish you all the best. One day this will all be bad memories and life will be good again.

(the choice is yours but I favored vodka & coke) and a copy of Sinatra's Only The Lonely taken nightly for as long as it takes. I know of no better 'cure' for a broken heart. Playing uplifting songs at this point will only postpone the inevitable falling apart, get it out of the way now. And there's no better company than Frank for this situation. Look after yourself.

Just wanted to say I've never dipped into the Smiths apart from Greatest Hits so have nothing to add there.

But I hope your troubles dissolve and life improves.

Good luck.

Rich

Hibernian Rhapsody is playing, from the spotify covers list. Yes, the rhapsody is a giveaway, it is a version of that song. The one by that group I can't abide. But it's a trad irish version by De Dannan. And it's great. If that can't bring a smile, well actually it will, it will......
Follow the link above as sent by Lee.
I echo the coversations above and the good wishes sent. It is darkest before dawn but that is to give the sun something to warm and brighten. You may not yet want it to, but you can't stop it.
Keep safe and warm, Dan

at the time, obsessed with every utterance and chord. As a fifteen year old I bunked out of school to buy Meat Is Murder (on cassette!) and was one of those awful 'Morrissey students' by the time TQID came out.
What I'd say is - it really doesn't matter but TQID is the better album. However, if you're a northerner who loves black and white films then take the chronological order and bask in the pictures Meat Is Murder paints first.
Anyway, very sorry about your situation. I really wish you the best.

I recommend Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue. The greatest album ever made, elevating, mysterious, wondrous. Recently Chris Rea enthused in Word about the magic of it and how he listened to it recovering from serious illness.

I wasn't a Smiths fan - they passed me by too - until I heard Girlfriend In A Coma and suddenly saw how funny they could be. If you really must do the Smiths, start at the very beginning and go through in chronological order.

I hope things get better for you soon!

There's no pain like that of a broken heart, Dan, but experience suggests it will heal in time.

I'd agree that Little Feat advice offers something life-affirming when you most need it. Rock 'n' Roll Doctor, which would seem to be just what the doctor ordered, doesn't appear to be on Spotify, but you can find it and the rest of a set of live wonders here:

http://www.archive.org/details/lf1974-09-19.flac16

I wish you the strength you may have forgotten you possess.

Like everyone else who has posted, I sympathise and to a (very) limited extent empathise. My first wife (another J) went off and at another time I was made redundant, but as you say, it's the collapse of the relationship that hurts the most.

Many others have suggested 'up' albums and that's fair enough. Play whatever tracks make you want to shout out the lyrics at the top of your voice, whether it's picking out one line of harmony from a Beach Boys Classic, the backing vocals on Respect, or even the Birdy song.

But it's also good to have some of those 'My woman done left me' blues numbers or bleak country songs, because sometimes you just want to let it all out. Gary Moore had just released 'The Story of the Blues' when my J left:

"Everyone knows what the blues is all about:
It's a pain you can't live with,
It's a woman you can't live without ..."

And it's not the greatest blues song, but I can still hear it at full blast when driving in the car on one of those bad days. Like you, I happen to be teetotal, and it was my equivalent of the bottle of red wine/whiskey and Frank Sinatra.

So, you need both: plenty of up music and a few of those downers just to get it out. Bit of John Lennon's primal screaming can feel pretty cathartic too.

a good friend of mine passed this wisdom on to me when I was where you are now. The pain you feel at the moment feels like it will never end. Ever. It will feel like this for a long time. One day though, way off in the future, you will wake up and it will have eased a little. Not by much, but it will hurt a little less. You will then be able to see a future for yourself. I promise you!

You won't think so now but you've been given an opportunity for a new and better life. I've never enjoyed myself as much as I have in the last 10 years since my divorce. You will too, eventually!

Moondance of course - warm, gentle, soothing, restoring some faith in humanity.

Another thought (and like other contributors, I'm speaking from personal experience here), try going back to the music from your youth, the records you'd play once and then put straight back on again because they were so good. Music has that ability to put us right back into some period in our lives, especially when it was our hormone-laden adolescence!

All the very best to you: as impossible as it may seem right now, all this crap does move on and you'll still be there with your (better) life.

Make sure you stay in touch with friends and others who care about you. For mine, I think having the blues and wallowibng in your misery is part of the grieving /healing process .Play blood on the tracks endlessly but make sure you stay in touch with people who can bring you back from the dark thoughts.

I say this with the expereince of a marriage break up ,kids who wont speak to me, a son who pulled a knife on me and a spell in the clinic.

Playing a hard days night or my uplifter of preference - reggae aint going to do it coz you've got to come out the other side.

And a counsellor is a good idea if you feel that offloading onto loved ones is a burden - they're paid to listen to you so sometimes it is easier.

good luck Dan.

I suffer from a chronic auto immune disease called ulcerative colitis. Similar to Crohn's Disease, it's an extremely painful, unpleasant and debilitating illness. I have been in remission for three years, but it came back last week. Basically, it means I'm going to be very sick for the next two to three months.

I find myself retreating to the music, TV and films that I associate with being and feeling well and happy. Some Lloyd Cole, Talk Talk, Only Ones, a bit of Van The Man, whilst also working my way through every episode of The West Wing. It's a gripping show that really takes my mind off of how sick I feel for forty five minutes, and that can only be a good thing.

I wish you all the best. You're not alone.

what you are going through. I've done redundancy and bereavement and neither is fun but health and relationships must strike deeper.

I wholly agree with Futurenoir about The West Wing - totally absorbing. On the music front try Delays. I find their lightweight indie pop with great harmonies and summery guitars is curiously uplifting whatever my mood. There's nothing deep or contentious in the lyrics either.

Good luck

Hi Dan - hope it all comes out OK. Never been that ill but my Dad was and I think I understand something about it....certainly the heart problem. I also swear by the Feat when times are tough, but also as a few left field options I would recommend Bob Marley very loud - maybe "Kaya" which is a bit fluffy but sooo feel good, or Bunny Wailer - "Roots man skanking", or when Bob was ill he finished "Uprising" which I think is his finest album and an inspiration to us all. Just thinking about the opening of "Coming in from the cold" makes me feel gooood. Failing that, a blast of Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker never fails to lift.

Keep strong - time heals all.

Hey Dan, I'm a diurnal contributor, so wasn't able to chip in last night, but hope you're already noticing that things seem to get a little better every day... to me, music's most amazing quality is its ability to act as both a mood-enchancer and a mood-changer, and you seem to have come to the right place for sound advice (pun intended, sorry...)

In your position, I'd retreat into nostalgia, so all power to you for taking the exploration route - as far as The Smiths go, try MIM first, it's a good album with some great tracks, and will act as a good warm-up for the truly awesome power of TQID, crashing into life with the opening title track, then taking you through emotional peaks & troughs all the way to the still-astonishing "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"... and you even get to compose yourself as the rather silly "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" plays out and leaves you with a smile... enjoy!

And I'll shamelessly steal a Neil Tennant observation about the 2 sorts of music that evoke a truly visceral reaction - dance and heavy metal - so after The Smiths, roll up the carpets, crank up some arm pumping, head banging metal toons and some disco and let it all out.

Be well.

Or other throwaway, light frothy pop that puts a smile on your face, wry or otherwise. Not the Smiths! Nooooooooo! Don't do it.

...and I'm only being made redundant. Makes me count my blessings...Dan, Futurenoir et al., I salute you.

If you can, get out and go for a walk, with your iPod/walkman whatever. In the country. Then return at the same time each week/few days and observe as Spring returns and turns into Summer. Worked for me a few years back.

You've certainly got enough on your plate. I love The Smiths more than anything but I can't recommend them to you at the moment.

At the risk of sounding a bit one-note, I'd recommend Half Man Half Biscuit's 'Cammell Laird Social Club' and 'Very' by the Pet Shop Boys as records that unfailingly leave me feeling happier. 'Very' is on Spotify (hence free) but HMHB are not, hence the download link. I hope you enjoy them and that you get through this tough time in good shape.

Now, there seems to be a trend on this thread towards discounting The Smiths as being a bit maudlin and depressing at this point in your life. Untrue!

I'd start with Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others from The Queen Is Dead as this squarely kicks into touch any notion that Moz is just a misery guts. To wit:

"As Anthony said to Cleopatra
As he opened a crate of ale :
Some girls are bigger than others"

You say you love music and speech so from here skip back a few tracks to Cemetery Gates (I know I know, hysterical!) and be inspired by Moz's debate as to the relative merits of particular poets:

"Keats and Yeats are on your side
While Wilde is on mine"

So by all means put away those Rattigan (himself a leukaemia sufferer and recoverer) plays and the existentialist angst from the exiled in Siberia and throw yourself into comparing the merits and the beauty of the English speaking poets.

But what do I know? As Wilde himself said:

"It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal."

on The Smiths so can't advise there.

However, while I've never felt such loss as you're feeling now, I had a grim time last year due to a couple of bouts of redundancy.

One piece of music I found which helped soothe a worried soul was 'Izarharh Tenere' - the last track on 'Aman Iman' by Tinariwen.

The whole album is sublime but that last lilt sung in a ,to me, totally unknown language slowed things down a lot.

Good luck to you and yours through all of this.

Reading the warm replies to you Dan, I'm convinced that there can't be any other magazine community, whatever you call it, that has such a bloody nice bunch of readers (and Staff of course...) than The Word!

I'm far behind most of the regulars on here when it comes to expressing myself (as you can tell by checking my posts) but just wanted to add my best regards to you, music's helped me through some tough times too.

At first I thought "The Smiths!?" but I would go for Queen Is Dead - it's just so far removed from this strange depressing, miserable image that most people have of the band, which I've never seen myself.

If you're talking other music to cheer up the day, for me you can't go far wrong with a bit of Creedence, The Specials or The Undertones!

I moved in to my new home after a 15 year marriage died and I remember how the first Valentine's Day is a really loathsome time. I upgraded subsequently and life is consistently getting better. The only musical advice I have is try to think of the bands she really couldn't abide and relish every opportunity to play them at high volume! Much love to you.

... giving Dan, a stranger, some help in a time of crisis. It's at times like these that our maturity and experience show what we are capable of- that the overarching impression of insular and unconnected lives, is exactly that- just an impression.
Dan may have never felt more alone, but you all heard him and responded with warmth, support and love.
Nice work everyone- this really is the best blog to be on.
Dave.

Danmac , I read your post and have to say I admire you a great deal. You have balls bigger than King Kong to post that. I have lots of music recomendations but I think you have had enough to last you a good while. |They say a problem shared is a problem halfed so judging by the replies you have got I hope they have helped you. Its not untill you share something that others share back and some of the stuff other people are going through makes you think. They still manage to post funny comments and life does go on.Personally a 2 years back my father in law went into a home suffering from Alzheimers ,my 3 year old was diagnosed with autism, my father died and our baby was born 16 weeks early ans spent 8 months in intensive care with millions of problems. I dont know you but i hope everything turns out good for you and i will say a prayer for you good luck Danmac although i dont think you need it things will be ok

Hi Dan,
thank you for starting this post and sharing what you're going through.
Personally, I had five years of disaster that started in 2002. In chronological order, my parents split up, my great-aunt was murdered in her own home, I had two miscarriages, I finally had a gorgeous daughter but then got post-natal depression, I had gallstones (more painful than childbirth!) and had to have my gall-bladder removed. While I was in hospital recovering, my father killed himself.
Bloody hell, it's bizarre reading that back. Very weird reducing my living nightmare to bullet points. Anyway. Life does chuck some crap around sometimes. I had five years of hideousness but the clouds did finally lift. I'm honestly now enjoying my life (different as it now is after everything) more than ever.
Just wanted to wish you love and life. You are not alone - but reading this blog, you know that, right?

And step away from the Smiths. Really. You don't need the Smiths. You need music that hugs you. I don't know if you have any interest in the Indigo Girls, but I found their tracks "Least Complicated" and "Galileo" to be particularly comforting.

Anyway, all the best to you.

It's not The Smiths, but it's so therapeutic and beautiful. This is the first Word post I've felt moved to write back to, for ages. My heart goes out to you, and much as I adore The Smiths, in the right mood, I think listen to Mirrorball over and over again. Pour a glass of red wine and if tears come so much the better. You will be fine, absolutely fine.

whats a podiatrist Danmac?

Everyone's heard this but it is maybe the only true thing. For a long time after my first wife left and took my daughters to Australia I simply could not listen to anything that seemed cynical, arch, too clever by half, not genuine. It's amazing how much music this rules out -including The Smiths. All I wanted was stuff that was honest and true. There will be time for The Smiths later on. Give it time. It's a bastard but Time takes Time. Look after yourself in the meantime.

If you are needing to hear somethinf you have no history with - how about free jazz ?

I had always listened to jazz as part of my regular punk rock / pub rock diet - goes back to getting John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" out the record library when I was 14.

I only really got in to free jazz when I was struggling with too much work and too much travel - project managing a job in Wrexham which meant spending lots of time there rather than at home in Glasgow. That's when that kind of jazz started making sense to me - when I was struggling to make sense of what was going on.

So if you are looking for something you have no history with, try Charlie Haden's "Revolutionary Music Ensemble", or Pharaoh Sanders "Black Unity". They are not as immediately accessible as Kind of Blue, but they might take you out there.

Another favourite is Alice Coltrane - both "A Monastic Trio" and "Ptah, The El Daoud" are slightly other-worldly, all-enveloping worlds of their own.

All the best to you

e.h.m.

...is certainly going to get you through, Danmac. I think I played Jeff Buckley's first album about 1000 times during a break-up. The curse, of course, is that you can never listen to it again! But once you find 'your' album you will be on your way...