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Lot Essay
In some ways, this is my most famous guitar. It was bought for me by the head of Sire Records, Seymour Stein, on 2 January 1984. I was a big fan of Sire, and when I discovered Seymour was interested in signing The Smiths I was thrilled about it. He took the band out to dinner before we played at the ICA in London, and during that evening he told me that in the 1960s he had bought a guitar for Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. I told Seymour if he bought me a guitar we'd sign to Sire, even though we were going to sign anyway. The band headed out to New York to play our first American show at Danceteria on New Year's Eve 1983. A couple of days later, after going into the Sire offices to sign the record contract, I marched Seymour through the snow to We Buy Guitars on 48th Street. Seymour was true to his word and bought the guitar for me. I raced back to The Iroquois Hotel, where the band was staying, took the guitar out of its case, and the first thing I played on it was what would become the next Smiths' single, 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'. The song just arrived under my fingers, complete. Then the very next thing I played was what would become the B-side, 'Girl Afraid'. Some instruments come with songs in them, and this guitar came with quite a few. It coincided with the band moving to another level of success, and when people saw me using it on Top of the Pops, it made an impression. Noel Gallagher and Bernard Butler went on to use red Gibson 355s in their own bands, Oasis and Suede. The guitar also became well known for a photo that was taken after a gig at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, in 1984.
JOHNNY MARR, MARR’S GUITARS, 2023
Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein purchased this Cherry Red 1960 Gibson ES-355 for Johnny Marr at We Buy Guitars on Manhattan’s famous “Music Row” on 2 January 1984. Recalling the moment he first saw the guitar, Marr told us: We traipsed across there in the snow and as the shops were closing, I saw this guitar in the window of the shop. It just glowed and spoke to me – it was like love at first sight. I noodled around on it in the shop, and I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. From then on, this guitar never really left my hands. It was the most expensive guitar that I had owned at that point. I wrote quite a few songs on it and started gigging with it. Along with the Rickenbacker, it became one of my main guitars throughout 1984. I fell in love with it.
‘HEAVEN KNOWS I’M MISERABLE NOW / GIRL AFRAID’
I went straight from the shop to the Iroquois Hotel, Marr told us, a few blocks down, and opened the case. And without even sitting down or without even having a guitar strap, I just played this… [plays riff] and started writing the song immediately on it, which became ‘Heaven Knows I'm Measurable Now’. It took me 15 minutes, something like that. Got all the parts for it. The song just wrote itself immediately, and I thought, well, this is working out pretty well. Recounting the tale on Daniel Steinhardt and Mick Taylor’s YouTube series That Pedal Show in 2023, Marr admitted In all honesty, I wasn't aware that I even knew those chords, it wasn't like I could go “oh yeah, a guitar teacher taught me about those major sevenths”.
Marr has noted that some instruments come with songs in them and this ES-355 was one of them. Interviewed by the Grammy organisation’s Harry Levin in 2023, Marr elaborated on the communication that happened between himself and this guitar: In some ways it's not esoteric or cosmic, and in some ways it is. The ways that it isn't esoteric or cosmic is that it felt quite like a jazz guitar under my left hand the way the neck is shaped. And it's from 1960, so it's essentially a 1950’s kind of instrument, and it feels expensive because it is expensive. It's beautifully made. All of these things are quite tactile under your fingers. It doesn't make you want to shred. It feels sophisticated. So the chords in ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ are very sophisticated, particularly for a 20-year-old boy from Manchester. So maybe subconsciously the idea of this expensive, sophisticated, well made, beautiful luxury instrument made me play those expensive, sophisticated chord changes. On a more esoteric and cosmic take, it may be just as simple as that the guitar had been used to playing those kind of chords. Whichever musician had it from all the way through the 1960s, someone else in the 1970s, had maybe put a lot of good feeling into that guitar. On the rare occasions when I've loaned my guitars to people who don't take care of them, they definitely come back with the wrong feeling. Now that might be flipped back again away from the cosmic. That might be because the guitar’s a machine. When it's been loved and cared for, and nice music's been played on it, it gets used to it. I should say it's a machine that vibrates and resonates. That's the nature of it. It's wood and wire. [But] there are many musicians who will tell you that if they're lucky enough to own a few different instruments, they inspire you to find that moment and come up with a song, or they just… deliver it to you right under your fingers.
Speaking to Guitarist in 2009, Marr maintained Different guitars give you a different frame of mind before you even start to play. My approach on a 355 would be different to a Rickenbacker, for sure. I just have this idea of [the 355] being more jazzy. ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ is a good example – it was written on my red 355 and starts with those jazzy sevenths. By the time you get to the chorus, [however,] it’s got all those ringing arpeggios. So it took me all of two minutes to revert to type! Divulging his songwriting process for NME Song Stories, Marr continued: The next thing I played on it was a riff that went… [plays riff] and I was just riffing on that, really – maybe because it looked like a rock and roll guitar – which I imagined as a piano song, and that turned into ‘Girl Afraid’. Referencing the snappy intro to ‘Girl Afraid’ in the Thames & Hudson promo video for Marr’s Guitars, Marr admitted I do have this thing about “you are what you play” and I was very hyperactive, still kind of am in a way, but that is a hyperactive guitar riff… written by hyperactive person. He went on to acknowledge that Getting a guitar like this… did up my game as a player, because you want to be good enough to play that guitar – like the intro of ‘Girl Afraid’.
Marr completed and demoed both songs the moment the band got back from America, but it wasn’t until March 1984 when, hot on the heels of the release of their debut album that February, The Smiths assembled at Island Records' Fallout Shelter studios to record ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ and its B-side ‘Girl Afraid’ for their next single. Marr recorded the main body of the guitar on the 355 as written and layered overdubs with his Giffin Telecaster (lot 10). Marr’s upbeat melody served as a sublime counter to Morrissey’s “miserabilist” anti-work lyrics. Speaking to Guitarist in 1985, Marr revealed how ‘Girl Afraid’ developed in the studio: When I wrote the song I was conscious that it should have a fast New Orleans piano part. It turned into a Kinks-style, real 60's erratic drum beat bop. Marr enlisted the Telecaster to lay down the B-side, including its lightning-fingered intro. Released on 21 May 1984, ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ became the band's first top ten single on the UK Singles Chart and was later included along with its B-side on The Smiths’ 1984 compilation album Hatful of Hollow.
Around the same time, in February-March 1984, Marr also used the Cherry Red 355 to record a cover version of The Smiths’ first single ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sixties pop icon Sandie Shaw taking on the Morrissey role. I remember [producer] John and I going bananas on that track, Marr told Smiths’ biographer Simon Goddard, because it had about 15 or 16 guitar tracks on it and it only sounded like eight! I loved it because playing in a different key meant I could play some different riffs, different pitches. I loved the fact that the group’s identity had expanded. It was a thing that couldn’t be pigeon-holed. People like Smash Hits and Radio 1 suddenly had to view us in a slightly different way. Released as a single in April 1984, the recording became Shaw's first hit in a decade when it reached number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.
TELEVISION APPEARANCES
Evidently Marr loved the look of this guitar as he selected it for significantly more television appearances than any other guitar in his collection. The guitar was first seen on 26 January 1984 when The Smiths appeared on BBC’s Top of the Pops for a mimed performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’. Eight further appearances followed including: the BBC North West television show Y.E.S. on 6 February 1984, performing ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ and ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’; Top of the Pops on 9 February 1984 for a repeat performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’; Channel 4’s The Tube on 16 March 1984, performing ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ on the 355; the VH1 Belgium music television show Elektron Pop on 18 March 1984 for a mimed performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’; Channel 4’s Ear Say on 31 March 1984 for a mimed performance of the as yet unreleased ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ and ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sandie Shaw; the ITV children’s television show Datarun, performing an acoustic version of ‘This Charming Man’ on the 355 with kids chanting in; Top of the Pops on 26 April 1984 for a mimed performance of ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sandie Shaw; and Top of the Pops on 14 February 1985 for ‘How Soon Is Now?’ These television appearances had a big influence on the future generation of British indie rock guitarists, as both Noel Gallagher and Suede’s Bernard Butler went on to use Gibson ES-355s in their own bands after seeing Marr playing his Cherry Red 355 on TV. Speaking to Mojo magazine in 2013, Gallagher declared The fact I still play a red Gibson 355 says a lot, ‘cause that's what Johnny played when The Smiths did ‘What difference does it make’ on Top of The Pops, in a turtleneck, with a Brian Jones bowl cut. I bought the turtleneck from Marks & Spencer and thought "That's it, all I have to do now is become brilliant.”
THE SMITHS TOUR
Marr used the 355 for live performances throughout The Smiths Tour of UK and Europe from 31 January to 23 June 1984 in support of their debut album. Surviving photographs of the tour and a bootleg video recording from the show at Sheffield City Hall on 19 March suggest that the guitar may have served as Marr’s main guitar for the majority of the set on the first leg of the tour through to 20 March, whilst evidence indicates that he reverted to the Rickenbacker as his main stage guitar on the second leg, using the 355 for performances of ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’. Notable appearances include: Hammersmith Palais on 12 March, where the band were joined by Sandie Shaw for ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’; Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on 13 March, where Marr’s soundcheck on this guitar was filmed for the ITV television show Datarun; Markthalle in Hamburg on 4 May, which was filmed and broadcast on German television show Rockpalast; and L’Eldorado in Paris on 9 May, which was partially filmed for French television show Les Enfants Du Rock, including ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ on this guitar. Photographer Paul Slattery captured several spectacular shots of Marr with this guitar at the UEA show in Norwich on 14 February, one of which is included in the lot. After having performed the funk-inspired ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ as part of their set for almost a year since its first appearance on the set list in December 1983, The Smiths finally recorded the song for their 1985 album Meat Is Murder at Amazon Studios in Liverpool in October-November 1984. Having regularly performed the funky six-minute epic on the 355 on tour, Marr laid down the album version on this guitar too.
THE PRETENDERS
Marr later used the ES-355 with The Pretenders when he became a member of the band for a short time in the aftermath of The Smiths, when the Pretenders’ guitar player, Robbie McIntosh, left the band mid-tour. In conversation with Martin Kelly for Marr’s Guitars, Marr recalled: Someone from The Pretenders' office sent me a message saying, The Pretenders want to continue with the U2 tour and they need someone who can stand in. How about it? … It was an amazing opportunity and a challenge, and just one of those things that happened in my life that was both pretty abstract and quite a big deal when I look back on it. Marr stayed on when the band returned to London, where they went into the studio in 1988 to record two songs for the soundtrack to the film 1969. Marr used this guitar to record the six-string part on the band’s cover of the Burt Bacharach song ‘Windows of the World’ and to shoot the official music video for the song. Writing in his 2016 autobiography, he reflected: It turned out to be a perfect document of how The Pretenders sounded with me in the band.
Almost immediately after acquiring the 355, Marr changed the input jack to a mono jack when he realised the guitar wasn’t sounding right on tour. Speaking to Guitarist in 1985, Marr indicates that even after the modification he would put it through a Boss equaliser to give it some boost. In 1992, expert luthier and guitar technician Bill Puplett replaced the whole wiring harness with the present harness.
Marr told us: When I've been asked which out of all my guitars is the main go-to, there's two that come to mind really, because they were pivotal in my career, I think, and became really well known and associated with me. One is this red 355 that I got in 1984 in The Smiths days, and the other, which has been on more records I've made than any of the others, is the red Les Paul (lot 20). These two are the ones that I sort of gulp when I think I'm really going to let them go, but I've been playing my signature Jaguars for a long time now. And I think I’ve had some good use out of this one.
See lots 6, 8, and 20 for additional images of this lot.
JOHNNY MARR, MARR’S GUITARS, 2023
Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein purchased this Cherry Red 1960 Gibson ES-355 for Johnny Marr at We Buy Guitars on Manhattan’s famous “Music Row” on 2 January 1984. Recalling the moment he first saw the guitar, Marr told us: We traipsed across there in the snow and as the shops were closing, I saw this guitar in the window of the shop. It just glowed and spoke to me – it was like love at first sight. I noodled around on it in the shop, and I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. From then on, this guitar never really left my hands. It was the most expensive guitar that I had owned at that point. I wrote quite a few songs on it and started gigging with it. Along with the Rickenbacker, it became one of my main guitars throughout 1984. I fell in love with it.
‘HEAVEN KNOWS I’M MISERABLE NOW / GIRL AFRAID’
I went straight from the shop to the Iroquois Hotel, Marr told us, a few blocks down, and opened the case. And without even sitting down or without even having a guitar strap, I just played this… [plays riff] and started writing the song immediately on it, which became ‘Heaven Knows I'm Measurable Now’. It took me 15 minutes, something like that. Got all the parts for it. The song just wrote itself immediately, and I thought, well, this is working out pretty well. Recounting the tale on Daniel Steinhardt and Mick Taylor’s YouTube series That Pedal Show in 2023, Marr admitted In all honesty, I wasn't aware that I even knew those chords, it wasn't like I could go “oh yeah, a guitar teacher taught me about those major sevenths”.
Marr has noted that some instruments come with songs in them and this ES-355 was one of them. Interviewed by the Grammy organisation’s Harry Levin in 2023, Marr elaborated on the communication that happened between himself and this guitar: In some ways it's not esoteric or cosmic, and in some ways it is. The ways that it isn't esoteric or cosmic is that it felt quite like a jazz guitar under my left hand the way the neck is shaped. And it's from 1960, so it's essentially a 1950’s kind of instrument, and it feels expensive because it is expensive. It's beautifully made. All of these things are quite tactile under your fingers. It doesn't make you want to shred. It feels sophisticated. So the chords in ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ are very sophisticated, particularly for a 20-year-old boy from Manchester. So maybe subconsciously the idea of this expensive, sophisticated, well made, beautiful luxury instrument made me play those expensive, sophisticated chord changes. On a more esoteric and cosmic take, it may be just as simple as that the guitar had been used to playing those kind of chords. Whichever musician had it from all the way through the 1960s, someone else in the 1970s, had maybe put a lot of good feeling into that guitar. On the rare occasions when I've loaned my guitars to people who don't take care of them, they definitely come back with the wrong feeling. Now that might be flipped back again away from the cosmic. That might be because the guitar’s a machine. When it's been loved and cared for, and nice music's been played on it, it gets used to it. I should say it's a machine that vibrates and resonates. That's the nature of it. It's wood and wire. [But] there are many musicians who will tell you that if they're lucky enough to own a few different instruments, they inspire you to find that moment and come up with a song, or they just… deliver it to you right under your fingers.
Speaking to Guitarist in 2009, Marr maintained Different guitars give you a different frame of mind before you even start to play. My approach on a 355 would be different to a Rickenbacker, for sure. I just have this idea of [the 355] being more jazzy. ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ is a good example – it was written on my red 355 and starts with those jazzy sevenths. By the time you get to the chorus, [however,] it’s got all those ringing arpeggios. So it took me all of two minutes to revert to type! Divulging his songwriting process for NME Song Stories, Marr continued: The next thing I played on it was a riff that went… [plays riff] and I was just riffing on that, really – maybe because it looked like a rock and roll guitar – which I imagined as a piano song, and that turned into ‘Girl Afraid’. Referencing the snappy intro to ‘Girl Afraid’ in the Thames & Hudson promo video for Marr’s Guitars, Marr admitted I do have this thing about “you are what you play” and I was very hyperactive, still kind of am in a way, but that is a hyperactive guitar riff… written by hyperactive person. He went on to acknowledge that Getting a guitar like this… did up my game as a player, because you want to be good enough to play that guitar – like the intro of ‘Girl Afraid’.
Marr completed and demoed both songs the moment the band got back from America, but it wasn’t until March 1984 when, hot on the heels of the release of their debut album that February, The Smiths assembled at Island Records' Fallout Shelter studios to record ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ and its B-side ‘Girl Afraid’ for their next single. Marr recorded the main body of the guitar on the 355 as written and layered overdubs with his Giffin Telecaster (lot 10). Marr’s upbeat melody served as a sublime counter to Morrissey’s “miserabilist” anti-work lyrics. Speaking to Guitarist in 1985, Marr revealed how ‘Girl Afraid’ developed in the studio: When I wrote the song I was conscious that it should have a fast New Orleans piano part. It turned into a Kinks-style, real 60's erratic drum beat bop. Marr enlisted the Telecaster to lay down the B-side, including its lightning-fingered intro. Released on 21 May 1984, ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’ became the band's first top ten single on the UK Singles Chart and was later included along with its B-side on The Smiths’ 1984 compilation album Hatful of Hollow.
Around the same time, in February-March 1984, Marr also used the Cherry Red 355 to record a cover version of The Smiths’ first single ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sixties pop icon Sandie Shaw taking on the Morrissey role. I remember [producer] John and I going bananas on that track, Marr told Smiths’ biographer Simon Goddard, because it had about 15 or 16 guitar tracks on it and it only sounded like eight! I loved it because playing in a different key meant I could play some different riffs, different pitches. I loved the fact that the group’s identity had expanded. It was a thing that couldn’t be pigeon-holed. People like Smash Hits and Radio 1 suddenly had to view us in a slightly different way. Released as a single in April 1984, the recording became Shaw's first hit in a decade when it reached number 27 on the UK Singles Chart.
TELEVISION APPEARANCES
Evidently Marr loved the look of this guitar as he selected it for significantly more television appearances than any other guitar in his collection. The guitar was first seen on 26 January 1984 when The Smiths appeared on BBC’s Top of the Pops for a mimed performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’. Eight further appearances followed including: the BBC North West television show Y.E.S. on 6 February 1984, performing ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ and ‘This Night Has Opened My Eyes’; Top of the Pops on 9 February 1984 for a repeat performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’; Channel 4’s The Tube on 16 March 1984, performing ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ on the 355; the VH1 Belgium music television show Elektron Pop on 18 March 1984 for a mimed performance of ‘What Difference Does It Make?’; Channel 4’s Ear Say on 31 March 1984 for a mimed performance of the as yet unreleased ‘Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now’ and ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sandie Shaw; the ITV children’s television show Datarun, performing an acoustic version of ‘This Charming Man’ on the 355 with kids chanting in; Top of the Pops on 26 April 1984 for a mimed performance of ‘Hand In Glove’ with Sandie Shaw; and Top of the Pops on 14 February 1985 for ‘How Soon Is Now?’ These television appearances had a big influence on the future generation of British indie rock guitarists, as both Noel Gallagher and Suede’s Bernard Butler went on to use Gibson ES-355s in their own bands after seeing Marr playing his Cherry Red 355 on TV. Speaking to Mojo magazine in 2013, Gallagher declared The fact I still play a red Gibson 355 says a lot, ‘cause that's what Johnny played when The Smiths did ‘What difference does it make’ on Top of The Pops, in a turtleneck, with a Brian Jones bowl cut. I bought the turtleneck from Marks & Spencer and thought "That's it, all I have to do now is become brilliant.”
THE SMITHS TOUR
Marr used the 355 for live performances throughout The Smiths Tour of UK and Europe from 31 January to 23 June 1984 in support of their debut album. Surviving photographs of the tour and a bootleg video recording from the show at Sheffield City Hall on 19 March suggest that the guitar may have served as Marr’s main guitar for the majority of the set on the first leg of the tour through to 20 March, whilst evidence indicates that he reverted to the Rickenbacker as his main stage guitar on the second leg, using the 355 for performances of ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’. Notable appearances include: Hammersmith Palais on 12 March, where the band were joined by Sandie Shaw for ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’; Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on 13 March, where Marr’s soundcheck on this guitar was filmed for the ITV television show Datarun; Markthalle in Hamburg on 4 May, which was filmed and broadcast on German television show Rockpalast; and L’Eldorado in Paris on 9 May, which was partially filmed for French television show Les Enfants Du Rock, including ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ on this guitar. Photographer Paul Slattery captured several spectacular shots of Marr with this guitar at the UEA show in Norwich on 14 February, one of which is included in the lot. After having performed the funk-inspired ‘Barbarism Begins At Home’ as part of their set for almost a year since its first appearance on the set list in December 1983, The Smiths finally recorded the song for their 1985 album Meat Is Murder at Amazon Studios in Liverpool in October-November 1984. Having regularly performed the funky six-minute epic on the 355 on tour, Marr laid down the album version on this guitar too.
THE PRETENDERS
Marr later used the ES-355 with The Pretenders when he became a member of the band for a short time in the aftermath of The Smiths, when the Pretenders’ guitar player, Robbie McIntosh, left the band mid-tour. In conversation with Martin Kelly for Marr’s Guitars, Marr recalled: Someone from The Pretenders' office sent me a message saying, The Pretenders want to continue with the U2 tour and they need someone who can stand in. How about it? … It was an amazing opportunity and a challenge, and just one of those things that happened in my life that was both pretty abstract and quite a big deal when I look back on it. Marr stayed on when the band returned to London, where they went into the studio in 1988 to record two songs for the soundtrack to the film 1969. Marr used this guitar to record the six-string part on the band’s cover of the Burt Bacharach song ‘Windows of the World’ and to shoot the official music video for the song. Writing in his 2016 autobiography, he reflected: It turned out to be a perfect document of how The Pretenders sounded with me in the band.
Almost immediately after acquiring the 355, Marr changed the input jack to a mono jack when he realised the guitar wasn’t sounding right on tour. Speaking to Guitarist in 1985, Marr indicates that even after the modification he would put it through a Boss equaliser to give it some boost. In 1992, expert luthier and guitar technician Bill Puplett replaced the whole wiring harness with the present harness.
Marr told us: When I've been asked which out of all my guitars is the main go-to, there's two that come to mind really, because they were pivotal in my career, I think, and became really well known and associated with me. One is this red 355 that I got in 1984 in The Smiths days, and the other, which has been on more records I've made than any of the others, is the red Les Paul (lot 20). These two are the ones that I sort of gulp when I think I'm really going to let them go, but I've been playing my signature Jaguars for a long time now. And I think I’ve had some good use out of this one.
See lots 6, 8, and 20 for additional images of this lot.