“This Charming Man” by The Smiths

"This Charming Man" was the Smiths' second single, out on Rough Trade on 31 October 1983, and it's the record where Johnny Marr's guitar and Morrissey's voice sound fully formed. Marr wrote the music and plays that bright, chiming, restless riff; Morrissey wrote the words, a tale of lust and blurred sexuality set down in his most arch, mournful manner. Andy Rourke's bass and Mike Joyce's drums keep the whole thing skipping along, and John Porter produced.

Morrissey felt at odds with the gay scene of the early '80s and reached back instead for an older, more coded and knowing underground, which is why the song winks as much as it swoons. A version taped for John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1 turned up on the 1984 compilation Hatful of Hollow, and the song also appears on the band's 1984 album The Smiths.

It only reached number 25 in the UK the first time around, but a 1992 reissue climbed to number 8, the band's biggest UK hit by chart position. Mojo later put it at number 1 on its 2008 list of the 50 greatest UK indie records, and in 2023 it went double platinum in Britain.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.