
“ I stood outside gazing up on one of those mornings when the sun scorched the pavement and when Mancunians used to say it 'cracked the flags '
It was the summer of 1968. I was nearly 5 years old and everyday we would walk past Emily's corner shop. My mother would have to stop and wait while we stared up. I stared up intently through the window. The little wooden guitar leaning on the shelf between the mops buckets and brooms my mother had got used to having to stop Emily's. She and my father had wondered about their son being so taken with the toy guitar. It was always the same would stand outside the shop while I gazed up until that morning when my mother took me inside and gave me the money for it to Emily who took the guitar down from the shelf and handed it to me.
From the moment I got my first guitar I had it with me wherever I went carrying it around the way other kids carried their toy, fire engines and dolls. I don't know why I had to have it but I was besotted with it and from then on I can't remember a time when I didn't have a guitar”
Quoted from Set the Boy Free, an autobiography by Johnny Marr worldcat.org/oclc/1043523313
CC BY-SA portrait of Johnny Marr performing at the AIM awards by jwslubbock on wikimedia commons w.wiki/DaVh
John Marr (born 1963) is a musician, songwriter and singer. He first achieved fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. He has since performed with numerous other bands and embarked on a solo career. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Marr
Working Class Hero is a song by John Lennon from his 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, his first album after the break-up of the Beatles. It was released as the B-side to the single Imagine in Britain on 24 October 1975. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Class_Hero
The Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar by Fender Musical Instruments characterized by an offset-waist body, a relatively unusual switching system with two separate circuits for lead and rhythm, and a short-scale 24" neck. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Jaguar