Johnny Marr says his new song Beyond The Rain took on a powerful new resonance after learning of Gary “Mani” Mounfield’s death while he was in the studio recording it.
The former Smiths guitarist was working on the track for his latest solo album The Age of Everything when Oasis legend Noel Gallagher phoned to tell him the Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist had passed away on November 20, aged 63, after a long battle with emphysema.
Johnny told Radio X: “It was about 11 o’clock in the morning. We all got our headphones on and we’re like, ‘OK, let’s go for Beyond the Rain,’ and my phone goes and I could see it was Noel.
“Normally I wouldn’t pick my phone up, but Noel’s calling. He didn’t usually call, he usually texts.
“I pick up the phone, all the band are stood there, and he tells me that Mani’s died.
“I remember everyone was really in shock. Everyone was really upset. Of course, me and my band knew Mani very well for a long time.”
Despite the shock, Johnny said he felt Mani would have urged them to keep going: “I could hear Mani immediately [saying] ‘Come on, Mr. Marr, come on, you gotta keep rocking,’ So, I don’t know, maybe we’re in shock [but] we did the song.”
When he returned the next day to record vocals, Johnny subtly rewrote a few lines – including the moving lyric, “I shine like a northern son, back to where I once belonged.” He recalled: “When I came back the next day to do the vocals, there were a couple of lines that I kind of changed a little bit.
“There was a line about the sun coming out, and I just changed it to, ‘I shine like a northern son, back to where I once belonged’… there’s a couple of lines like that in the song that I changed. It took on a much more poignant and meaningful message, that song. So I didn’t write about Mani, but he was on our minds as I was singing it.”