Statement from Simon Goddard:

The Smiths - Songs That Saved Your Life is being reissued in an all new ‘Revised & Expanded Edition’ by Reynolds & Hearn on 1 September 2004. I feel I owe it to those Smiths fans who bought/enjoyed it first time round to explain why.

The short answer would be “Johnny Marr”. The slightly longer answer is that I had no intention of doing a rewrite unless there was a seriously good reason and, of course, Marr’s involvement this time around was reason enough. Thanks to Johnny, unintentional errors in the old version - like ‘How Soon Is Now?’ supposedly being based on an old Elvis song (a mix-up perpetrated by producer John Porter’s confused recollection; it actually started as a demo called ‘Swamp’ and owes more to Hamilton Bohannon than it does Elvis) - have been eradicated. Marr also provided a wealth of fresh first-hand accounts of the creative process behind The Smiths, from the very first rehearsal session with Morrissey in 1982 through to the night they wrote ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’. All of which have been woven into a comprehensive textual revision, somewhere between a 'remake' and a 'director’s cut'.

The book also features other new interviews (including John Porter, Craig Gannon and Dale Hibbert) and offers a far more detailed background into both the origin and break-up of The Smiths. There’s also a new lengthy epilogue looking at the immediate aftermath and the making of Viva Hate, new appendices (a timeline and a directory of cover stars and matrix messages), some new pics, a new entry for the newly discovered Amanda Malone single and details of yet more lyrical and musical influences. All this and the source of the brass band sample in ‘Sheila Take A Bow’ unearthed! So I hope there’s enough there to quell any jeers of ‘reissue, repackage, repackage’ (which, as a Smiths fan first and foremost, I fully understand) and that those folk who liked the old book and decide to reinvest in the new copy share my opinion that it's a vast, and necessary, improvement.
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• Related item: Second edition of "The Songs That Saved Your Life" out in August - May 20, 2004