Perhaps the best info as to what took place:
From Set The Boy Free:
(apologies - long quote).
“We had reached an impasse; a chasm had opened up between us and there was no way to bridge it. I knew it would mean the end of the band, but I wasn’t able to face it. Our conversation moved on to something else and it was very awkward, so I left and called a meeting with the band the next day.
I needed to discuss things and tell everyone what was on my mind before Angie and I went to Los Angeles on holiday for two weeks.
The two of us had never had a holiday and we hadn’t had a honeymoon, so with the new album finished it was the perfect time to go away. I’d put the management situation aside for the moment, and thought that clearing the air would be a good thing for us all. The band met in an upmarket fish-and-chip restaurant in Kensington. Andy and I sat on one side, and Morrissey and Mike sat on the other. I told the band that we needed to have a rethink and get some perspective. I was trying to shake off the malaise that was taking over us, and I talked vaguely about reinventing the music, although I wasn’t sure what that meant. I knew that the others no longer considered Ken Friedman to be the manager and I didn’t have a solution to that. I expressed my frustrations as well as I could without trying to sound too negative, but inside I felt like I was drowning.
The band’s response was unenthusiastic and unfriendly, and again it looked as though I was in a minority of one. They’d already been discussing what they wanted to do, and now Mike appeared to be the new spokesman. He informed me that the band intended to go back into the studio to record new songs, which I thought was a bizarre suggestion. We’d only just completed a new album that wasn’t due out for months. I was about to go on holiday, and now I was being told to go back into the studio, and with no songs. It was like a weird test, and I was guilty of some kind of violation. The mood stayed frozen. They obviously had a problem but I didn’t know what it was. I loved the others and I wanted everything to be all right, but I was aware of a new dynamic that had developed in the band, and I felt like I was being made to submit.
I agreed to go back into the studio to please everyone, and we chose the home studio of our friend James Hood in Streatham, as it was informal and wouldn’t cost very much. I had no idea what we were going to do, but I set up the studio with Grant, who would be with me behind the mixing desk, and waited for the band. There was an uneasy atmosphere from the moment we got together, and then Mike came up to me and said, ‘We’re doing a cover version. It’s a Cilla Black song.’ I thought he was joking, but I looked at the others and realised he was serious. I didn’t want to do a cover of a Cilla Black song, and I didn’t want to be told I was doing one by Mike either. That was not going to be the new way. I was becoming angry. My dedication to the band was being tested, which was hard to take as I’d formed the band in the first place. I relented and listened to the Cilla Black song. It was a silly bit of Merseybeat called ‘Work Is a Four-Letter Word’, with lyrics that said, you were born lazy and change your life.
We recorded it, and when it was finished I thought it wasn’t even worthy of being associated with The Smiths.
The oppressive feeling affected the sessions every day. We all needed to take a break from one another, and the stress was being expressed in desperation and mistrust. The more weird everything got, the more I wanted to get out, and the more I wanted to get out, the more tense the feeling became between everyone.
In spite of all the weirdness, Morrissey and I managed to write a new song called ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’, and then we attempted another cover version, an Elvis Presley song called ‘A Fool Such As I’. It sounded as desperate as it felt, and we abandoned it after a couple of takes. I was determined to finish the two songs we’d recorded, and I spent the next two nights sleeping under the mixing desk so I could go away knowing that everything was done. The day after the sessions ended I went to the airport in a daze after working all through the night. Angie and I got on the plane, and as we took off I felt an incredible sense of relief.
Getting out into the sunshine was exactly what I needed. I hung around for a couple of days doing very little; it was nice not having to be anywhere for a while. I was still shell-shocked from the events of the previous few weeks. Things had reached breaking point and I thought a lot about the new divisions in the band. I waited for one of the others to call but there was nothing, and the more days that went by without hearing anything, the more it pissed me off and the more I started to think that The Smiths might actually be over."
Regards,
FWD.