Over at Pitchform, Johnny Marr has recently written about music he's loved when he was 5, 10, 15 and 20 years of age. Quite the interesting write from him!

When "Metal Guru" from T. Rex's The Slider came out, I was knocked sideways, too. Hearing it for the first time was one of those things that can only be described as transcendent-- people who've had those moments with rock music will know what I'm talking about. It's not something you can get from anything else. Seeing "Metal Guru" performed on "Top of the Pops" was a life-changing moment for me-- I got on my pushbike, aged 10, and rode and rode for miles until I got lost in this park in the early hours of the morning. It really affected me that deeply. That feeling was something I wanted to create in music.

...and:

When we did The Queen Is Dead, I was trying to evoke Raw Power's overall feeling of beautiful solitude: It was OK to be broke and not have much but your records.

But the most important thing that happened to me at that age was meeting the girl who I wanted to be with, and who is still with me to this day, Angie. When we met in '79, I was just 15, she was 14. My hormones were not so much of a distraction because Angie and I went full-time straight away. She wanted me to be who I wanted to be and she wanted to be with me to do that. And she was like, "Hey, I like Johnny Thunders and Iggy Pop and the good bits of the Rolling Stones a lot." Of course we're still together! I'm not an idiot.