On the morning of the 27th of January 1974, three days after the deluge of rain began.
Johnny comes straight to the point, “‘Smashed’ is a ‘River Drama’”.
“It’s unique among my songs because it’s come from a childhood memory”. “It was amongst the last songs I wrote before The Goths went separate ways, about a boat, when the river floods, which gets wrenched from its moorings, washed downstream, and it gets smashed against a bridge”.
“The Gothic novel ‘Gormenghast’ also might’ve been subconsciously in my thoughts, because in the novel, the entire kingdom of Gormenghast is submerged in a flood from endless rains”.
“‘Smashed’ is totally symbolic really. The boat is ‘the cradle rediscovered. I fuse that with this symbolism of the river, which is, well, it is ‘life itself’. The total thing is a kind of take mostly on the idea of an ‘existential crisis’. The beginning riff reminds me a bit of early Kraftwerk, but instead of ‘Autobahn’, you get this very heavy, very kind of frantic, really, build-up”.