Long before Manchester became “Madchester” — when Baroness Thatcher was but a Mrs, the Falklands conflict was the war du jour and Labour remained resolutely old — a rock phenomenon was born.

The Smiths eulogised a provincial dystopia made up of lads’ clubs, no-hope employment and literary run-ins at cemetery gates. It was a provincialism that would win them world renown. Two decades later the NME voted them the most influential band of all time, pummelling the Beatles, Stones, Sex Pistols and Shadows. Moreover, this weekend thousands of fans flocked from all over the world to join someone who rather pretentiously calls himself Morrissey, the band’s front man, in a musical celebration of his 45th birthday.

There are many things one could say about the Smiths’ music, for those who care about such things: that it marked the end of synth-driven new wave and the beginning of the trend for guitar rock that prefigured the Brit Pop of the 1990s.

But in the end it was really about being a bit moody. Fans skulked in their bedrooms, refusing supper on the ground that meat was murder, complaining that nobody understood them and becoming even more disgruntled if anyone did. But the alternative was being a Duran Duran fan, which, on reflection, was depressing in a different way.

Until then, to eschew being woken up before one go-goed was to be a goth, but even goths knew that this in itself was embarrassing. Morrissey and co were too cool to actually be cool, playing up the vaudeville in NHS specs, hearing aid, and a back pocket stuffed with gladioli. There were post-punk, to be sure. But their love of rockabilly, crooners and girl groups meant that Smithsville could only ever be an irony-filled zone. The irony was overdone, but this is still true of much of British society: I’m only trying to be serious if you don’t take me seriously.

Morrissey himself, aka “the Pope of Mope”, was the embodiment of histrionic angst. He was the son, he was the heir. He was human and he needed to be loved. But not before he had dragged us all down to his pathologically depressed level. Still fame, fame, fatal fame can play hideous tricks on the brain, as we learnt in 1987 when the laureate who had extolled the virtues of Wigan left for La La Land and seemed to like it.

Then came the burp that was Brit Pop (Oasis produced one, and only one, interesting song) accompanied by a new Labour optimism that things could only get better, and if they didn’t there was always another round to get in. Ten years later the mood is less buoyant. The trademark quiff may be in need of artificial assistance, but the mouth and the melancholy remain potent.