Having been weaned on The Smiths, I wasn't so sure when I heard the cover of 'Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before' appearing on Mark Ronson's 'Version' album. But he says the defunct band themselves like it, so maybe I'll give it some more time. Some disgruntled Smiths fans aren't prepared to do that however, which seems to be why Ronson ended up defending himself via the power of blog.
He wrote on his MySpace page: "When I recorded the original demo of "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" with my friend (the singer) Daniel Merriweather, the first thing I did was send it to Morrissey and Marr immediately, before I put the strings on it or anything, I needed to know if they would be alright with it, basically like a kid showing his parents his finger painting for their approval. It took a long time to hear back from them, but when I found out that Morrissey liked it and especially liked Daniel's vocal, you can imagine how I felt (Johnny Marr approved it as well, but I don't know his exact thoughts): the man who co-wrote my favourite song of all time gave blessing to this new interpretation. "
'Version' is out on 16 Apr.