"Mmmmm... I think a sex symbol is possibly the best thing to be..."

Thus spake wild Steve Morrissey last year before his jangle organisation The Smiths hit the heights and baggy-bum chic hit the nations' student unions. Now a sexual role model for a brand new legion of sensitive, disaffected youths, Mr. Morrissey's heroine, and lately, prodigy Sandie Shaw has other ideas -- "Morrissey sexy? Oh no ... I don't find him sexy at all!"
How about a hero? -- "Nearly all my heroes are actresses ... like Shirley MacLaine, or singers like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. It's not so much their work, more the way they approach things..." ... so no Morrissey?
"Well ... if he works a bit harder he might come on -- he'll have to keep at it for a while. Morrissey hasn't had any failures yet -- so I'd like to see him have a few failures and see how he handles that!"

'Hand In Glove' is the reason for our little talk. The first Smiths single, a murky but muscular indication of the things that were to come, has undergone some stringent pop scrutiny and re-emerged with a sparkling Smithsonian sheen, Ms Shaw's breathless and enthusiastic vocal injecting the necessary stimulant to guarantee its present position -- lunging purposefully into the Top Ten. She's been there before, you may (if you're older than Jim Reid) remember. She had hits. And she's hitting again.

But tell me, Sandie, do you actually like these uncouth Mancunians and their wild and leery music?
"Now I feel very close to Morrissey ... but when he first sent me a tape ... It was with a fan letter and I really don't know why I listened to more than two bars of it -- it was awful ... really awful. So I sent it back and said I couldn't make head or tail of it . So they sent me another version ... and I sent that back too!"

So what on earth possessed you to look any further... ?
"In the end Morrissey ended up in my front room and when I actually met him I decided I could trust him -- I took it totally on trust. I still didn't even like the stuff until I got in the studio and started singing it. I then realised that I'd wanted these songs for ages -- not so much the style -- more the passion. I'd missed that, and everything else had just seemed so cliched nowadays. Now it's either music for the genital or the head ... not much for the heart which is what I've always preferred."

Had you been waiting for the opportunity to get back into the singing swing?
"No, not really. Everyone had always been nagging me and nagging me to sing again, but the more they nagged me the less I actually wanted to do it. I'd been so disillusioned with it in the past -- I don't particularly enjoy being famous. I can't understand why people want to be popstars -- the thought of that album followed by a tour routine -- it's so boring. The only appeal is being able to communicate with some people who might feel the same as you."

How important is success, then?
"I hate that desperation people have. It's always been much better if you're more natural, doing something if it feels right. That's why I stopped before -- it wasn't fun, it wasn't successful and I was doing rubbishy songs. Artists shouldn't be taken in by commercial success."

Two years ago Sandie released a cover of 'Anyone Who Had A Heart' as part of the admirably ambitious but ill-fated BEF 'Music Of Quality and Distinction' -- had that been a satisfying experience?
"No, it wasn't successful in any sense. It wasn't commercial and I didn't get anything out of it in a personal or artistic way. I was uncomfortable with BEF. It's much better now -- it's still traumatic but once I've actually done it I feel better."

For someone with such laissez faire notions towards the pop rat-race, do nerves ever bother you?
"I was so nervous before the Hammersmith Palais thing (Sandie recently guested on 'Hand In Glove' [actually, it was 'I Don't Owe You Anything' - TM] at the climax of a London Smiths show). I'd been sitting at the side of the stage watching and they went marching off to the dressing room to look for me. When I wasn't there they thought I'd pissed off because I didn't like the show! So they're panicking up there and I'm sitting down on the stage thinking 'They don't want me to go on, they've changed their minds'. Eventually they found me and were begging me to go on ... Afterwards Morrissey rang me up at about three in the morning and said 'Well?' -- I just told him I could have done an hour, one song just wasn't enough!"

Is playing the pop game in 1984 much the same as it was in 1964?
"Oh no -- music now is terribly boring -- and it doesn't seem to reflect what's going on with young people. Film and TV is much more reflective of that. When I was a kid I thought that I could do anything, be anything -- so therefore I did it. People now are so much more dependent upon the State, they let the State make all the decisions. In the 60s everyone geared their creativeness towards music -- artists, writers, everybody. Nowadays it's diversified -- I'm sure they must be somewhere ... maybe they're writing for pop magazines!"

So if nothing in pop apart from those sizzling Smiths offers any solace where must we look for future Sandie Shaw contributions to popular culture?
"On TV. With television you can think of an idea and get it across immediately. I'm working on a programme about women in music -- this has only really been around since the early sixties and I find how women have actually evolved within such a sexist industry really interesting. It's about how people use influence, how they're aware of it."