The Queen Is Dead |
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Released: June 28, 1986 Peak: 70 US, 2 UK, 29 CN, 30 AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.85 US, 0.3 UK, 1.25 world (includes US and UK) Genre: college rock |
Tracks:Click on a song title for more details.
Total Running Time: 36:48 Other Songs from This Era:
The Players
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Rating: 4.638 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings)
Quotable--Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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A Masterpiece Created Under Stressful Circumstances“The Smiths were nothing if not prolific. The Queen Is Dead, recorded in December 1985 but not released until June 1986 due to legal problems, was The Smiths’ third album in two years (fourth, if you include superb odds-and-ends compilation Hatful of Hollow. It was also their masterpiece,” RD an album that “is by turn thrilling, beautiful, and hilarious.” RDThe band, however, were going through difficult times. Morrissey kept falling out with the group’s managers so Marr was largely running the group. AD They were renegotiating their contract and bassist Andy Rourke was addicted to heroin. Between the recording and the release of the album, he was even fired from the band. “In the preceding year or so the band had all individually drifted down to live in London and he felt that the music was suffering as a consequence…He moved back north to a place near Manchester and urged the others to follow suit which they eventually did, renting properties nearby. Throughout the summer of 1985 Morrissey and Marr really got to work, crafting early drafts of what were to become some of their finest ever songs.” CAD The Kings of Mope Rock“If you weren’t already aware, Morrissey invented being sad. Okay, not really. But the man born Steven Patrick Morrissey and his ragtag gang of working-class men from the gloomiest and greyest parts of Manchester called The Smiths long cultivated such a specific brand of being sad and lonely with their music that it’s almost impossible to remember that sorrow existed before The Queen Is Dead.” CQ“Morrissey’s maudlin moanings have never been more acidic or self-aware.” 500 “The original kings of British mope rock could have earned that title on the basis of this album alone.” 500 Morrissey let listeners “know that their angst and alienation had a voice – an aching, unforgettable voice.” EW’12 College-rock audiences in the eighties “often listen[ed] to The Smiths…to battle the depression of adolescence, and then subsequently dismiss[ed] the band later in life along with the painful memories of youth. But that does a great disservice to a group with complex arrangements and literate lyrics that inspired Radiohead on to greatness.” RV Morrissey’s Melancholy“The Queen is Dead is the Smiths at their most clever, politically poignant and musically adventurous.” PM “The songwriting, ever melodic with Morrissey’s instantly recognizable baritone voice, is clever and dark and mournful and self-deprecating – something that all post-Morrissey lyricists have tried and failed to emulate.” CQ“Morrissey spills out his elegant melancholy” EW’07 via “wry and witty lyrics about love (and also the eternal absence of it).” CQ And, yes, while he does explore “the feeling of an unending loneliness but the lack of want to ever rectify it” CQ he also offers “waspish observations on the British obsession with social propriety and its appetite for juicy scandal.” PR “The anti-royalist record’s lyrics had more bite than the commentary of any popular British punk group through Morrissey’s particularly English wit.” PM …And Johnny Marr’s Jangly GuitarMorrissey’s “self-pitying monologues” PR are backed by the “much scruffier” TM “liquid lead guitar of janglemaster Johnny Marr.” EW’07 “Lots of acts have milked that contrast. But few have taken it to the delightful extremes that define the Smiths’ third album, The Queen Is Dead.” TM Marr “is the sugar to Morrissey’s rock salt, and his layered webs of guitar riffs and arpeggios, often in unconventional tunings, build a shifting but stable platform for Morrissey to croon about the drudgery of employment or being cruelly, cruelly shunned by the world.” 500“Marr and the rhythm section blaze trails toward an idealized zone of rock (and sometimes pop) sunshine. Their runaway exuberance magnifies and sometimes mocks Morrissey’s gloomy desperation” TM by “forming a happy counterpoint.” ZS The mix has been described as “absolute bliss meets a razor blade.” ZS The album marked the group’s “great leap forward, taking the band to new musical and lyrical heights.” AM They were “in the middle of one of the greatest creative rolls that any band or artist has EVER managed.” CAD Johnny Marr’s RoleMarr “created a dense web of guitars” AM “and the rich musical bed provides Morrissey with the support for his finest set of lyrics” AM and “some of his finest, most affecting songs.” AM They “focus on heartbreak and isolation with just enough beauty to provide a ray of hope among the clouds of sadness.” RV Morrissey “delivers a devastating set of clever, witty satires of British social mores, intellectualism, class, and even himself.” AM The Impact“No one could keep up with the Smiths during their five furiously creative years together.” CM They were signed to “their often wayward independent label, Rough Trade…in 1983… [who] watched them swiftly establish themselves as the most important British group of the decade.” CM They became “a crucial presence and a touchstone for subsequent generations of young music fans.” CM On The Queen Is Dead “every strand of the Smiths’ ability was fully realized” CM in “a lifetime’s worth of revelatory music.” CMThe album “explores mortality, love and redemption like few bands. This album is among the best the ‘80s pop scene had to offer and a remarkable achievement of musical artistry.” RV It is “the best album by the band that defined the genre they sprang from, if Indie/Alternative is even a genre.” CAD “The Smiths’ success brought about a resurgence of guitar-led pop in Britain after a period dominated by synthesizers.” TB They “made it possible for future independent acts such as Oasis and The Stone Roses to break into the mainstream.” PR On Queen, “The Smiths peak as both writers and performers.” AD This “is the album that best captures the droll humor and musical extravagances that made the Smiths so riveting.” TM It “defined their times and gave us one of the greatest songwriting partnerships there’s EVER been.” CAD “Forget Her Majesty — on The Queen Is Dead the Smiths simply slay us all.” EW’07 Notes:A 2017 collector’s edition added a second disc of demos and B-sides as well as a third disc of live songs.The SongsHere’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs. |
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The Boy with the Thorn in His SideThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: August 1985 at Drone studio in Manchester Released: 9/16/1985 (single), The Queen is Dead (1986), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Rubber Ring,” “Asleep” Peak: 23 UK, 10 CO, 24 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 109.47 streaming About the Song:“Rarely has Moz sounded more poetic, crooning about young love” NME on “the wistful The Boy With The Thorn in His Side.” AM This was released as a single nine months before the album came out. “Moz calls out the band’s critics” CQ in this song and “Cemetry Gates.”
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Rubber RingThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 9/23/1985 (B-side of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 20.05 streaming About the Song:“The song kicks off with Rourke’s funky bass and then evolves into Morrissey’s ode to their most hardcore fans, asking them not to forget him as they grow older.” TG-46 “The accompanying cello was reportedly played by Rourke.” TG-46“The track ends with a couple of samples that Morrissey added.” TG-46 The first, the lines “Is that clever?” and “Everybody’s clever nowadays” is from a 1953 recording of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The second, the translated lines “You are sleeping / You do not want to believe” is is from “a 7” single with a recorded translation of a séance held by Dr. Konstantin Raudive. TG-46 The Smiths sometimes added the intro from “Rubber Ring” to “What You Said” in concert. |
AsleepThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 9/23/1985 (B-side of “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 20 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 176.88 streaming About the Song:“Of all the morbid and suicidal Morrissey lyrics, this is probably the most explicit one, and one of the saddest songs any one could listen to. This is aided by the music which is played like a lullaby on a piano (and the music box added to the end of the song). Like many people who had settled on going down the suicide path, the narrator in the song offers a gleam of positivity, as he thinks that there’s a better world waiting for him ‘on the other side.’” TG-45 |
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Bigmouth Strikes AgainThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: August to September 1985 at RAK studios in London Released: 5/19/1986 (single), B-side(s): “Money Changes Everything,” “Unloveable” Peak: 26 UK, 2 CO, 26 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 358.29 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:The second half includes “two utterly wonderful singles.” CAD First, was Bigmouth Strikes Again,” a “rampaging Stones-style rocker about saying the wrong thing.” TM Johnny Marr said, “I was trying to write my ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’” 500Mike Joyce said, “What a fantastic title – one of Mozzer’s better ones. And with this song, you can see why he made journalists cream their pants.” NME Marr said, “It’s as close as getting to the sound of my heroes as we came; the early Rolling Stones. There’s no other single like it. It’s a good example of our quirkiness.” NME The song features the “curiously empathetic line, ‘Now I know how Joan of Arc felt as the flames rose to her Roman nose and her Walkman started to melt’).” TM |
Money Changes EverythingThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 5/19/1986 (B-side of “Bigmouth Strikes Again”), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 4.14 streaming About the Song:This is one of only three instrumentals released by The Smiths. “The title is often seen as a stab at the band’s label, Rough Trade, who they were fighting with a lot at the time. Morrissey’s decision not to write any lyrics for the song didn’t stop Marr taking it to his new friend Bryan Ferry, who used the song in a reworked form as the single ‘The Right Stuff’ in 1987.” TG-47 |
UnloveableThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: (B-side of “Bigmouth Strikes Again”), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 65.06 streaming About the Song:This was originally intended for The Queen Is Dead but replaced by “Vicar in a Tutu.” “The lyrics are yet another one of those ‘self-pity’ ones, which the title kind of gives away. The band never played the song live, which probably goes to show that it wasn’t a favorite of theirs.” TG-45 |
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The Queen Is Dead / Take Me Back to Dear Old Blightly (medley)The Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: October – November 1985 at Jacobs Studios in Farnham Released: 6/16/2017 (single), The Queen is Dead (1986) B-side(s): “Oscillate Wildly,” “Money Changes Everything,” “The Draize Train,” “I Keep Mine Hidden” Peak: 85 UK Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 43.80 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:“The storming title track” AM is “full of quiet rage.” 500 It is “a lyrical and musical tour-de-force,” CAD “a savage, witty attack on the royal family set against a squall of overdubbed guitars (Marr’s meeting of the MC5 and The Velvet Underground).” RDThe song “opens with a sample of ‘Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty,’ a song written during World War I, which twists into an uncharacteristically aggressive barrage of drums from Mike Joyce – as Johnny Marr’s distorted wah-wah effect explodes alongside Morrissey’s vocal while he wails ‘Her very Lowness with her head in a sling / I’m truly sorry, but it sounds like a wonderful thing’ in an unflinching display of vitriol for English royalty.” PM “The song is a sustained burst of fantastical imagery.” CM Lyrically, the song “can be taken on (at least) three different levels. The first, and obvious one would be an attack on ‘her very Lowness’ herself and the Monarchy as a whole, in Morrissey’s opinion an outdated and irrelevant institution.” CAD “Secondly, we can take ‘The Queen’ of the title to mean Britain itself. He’s bemoaning the fact that the country is…no longer the place it used to be, broken, impoverished, a generation condemned to the dole queue by Thatcher and her “no such thing as society” mantra. Then again, the title could refer to Morrissey himself” CAD who once said it was autobiographical. CAD Regarding the music, Marr said, “I had an idea to do a song that had the aggression of the Detroit garage bands, ‘cos I’m such a Stooges fan. And it’s influenced by the Velvets too – it’s The Smiths does The Stooges does The Velvet Underground.” NME |
Frankly, Mr. ShanklyThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Oct. 1986 (B-side of “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”), The Queen is Dead (1986) Peak: 29 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 57.00 streaming About the Song:Frankly Mr. Shankly is “strummy social commentary” 500 with its “deliciously comic music hall stomp.” CAD The “acoustic guitar lend[s] a fine contrast to the preceding track.” CAD “As a lyricist Morrissey had never been funnier…[as he mocks] Rough Trade’s boss Geoff Travis in excruciating detail.” CM As Andy Rourke said, “It was like taking the piss out of the headmaster.” NMEMorrissey reached out to Linda McCartney to ask her if she would play piano on it because, as Marr said, “we were big fans of hers.” NME Unfortunately, she declined. |
I Know It’s OverThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: The Queen is Dead (1986), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) Peak: 16 CO, 29 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 251.36 streaming About the Song:“The lovely melancholy” AM of the “mellow ruminations of I Know It’s Over” PM makes for “a heartbreaking, beautiful lament, loaded with emotion and sung with epic passion.” CAD It “is a requiem for a hoped-for relationship that never truly existed.” CM Reviewer Adrian Denning called it “Morrissey’s finest five minutes and forty nine seconds as a vocalist.” AD |
Never Had No One EverThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: The Queen is Dead (1986) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 30.50 streaming About the Song:“Never Had No One Ever is more of the same in terms of feel. Not quite so inspired this time but it remains perfectly fine.” AD Both are “nihilistic odes to perpetual loneliness” CQ On this one, “murky guitars provide the backing to Moz at his most miserable.” NME Morrissey explained, “It was about the frustration that I felt at the age of 20 when I still didn’t feel easy walking around the streets…where all my family had lived…It was a constant confusion to me why I never really felt, ‘This is my patch.’” NME |
Cemetry GatesThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: 10/20/1986 (B-side of “Ask”), The Queen is Dead (1986), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988) Peak: 29 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 94.92 streaming About the Song:“Plagiarists receive the sharp lash of the Morrissey tongue, over a deceptively jaunty pop backing.” NME The “catchy jangle-pop of Cemetry Gates” PM makes for “a lovely, jaunty tune to close the side with a bit of humour thrown in.” CAD Morrissey presents “the great poets as trading-card superheroes, …giving his friend John Keats and William Butler Yeats and keeping Oscar Wilde for himself.” TM Engineer Stephen Street said, “It’s all the best elements of The Smiths…It’s delicate, but it’s still got power.” NME |
Vicar in a TutuThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: 7/21/1986 (B-side of “Panic”), The Queen is Dead (1986), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988) Peak: 26 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 22.69 streaming About the Song:“The faux rockabilly of Vicar in a Tutu” AM “is simple, stupid, happy.... and brilliant.” AD It is a nod “to music hall…about a cross-dressing clergyman.” NME Street said, “It gave the album depth, a comic character song. It shows Morrisey’s sense of humor.” NME Marr says, “It’s not one of my favourites but it was a laugh.” NME |
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There Is a Light That Never Goes OutThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: September – November 1985 at Jacobs studios in Farnham, Surrey Released: 10/12/1992 (single), The Queen is Dead (1986), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Handsome Devil” (live), “Hand in Glove” (live), “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” (live), “Money Changes Everything” Peak: 25 UK, 2 CO, 7 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 108.68 video, 1187.11 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:“The epic There Is a Light That Never Goes Out” AM is “the album’s crown jewel” CQ and “one of the band’s most sublime moments, the singer’s melodramatic vocal chiming perfectly with Marr’s relentless guitar.” RD It “could well be the ultimate Smiths song…Critic and author Simon Goddard has dubbed it ‘the national anthem of Smithdom.’” CAD“Morrissey dares experiment with a rare optimistic approach to love – but which, inevitably, still ends in death.” CQ It is “a joyous celebration of being hopelessly in love” CAD and yet “Morrissey typically manages to throw in some mordant humour amidst the euphoria.” CAD Perhaps no other lyric better represents the Smiths than “And if a double-decker bus crashes into us / To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die / And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us / To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.” With these words from “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” Morrissey “ups the sad-and-doomed quotient by leaps and bounds,” AMG showcasing his talent for simultaneously romantic and morbid imagery. It is “an introspective and lonely lyric underpinned by a delicate, intricate, acoustic-led band.” XFM “Every instrument, every sound in the song’s four minutes, is positioned for maximum emotional impact. Johnny Marr’s weepy string arrangements dominate most open spaces that Morrissey’s pensive vocals don’t fill.” AMG Marr, the band’s guitarist who gave the band their jangly-pop sound, described the recording process as “magical.” WK Street said, “It’s very emotive, a stunning performance. It was a great arrangement by Johnny…Up ‘til then he had been wary of using keyboards, but we wanted something different…The result is sublime.” NME In his 2002 book Songs That Saved Your Life, Simon Goddard shows how the song’s narrative is similar to the movie Rebel Without a Cause. In the 1955 classic, James Dean – who Morrissey idolized – “leaves his torturous home life, being the passenger to a potential romantic partner.” WK Goddard also characterized the song as an “explicit glamorization of suicide.” WK The song was first released on the Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. It was released as a single six years later – after the band’s demise – in support of their compilation Best II. AllMusic.co’s Tim DiGravina called it “one of the most touching and romantic songs in the Smiths’ discography.” AMG XFM said it “may also be the band at their best.” XFM In 2014, NME ranked it the #12 song of all time. WK |
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Some Girls Are Bigger Than OthersThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: October – November 1985 at Jacobs studios in Farnham, Surrey Released: Oct. 1986 (single), 11/2/1987 (live version, B-side of “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”), The Queen is Dead (1986), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “The Draize Train,” “Frankly Mr. Shankly” Peak: 40 CO, 26 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 74.41 streaming About the Song:“Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others “is perfect to close.” AD It is “designed solely to generate a smirk.” NME “The lyrics are funny and whilst your wiping away the tears from listening to ‘There Is a Light’ gives you another emotion entirely.” AD |
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PanicThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 7/21/1986 (single), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “The Draize Train,” “Vicar in a Tutu” Peak: 3 CO, 11 UK, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 135.70 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:This is “probably one of the better-known songs in The Smiths catalog.” TG-30 Morrissey has said this is his favorite Smiths song. TG-30 “This was the first song they recorded after Rourke was kicked out and then asked to join again, and his replacement Craig Gannon is heard playing the rhythm guitar.” TG-30“The inspiration for the lyrics came, famously, after Morrissey and Marr listened to the radio news reports when the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl occurred in April 1986.” TG-30 “DJ Steve Wright chose to play Wham!’s jaunty hit ‘I’m Your Man’ directly after the report of this horrendous accident, which upset the two songwriters. Morrissey later wore a t-shirt with a photo of Wright and the words ‘Hang the DJ!’ on stage.” TG-30 |
The Draize TrainThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Johnny Marr Recorded: ? Released: 7/21/1986 (B-side of “Panic”), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 3.83 streaming About the Song:This is one of only three instrumentals released by The Smiths. This one was written solely by Marr. “Label boss Geoff Travis really wanted Moz to write some lyrics for this funky song, as he felt that it could be a huge hit, but the singer felt that it was one of the weakest songs Marr had written.” TG-31 |
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AskThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: single (10/20/1986), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Cemetry Gates,” “Golden Lights” Peak: 10 CO, 14 UK, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 102.94 streaming |
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Song:This was the next single after “Panic,’ which was a protest song, so Morrissey “deliberately wrote non-protest lyrics for this one, to make sure that the fans wouldn’t get tired.” TG-31 “He suggested that you should break free of your inhibitions, and stop being shy.” TG-31 “This is reportedly about sexual desire.” TG-31 |
Golden LightsThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Lynn Ripley Recorded: ? Released: 10/20/1986 (B-side of “Ask”), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 30 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.21 streaming About the Song:“This might be one of the most ‘hated’ Smiths recordings.” TG-32 “It does stand out a bit from their other efforts. It was the first cover version the band released, with the original being recorded by Twinkle in 1965.” TG-32 “Morrissey sounds like he’s singing underwater with all the strange effects that were added into the mix.” TG-32 |
Is It Really So Strange?The Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: 12/2/1986 at John Peel session for BBC Released: 4/13/1987 (B-side of “Sheila Take a Bow”), Rank (live: 1986, released 1988), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 21.14 streaming About the Song:This song was originally intended to be the B-side of 1986’s “Ask,” but the band wasn’t happy with the recording. The version that ended up released in 1987 as the B-side of “Sheila Take a Bow” was from the band’s last BBC session with John Peel.This is “the most humorous” TG-49 of “the three songs that make up Morrissey’s ‘moving from the north to the south’ trilogy (the other parts being ‘London’ and ‘Half a Person’).” TG-48 “Morrissey tells his tale of chasing his love interest all over the UK, during his travels killing both a nun and a horse, for some reason. Musically, it’s yet another of the rockabilly influenced songs that the band recorded, although this is one of the slower ones.” TG-49 |
Sweet and Tender HooliganThe Smiths |
Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: 12/2/1986 at John Peel session for BBC Released: 4/13/1987 (B-side of “Sheila Take a Bow”), 1995 (single), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 13.98 streaming About the Song:This song and “Is It Really So Strange?” were originally intended as B-sides for 1986’s “Panic” but the band didn’t deem them good enough. In this case, they thought they played the song too slowly. They ended up using a 1986 session recorded for John Peel “and this time they nailed it.” TG-34 It ended up as a B-side for “Sheila Take a Bow” and, in 1995, was even released as a single.“Lyrically, Morrissey tells the tale of a young criminal in court, who swears that he’d ‘never never do it again.’ Towards the end of the song, Morrissey throws in a twist on the expression ‘in the midst of life we are in death,’ turning it into ‘in the midst of life we are in debt.’” TG-34 |
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First posted 6/28/2010; last updated 9/20/2026. |
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