The Smiths Strangeways, Here We Come released

Strangeways, Here We Come The Smiths

Released: September 22, 1987 Peak: 55 US, 2 UK, 27 CN, 28 AU, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.50 US, 0.10 UK, 0.60 world (includes US and UK) Genre: college rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours [3:00] I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish [3:47] Death of a Disco Dancer [5:26] Girlfriend in a Coma [2:03] Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before [3:32] Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me [5:03] Unhappy Birthday [2:46] Paint a Vulgar Picture [5:35] Death at One’s Elbow [2:01] I Won’t Share You [2:48] Total Running Time: 36:37 Other Songs from This Era: Shoplifters of the World Unite London Half a Person You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby Sheila Take a Bow Work Is a Four-Letter Word I Keep Mine Hidden The Players: Morrissey (vocals) Johnny Marr (guitar, etc.) Andy Rourke (bass) Mike Joyce (drums)

Rating: 4.024 out of 5.00 (average of 16 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album This was The Smiths’ fourth and final studio album. “After striving for international success for a few years, The Smiths finally had a hit album with The Queen Is Dead…Now the path was cleared in front of them, and them were off to international stardom, with arena gigs and extensive media coverage.” TG The name for Strangeways, Here We Come came from “the notorious Manchester prison,” RD which sounds like a statement about how the band felt trapped by their contractual obligation to Rough Trade, the UK indie label that had released the band’s first three albums. They recorded the album for Rough Trade while trying to renegotiate their deal. TG-35 Alas, it was all for nought as friction grew between singer/songwriter Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr was fracturing as they argued over management and the direction for the band. Still, they “labored hard over the songs, working to expand the Smiths’ sound within their very real boundaries. For the most part, they succeed.” AM Both of them have said this is their favorite of the band’s four albums. TG-35 Nonetheless, Strangeways, Here We Come, is the most carefully considered and elaborately produced album in the group’s catalog.” AM “Before the band entered the Wool Hall Studio (then owned by pop stars Tears for Fears), they got ride of Craig Gannon, and also asked Stephen Street to help them with the recordings once again, this time as a credited co-producer (with Morrissey and Marr).” He helped them create “a subtly shaded and skilled album, one boasting a fuller production than before.” AM “The sessions are now mostly (in)famous for the after-work parties, with the well-kept wine cellar in the studio premises one of the main reasons for the extensive partying (though they started drinking after Morrissey had gone to bed, as he didn’t want anything to do with those sorts of things, according to Street.” TG-35 “To call it The Smiths’ most diverse album isn’t an exaggeration. If the band had used synthesizers and keyboards as an experiment on The Queen Is Dead, they had now fully embraced them and made this an integral part of the soundscape.” TG-35 This did upset the fan base who “saw The Smiths as a guitar pop band, but Marr, in particular, felt that they had to develop as a band, and break free from their shackles of jangly indie-pop if they wanted to go anywhere.” TG-35 In the end, “though it aspires greatly to better The Queen Is Dead, it falls just short of its goals.” AM Still, “Strangeways is a graceful way to bow out. While it doesn’t match The Queen Is Dead or The Smiths, it is far from embarrassing and offers a summation of the group’s considerable strengths.” AM “It remains a noble epitaph to one of Britain’s greatest bands.” RD The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs featured on Strangeways, Here We Come as well as other songs recorded and released during that era.

Shoplifters of the World Unite The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 1/26/1987 (single), 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): “London,” “Half a Person” Peak: 4 CO, 12 UK, 11 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 26.67 streaming About the Song: This “might sound like a hymn to thievery, but…you should[n’t] take the lyrics literally as it’s probably ‘a metaphor for all those repressed and marginalized by society,’ as author Simon Goddard wrote in his book Mosipedia (2009). Morrissey himself has also said that the song is about ‘spiritual shoplifting.’” TG-32 “Apart from that, the lyrics appear to be filled with ‘loans’ from other works, like The Last Chance Texaco (Rickie Lee Jones, 1979), Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (Joni Mitchell, 1977), and a snippet from a James Dean TV drama from 1952 called Campbell Playhouse.” TG-32 “This is the only song in The Smiths catalog that was produced by only Johnny Marr, just shortly after he was involved in a serious car crash in November 1986.” TG-32

London The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 1/26/1987 (B-side of “Shoplifters of the World Unite”), 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, 12.16 streaming About the Song: “Probably the hardest rocking song in The Smiths canon. The lyrics are about a man who boards a train to Euston, leaving his dismal hometown behind while sneering at the people staying up north – a theme he borrowed from the book By Grand Central I Saw Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart.” TG-33 “The lead guitar during the song’s chaotic coda was played by Craig Gannon.” TG-33

Half a Person The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 1/26/1987 (B-side of “Shoplifters of the World Unite”), The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 39 CO, 9 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 82.22 streaming About the Song: This song “forms some kind of trilogy with ‘London’ and ‘Is It Really So Strange?,’ as they’re all about moving from the north to the south (Manchester to London, for instance).” TG-33 “The narrator says that he’s ’16, clumsy, and shy’ and in the autobiography, Morrissey mentions that he moved to London for a few days when he was seventeen.” TG-33 “Marr has said that it’s one of his favorite among the songs he wrote with Morrissey. He remembers the exact moment that they wrote it, on the stairway to the Mayfair Studio, and that it was probably the best songwriting moment the two ever shared.” TG-33

You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: The World Won’t Listen (archives: 1984-87), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87) Peak: 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 12.49 streaming About the Song: This was intended as a single – 900 copies had even been pressed – before the label changed their mind and released “Shoplifters of the World Unite” instead. TG-32 Marr said the band simply considered the latter a better song. TG-46 Morrissey also reportedly disliked “all the overdubs that were made by John Porter.” TG-46 The version on Louder Than Bombs featured fewer overdubs. TG-46 It has been “widely suggested that the lyrics were aimed at Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis, since the title was one of his favorite sayings, but Morrissey later stated that he never said it was aimed at Travis.” TG-46 Kirsty MacColl later recorded the song for the She’s Having a Baby soundtrack in 1988 with Johnny Marr on guitar.

Sheila Take a Bow The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 4/13/1987 (single), Louder Than Bombs (archives: 1983-87), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Is It Really So Strange?,” “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” Peak: 10 CO, 10 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 18.83 streaming About the Song: Sandie Shaw recorded backing vocals for this song, but the band opted not to use it. Morrissey, who was sick at home when she was in the studio, sang the tune to her over the phone. She “later claimed that the song was ‘horrid,’ so it was probably for the best.” TG-33 The band also “scrapped an original John Porter recording in favor of a Stephen Street version.” TG-33 “The song has quite a lot in common with the UK glam rock scene of the 70s ,and Marr has admitted that he was trying to find a ‘Mott the Hoople sound’ for the tune. Lyrically, the lines ‘Throw your homework onto the fire’ probably inspired one or two young Smiths fans to rebel against their parents.” TG-33

Girlfriend in a Coma The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: March – April 1987 at the Wool Hall, Beckington, Somerset Released: 8/10/1987 (single), Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Work Is a Four-Letter Word,” “I Keep Mine Hidden” Peak: 4 CO, 13 UK, 2 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 81.11 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: This was released as the first single from the Strangeways, Here We Come album. Sadly, it was the same week when The Smiths announced they were hanging it up as a band. RD The B-sides, “I Keep Mine Hidden” and a cover of Cilla Black’s “Work Is a Four-Letter Word,” were the last songs the band recorded together. TG-37 In the video, Morrissey is featured miming the song over footage from the 1964 movie The Leather Boys. TG-37 Girlfriend in a Coma is “a classic example of Morrissey’s abrasive wit.” RD It is “actually about a girlfriend (it remains unclear who’s girlfriend it is) being in a coma, and Morrissey seems unsure whether he thinks it’s a good thing or a bad thing, even though he says that he ‘would hate anything to happen to her.’” TG-37

Work Is a Four-Letter Word The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 8/10/1987 (B-side of “Girlfriend in a Coma”) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.19 streaming About the Song: This cover of a 1968 Cilla Black recording and “I Keep Mine Hidden” were the last songs the Smiths recorded. “Most fans seem to think that those two are the worst recordings they put out.” TG-39 “Marr later said in interviews that it was the last straw for him and shortly after the sessions, he decided to leave the band.” TG-39

I Keep Mine Hidden The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: ? Released: 8/10/1987 (B-side of “Girlfriend in a Coma”) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.11 streaming About the Song: This “whistling, jolly tune” TG-39 “was the last song that Morrissey and Marr ever recorded together.” TG-39 It is “far from a classic Smiths song.” TG-39 During the same sessions they recorded an unreleased cover of Elvis Presley’s “A Fool Such As I.” TG-39 “Morrissey sings about how hard he finds it to express his emotions and also how he envies those who can.” TG39

A Rush and Push and the Land Is Ours The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: 20 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 62.35 streaming About the Song: “Morrissey’s Irish roots are explored on ferocious war cry A Rush and a Push.” RD “The song is one of many on this album that deals with death in one form or another, and it all kicks off with Morrissey presenting himself as ‘the ghost of Trouble Joe,’ who, in the song, hung eighteen months earlier.” TG-36 “While the song itself might not go down in Smiths history as their most memorable, it does hold a very special place in their catalogue – it’s the only song they ever recorded with no guitars at all, which must be see as a bit odd for a band with one of the world’s most renowned guitarists in its lineup. But this was all part of Marr’s desire to further develop the band’s sound.” TG-36

I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: 11/2/1987 (single), Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Pretty Girls Make Graves,” “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” (live) Peak: 12 CO, 23 UK, 33 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 28.28 streaming About the Song: “Marr’s crunchy glam guitar on I Started Something anticipates Morrissey’s future solo work with Mick Ronson.” RD “The song begins with a few power chords from Marr, and then goes on to reveal details about a fictional (?) relationship that Morrissey doesn’t seem to be too convinced about.” TG-36 This was released as the second single from the album. Originally “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” had been planned as a single but the label thought “it was inappropriate…as it mentions planning a mass murder.” TG-36

Death of a Disco Dancer The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 13.54 streaming About the Song: “This song offers quite a pessimistic view on world peace in our lifetime: ‘And if you think peace is a common goal / Well, that goes to show how little you know,’ and ‘Love, peace, and harmony? / …Very nice, very nice, very nice / But maybe in the next world.’” TG-36 “This song is also unique in its own way, as it’s the first and only time Morrissey played an instrument on a Smiths recording, though [it’s questionable] his tinkering on the piano in the coda of the song can be labelled ‘playing.’” TG-36

Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Recorded: Spring 1987 Released: Oct. 1987 (single), Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “I Keep Mine Hidden” Peak: 9 CO, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 52.71 streaming About the Song: “The self-parodying Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” is an album highlight. RD Morrissey “sings about a relationship in its final stages, during which the narrator drinks too much and has a minor cycling ‘accident.’” TG-37 “The mentioning of a mass murder made the band stop the release of a single…in the UK, but it did come out in several other countries.” TG-37

Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: 12/7/1987 (single), Strangeways, Here We Come (1987), The Very Best of (compilation: 1983-87, released 2001) B-side(s): “Rusholme Ruffians,” “Nowhere Fast” Peak: 12 CO, 30 UK, 37 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 44.07 streaming About the Song: The “dramatic” RD Last Night features a “harrowing extended introduction underpinned by foreboding piano and rioting crowds.” RD That intro, running nearly two minutes, “consists of a BBC sound recordings from the miners’ strike in 1984-1985.” TG-37 It was cut from the single version of the song. The song finds Morrissey “once again longing for love, the drama intensified by Marr’s synthesizer string arrangement.” TG-37

Unhappy Birthday The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: 20 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.50 streaming About the Song: “The jolly singalong Unhappy Birthday” is an album highlight, RD although AllMusic.com’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it “glib and forced.” AM “As ever so often with Smiths songs, Marr’s fairly happy music once again contrast with Morrissey’s rather nasty birthday wishes for – well, we don’t know who he had in mind here, but one thing is for sure – it’s not his best friend.” TG-37 “Marr once said that this was one of his favorite Smiths songs, partly because of the amazing interplay between his guitar and Rourke’s bass: ‘Only we could play it, and only Morrissey could sing it.’” TG-37

Paint a Vulgar Picture The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 8.63 streaming About the Song: “Paint a Vulgar Picture, with its bitter refrain of ‘Re-issue! Re-package!’ seems rather ironic in the light of endless Smiths and Morrissey compilations released since.” RD “Morrissey tells the story of a greedy record label who has a dead star in its roster who continue to exploit his back catalogue with endless reissuing and repackaging. But amid all this label heckling, he also finds the time to tell the story of a big fan…who dreams of meeting his big idol.” TG-38

Death at One’s Elbow The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 6.93 streaming About the Song: “The title of the song was taken from the diaries of Joe Orton…with the corpse in question being his mother, whose funeral he attended the same day…The lyrics echo Orton’s own demise, as he was beaten to death by his lover in August 1967.” TG-38 This is “hardly any fan’s favorite, but it does mark another first in The Smiths history…as Marr provides the backing vocals.” TG-38

I Won’t Share You The Smiths

Writer(s): Morrissey (lyrics), Johnny Marr (music) Released: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) Peak: 38 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 36.64 streaming About the Song: This “lullaby-like tune” is a “fitting closer” TG-38 which “allegedly reduced drummer Mike Joyce to tears.” RD It has often been suggested that one of the reasons The Smiths broke up is Morrissey’s frustration with Johnny Marr “moonlighting with other artists (like Kirsty MacColl and Pretenders).” TG-38 “With that in mind, the lyrics to this song become almost self-explanatory.” TG-38

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 573. TG Tommy Gunnarsson (2021). On Track…The Smiths & Morrissey. Sonicbond Publishing: United Kingdom. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 4/27/2008; last updated 9/20/2026.