Archives for February 2022

Certain Songs #2305: The Smiths – “Panic”

February 28, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1986

. . .

“Hang the DJ”

The ink had barely dried on all of the reviews of The Queen is Dead when The Smiths issued their next single, “Panic,” the result of their first foray into the studio in 1986, a May session in London, and the first Smiths recording to feature Craig Gannon on second guitar.

Inspired in equal parts by Marr wanting to do a T.Rex rip and Morrissey being outraged after a BBC Radio 1 DJ played a Wham! song right after a breaking news story about the Chernobyl disasters, “Panic” kicked off the third — and final — phase of The Smiths career, a year that would produce nearly two dozen songs and lead to the burnt-out state that caused Johnny Marr to walk away from the whole thing.

Certain Songs #2304: The Smiths – “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”

February 26, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Queen is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“From the Ice Age to the Dole Age”

And so after the epic drama of “There is A Light That Never Goes Out,” The Smiths choose to close The Queen is Dead with not something matching its grandeur, but rather one of their most frivolous songs, “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others.” And it’s a perfect choice, as “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” is musically closer to classic Smiths than, say, “Frankly, Mr. Shankly” or “Vicar in a Tutu,” though the lyrics on both those songs are actually pretty great.

Certain Songs #2303: The Smiths – “There is A Light That Never Goes Out”

February 25, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Queen is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“The pleasure, the privilege, is mine”

“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” just might be my favorite Smiths song. And not only that, it’s one of those songs that always flashes me to another place, another time, another life.

Certain Songs #2302: The Smiths – “Cemetry Gates”

February 24, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Queen is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“Some dizzy whore, 1804”

After the double gut punch of “I Know It’s Over” and “Never Had No One Ever,” The Queen is Dead needed some lightening up, stat, else it would obscure the memory of the two witty punchy tracks that opened it.

Enter “Cemetry Gates,” the breeziest, happiest song The Smiths ever wrote, and a perfect way to end side one.

Certain Songs #2301: The Smiths – “I Know It’s Over”

February 23, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Queen Is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“Because tonight is like any other night”

In August of 1986, Tim & I drove up to Berkeley to see The Smiths at the Greek Theater, a welcome respite from a summer that had totally gotten away from me, to say the least. Let’s just say I was feeling the brunt of making poor decisions in the the ole romance department.

We weren’t the only ones, of course: quite a few people who are reading this post went, and hopefully, one of them might post their ticket stubs, because mine is gone, lost in the chaos of the 80s almost killing me, though I continue to remember them fondly.

Certain Songs #2300: The Smiths – “The Queen is Dead”

February 22, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Queen is Dead
Year: 1986

. . .

“Life is very long when you’re lonely”

“The Queen is Dead” just might be my favorite Smiths song.

I can tell you this: just last week, Rox & I were watching Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of MacBeth — you know, the creepy spooky one with Denzel Washington & Francis McDormand — and at some point a functionary walks up to Denzel and says SPOILER ALERT! “The Queen, my Lord, is dead,” and the very first thing that came to my mind was “and it’s so lonely on a limb.”

Certain Songs #2299: The Smiths – “Unloveable”

February 20, 2022 by Jim Connelly

B-side, 1986

. . .

“I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside”

A little bit of housekeeping here: you’ve probably noticed that I’ve included a bunch of actual facts in these posts that go deeper than my usual half-assed internet research. That’s because I immersed myself in quite a few books about the Smiths. Not as may as I did with the Stones, of course, but that’s at least partially because there aren’t that many books about The Smiths.

Certain Songs #2298: The Smiths – “Bigmouth Strikes Again”

February 18, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1986

. . .

“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt”

“Bigmouth Strikes Again” just might be my favorite Smiths song. Though it got released later than it should have.

In late 1985, full of momentum from the sessions that produced “The Boy With The Thorn in His Side” and its attendant b-sides, the Smiths spent the autumn recording their third studio album, with the working title of Margaret on the Guillotine , finishing it before the year even ended, with an eye for another release early in 1986, following the pattern of their debut and Meat is Murder.

But that’s not at all what happened, as the album, re-titled The Queen is Dead after its rollicking title track, didn’t actually come out until June, 1986, which, as things turned out, was probably for the best.

Certain Songs #2297: The Smiths – “Asleep”

February 17, 2022 by Jim Connelly

B-side, 1985

. . .

“There is a better world”

In this week’s edition of the podcast My Favorite Album With Jeremy Dylan, Michael Imperioli says that his first experience of hearing The Smiths was in 1985 when when a friend played him the b-side of the 12″ single of “The Boy With The Thorn in His Side” which, of course, paired “Rubber Ring” with “Asleep,” totally blowing his mind and sending them to seek out their most recent album, Meat is Murder.

This, of course, is different from the sequencing that eventually ended up on Louder Than Bombs, where “Asleep,” follows “Unloveable,” which probably makes more sense thematically, unless of course you heard it originally in that connected B-sides context as me and Christofuh did, with the creepy lady saying “you are sleeping, you do not want to believe” as a howling wind arises, notifying you that the upbeat song about music saving your life is over and done with.

Certain Songs #2296: The Smiths – “Rubber Ring”

February 16, 2022 by Jim Connelly

B-side, 1985

. . .

“And the songs that saved your life”

By late 1985, of course, you didn’t buy a Smiths single and only listen to the A-side: going all the way back to the very beginning, their singles had good to great b-sides: the live “Handsome Devil,” “Jeane,” “These Things Take Time,” “Girl Afraid,” and of course, the dynamic duo of “How Soon is Now?” and “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.”