Single, 1985
. . .
“I thought if you had an acoustic guitar it meant you were a protest singer”
And so the first single The Smiths released during the Meat is Murder album cycle wasn’t even on Meat is Murder.
Less than a month after Meat is Murder came out, the Smiths released “Shakespeare’s Sister,” one of those times where Johnny Marr fully gave into his inner Keith Richards, trying to channel the riff of “19th Nervous Breakdown” through the spirit of “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow” and coming out with their most demented rockabilly song yet.
The result was a bit of a mess, true, but it’s a fun, spirited mess, anchored by Marr’s ghostly slide guitar and his rollicking pianner. Meanwhile, Morrissey sings happily about, you know, suicide. As you do.
Young bones groan and the rocks below say
“Throw your skinny body down, son”
But I’m going to meet the one I love
So, please don’t stand in my way
Because I’m going to meet the one I love
No, Mamma, let me go
As Morrissey sings “no, Mamma, let me go” there’s a cool stop-time, with Mike Joyce killing it with the drum rolls, everybody having so much fun that the second verse is — that’s right — basically the same as the first, only this time, the whole song crashes into a slow part, because why not?
Said slow part consists of Morrissey’ echoed cries of “no, no, no, no,”, Andy Rourke sawing on a cello, and Joyce continuing to spin circles on his kit, eventually kicking the song back into full gear; one last verse with one of my favorite Morrissey couplets:
I thought that if you had an acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were a protest singer
Oh, I can smile about it now but at the time, it was terrible
No, Mamma, let me go
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
After that, it’s all drum rolls, Morrissey yelling “no, no, no, no” and a relatively abrupt ending, only a couple of minutes after it started.
However, Like “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” “Shakespeare’s Sister” should have been better: one of the few times that the chaos engulfing the Smiths fucked with the final product. Apparently, everybody in the band wanted to be louder than everyone else on this single, continually wanted their part mixed louder. And that, along with a distinct lack of separation of instruments, kinda makes “Shakespeare’s Sister” mushy as all hell. Obviously, not so mushy that I don’t love it, but mushy enough that I shoulda loved it more.
“Shakespeare’s Sister” didn’t get hardly any radio play in the U.K., and was another chart disappointment, making it only to #26.
Of course, as far as I was concerned back in April of 1985, “Shakespeare’s Sister” seemed to show that The Smiths were as prolific as ever. I had no idea all of the management chaos and record company battles — topped by Andy Rourke starting back up a heroin habit that had broken up he and Marr’s pre-Smiths band — plus a long tour would conspire to dry up the well of new music. They would produce only a single single in the next 12 months.
“Shakespeare’s Sister”
“Shakespeare’s Sister” Live in Madrid, 1985
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The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon