The Smiths

Quit Your Jingle-Jangle: The Smiths’ Strangeways Here We Come Revisited - The Quietus
August 15th, 2017.
By Ben Hewitt.

The Smiths’ last studio album was their most ambitious, adventurous and experimental, too. Thirty years on, Ben Hewitt looks back on the forward-thinking record that could have been the start of a new chapter, rather than a full-stop.

Excerpt:
"It’s the unexpected flourishes that make Strangeways so strong, elevating those songs which might not otherwise have stood out – the bitter barbs and understated semi-acoustic strum of ‘Unhappy Birthday’, for example, are given poignancy by the deep, gorgeous swoon of Marr’s harmonium. There is, in fact, only one track truly beyond redemption, and that’s ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’: the whimsical, unfunny elephant in the room, the one you heartily wish would stop trumpeting its inane jokes. One of the reasons...

Posted on http://www.officialsmiths.co.uk/tqid/#

Now on Spotify:

"I Know It's Over" live (Universal Amphiteatre, Universal City, CA, Aug. 25, 1986)

---

Related item:

• Share memories using the hashtag to appear on The Official Smiths site; new live track every Monday - July 31, 2017

Link from Mike via The Last Of The Famous International Playboys:

You Handsome Bastard - Cerysmatic.Factory



"Anthony

Ah well. The Smiths need a manager. Do you know any handsome bastard willing to tackle haughty and unmanagable swines such as we?

Guess the rest.

Thank you for g-mex; the sandwiches were great.

Too Sincerely

MORRISSEY"

--

Undated letter from Morrissey to Tony Wilson. Presumably, from the G-Mex reference, it was written shortly after FAC 151 The Festival of the Tenth Summer in 1986. Is Morrissey really asking AHW if he would like to be the manager of The Smiths?

The Smiths: The Open Secret of 'Girlfriend in a Coma' - Rolling Stone
How a unique alternative-rock tune became the Smiths' most controversial song
By Armond White

Excerpt:

"It's a new kind of love song, stranger – and more strangely affecting – than most because it zeroes in on the complex vagaries of love: Love equal to friendship; friendship equal to love. This understanding of human relations is more advanced than everyday pop. Morrissey opens up pop heterosexual clichés – queers them – with an open mind and kind-heartedness that reveals the song's true meaning, its open secret. Girlfriend in a Coma" is an AIDS song. It's a response to the crisis that took the lives and broke the hearts of so many friends and lovers – the holocaust of the 1980s. In contradistinction to Elvis Costello's notion that Morrissey could not complete an introductory thought...

Why It's Great the Smiths Broke Up - Rolling Stone
Celebrating the breakup of the Manchester foursome – Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce – 30 years later
By Mark Simpson

Via:
http://www.officialsmiths.co.uk/tqid/#

Again, doesn't feature on the deluxe edition:
Recorded live at the Performing Arts Center, Milwaukee on 16th August, 1986.

With a link to the full track on YouTube:



Use the hashtag #FranklyMrShankly (Twitter/Instagram) to be included in the 'memories' section.
Regards,
FWD.

(I hope all 550 Smiths Official subscribers appreciate this track! Why this isn't being shared via Rhino and their Twitter acc is still privated is just beyond daft).

---

Also on Spotify:

---

Related item:

• Share memories using the hashtag to appear on The Official Smiths site; new live track every Monday - July 31, 2017

...why not, eh? Have a go.

The Smiths: All 73 Songs, Ranked - Rolling Stone
Morrissey and Johnny Marr lasted only five years as a songwriting team, but these Manchester lads left a lifetime's worth of absurdly great songs behind
by Rob Sheffield

#TheQueenIsDead

http://www.officialsmiths.co.uk/tqid/

Each Monday until release of the upcoming deluxe reissue of The Queen Is Dead, The Smiths will be releasing a previously unreleased live single version of each track from the album.

Share your memories of each track using the relevant hashtags to appear on the site.

---

Posted by Famous when dead in the comments:

"Recorded live at the Irvine Meadows, Laguna Hills on 28th August, 1986. Live track does not feature on Deluxe Edition. Pre-order The Queen Is Dead (Deluxe):"
https://lnk.to/TQIDMP

The full 'video' just placed on YT:

---

Related items:

• ...