Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The twelve shit Smiths songs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    The twelve shit Smiths songs

    I went to a Smiths/Morrissey-based club night in Brighton on Friday called November Spawned A Mozzer. It was brilliant fun, and a whole load of care and effort and heart and love and imagination went into it (including 'Morrissey' gingerbread faces which were actually crescent moons with quiffs on top, sold with profits going to PETA).

    Anyway, one thing it brought home to me was how many Smiths songs I think are rubbish, so I intend to write a complete directory of Shit Smiths Songs right here right now, and I'd like to hear yours.

    (I'm restricting it to The Smiths, because if we included Morrissey's solo stuff we'd be here all day.)

    I'm NOT interested in people going "all of them, hur hur hur", and I'm NOT interested in people going "all of them except 'How Soon Is Now' and that one Mark Ronson did", or whatever. I just wanna hear from people who, even if you don't quite agree with my view that The Smiths are the greatest rock'n'roll band who ever lived, at least accept that they are one of The Greats. Everyone else, please move along.

    OK, these are the Smiths songs which, in my view, are for one reason or another, either a bit rubbish or completely shit. I haven’t included the songs which are a bit flimsy and negligible, like “Death At One’s Elbow” or “Girl Afraid” or “Wonderful Woman”. Only the ones which actively make me flinch or cringe or gag.

    I think it's pretty definitive, but I'd be interested to hear which songs deserve a reprieve and why, and which songs deserve inclusion and why.

    “Frankly Mr Shankly”
    “Girlfriend In A Coma”
    “Half A Person”
    “Hand That Rocks The Cradle”
    “Is It Really So Strange?”*
    “Meat Is Murder”**
    “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”***
    “Unhappy Birthday”
    “Unloveable”
    “Vicar In A Tutu”
    “What’s The World?” (James cover)
    “Work Is A Four Letter Word” (Cilla Black cover)****


    *An odd one, this, because I completely loved it when it came out. I found it really uplifting and refreshing. But it’s the forced humour that grates. Especially that line about ‘Newport Pagnell’.

    **One of their most-derided songs, and I can completely see why, although I’d still say it’s a hugely ‘important’ record, and that if you can tune out the heavy-handed lyrics, it’s pretty amazing. Try to imagine it as an instrumental (even with the mooing noises). Wow.

    ***Famously, Marr brought in what he thought was perhaps the greatest piece of music he’d written so far, and Morrissey sang that crap over the top of it. And people wonder why he left.

    ****According to Wikipedia, Marr was so exasperated at Morrissey’s insistence on releasing this that it hastened his departure. Dunno about that, but still, Morrissey’s eventually fatal addiction to Brit kitsch was coming to the fore.

    #2
    The twelve shit Smiths songs

    I've just made it a nice round twelve, cos I realised I forgot one.

    Comment


      #3
      The twelve shit Smiths songs

      Rhino, I really like numbers 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 in your list. I'll be back as soon as I can to explain why. The rest, yeah, a bit pants. Most hardcore Smiths fans that I know acknowledge the 'Golden Lights' cover as the worst ever Smiths song. What do you think?

      Comment


        #4
        The twelve shit Smiths songs

        I think "Golden Lights" is really nicely done. What's not to like about it?

        I can't believe you like "Half A Person". Let's remind ourselves, shall we? "I booked myself in at the Y... W C A/I said 'I like it here, can I stay?/Do you have a vacancy... for a back-scrubber?"

        Jesus Christ.

        And "Girlfriend In A Coma" is actually the worst Smiths song ever. Horrible rinky-dink music, self-parodic autopilot lyrics (ooh, being flippant about death, wow, controversial!) absolute irredeemable shite. (OK, I'll say one thing in its favour. I like the dramatic chords on the "Do you really think she'll pull through?" part, but they're wasted in such an appalling song.) Beginning of the fucking end, that was.

        Comment


          #5
          The twelve shit Smiths songs

          No way! Sorry, gotta be quick here because it's almost bath-time for my little un, but...

          To a teenager living in suburbia, 'Half A Person' seemed to sum things up for me. Especially "16 clumsy and shy, I went to London and I..."; the second part of that lyric, as a 14 year old, I didn't really get it but it seemed smart and witty and all of the things I wanted to be; that kind of language (like lots of Smiths lyrics) seemed completely unique - not about love, but about feeling inadequate and the opposite to macho.

          I love 'Girlfriend In A Coma' and 'Strangeways' is one of my favourite Smiths albums, definitely under-rated if you ask me. My love for GiaC partly stems from the fact that it was the first Smiths single I bought at the actual time it came out. But aside from the sentimentality associated with that, to this day I love the way it combines a lightweight poppiness with a dark theme that (especially at the time) was pretty radical. It reminds me of the way lots of people thought The Manics' 'Motorcycle Emptiness' was a standard raaaawk ballad. To those people, the lyrical ideas would've been mind-boggling.

          BAck soon, gotta run that bath!

          Comment


            #6
            The twelve shit Smiths songs

            Spearmint Rhino wrote:
            I think "Golden Lights" is really nicely done. What's not to like about it?
            I love "Golden Lights", I think if any other 80s band had come up with that, it would be considered a classic.

            I can't believe you like "Half A Person". Let's remind ourselves, shall we? "I booked myself in at the Y... W C A/I said 'I like it here, can I stay?/Do you have a vacancy... for a back-scrubber?"

            Jesus Christ.
            Heh. I love "Half A Person", sort of for that reason. It's almost a coming of age and an almost bending over backwards to prove that he's heterosexual, by coming out with a Sid James style line?

            "And "Girlfriend In A Coma" is actually the worst Smiths song ever. Horrible rinky-dink music, self-parodic autopilot lyrics (ooh, being flippant about death, wow, controversial!) absolute irredeemable shite. (OK, I'll say one thing in its favour. I like the dramatic chords on the "Do you really think she'll pull through?" part, but they're wasted in such an appalling song.) Beginning of the fucking end, that was.[/quote]
            It's not even the worst Smiths single. "I Started Somethung I couldn't Finish" is the laziest Smiths song going, almost like they had to throw it together to complete an album despite the fact they couldn't bear to play together any more.

            Comment


              #7
              The twelve shit Smiths songs

              (To Pants)

              Ah, but you've only reinforced my reasons for hating those songs.

              "Half A Person" you seem to like primarily for the register of the language, but that's precisely the problem. Whereas previously Morrissey's florid vocabulary was only an appealingly baroque vessel for something very substantial, by the time "Half A Person" came out he was too used to being feted precisely for that language by sycophantic twats in NHS glasses, and gave into it too willingly ("Oh, that's what they want from me? Great, I'll just write some sub-Charles Hawtrey crap about being a back-scrubber at the YWCA, that'll make them laugh"). In the same way that people chuckle drolly at Neil Hannon's between-song banter even when he isn't being funny, just because of the way he's talking. I hate that.

              And "Girlfriend In A Coma", the 'poppy' music with the 'dark' theme? That's exactly what's so cynical and despicable about it. The 'dark' theme isn't actually dark at all, but cheap sicko humour. It's a million miles from the genuinely dark subject matters of "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" or "Suffer Little Children". It's all about "Hahaha, this'll get us a headline in the Daily Star". And to call the music 'poppy' is an insult to pop. It's more like a fucking children's TV theme (not even one of the good ones, but one of those maths shows with that Fred bloke). "Coma" was a lot of people's first Smiths single, by the way (I realise you can't help when you were born, so you're excused), just as The Queen Is Dead was the johnny-come-lately's introduction to The Smiths and has therefore been carved in stone as their classic (but that's a whole other thread).

              Comment


                #8
                The twelve shit Smiths songs

                I know people always say this sort of thing to defend song lyrics they like, but I don't think you're giving "Half a Person" the credit it deserves. I reckon there's some self-awareness in the "back-scrubber" line. Surely he's telling the story of a feckless 16-year old and comes up with a lyric to fit the "clumsy" young man?

                Comment


                  #9
                  The twelve shit Smiths songs

                  It's more like a fucking children's TV theme (not even one of the good ones, but one of those maths shows with that Fred bloke)
                  Hahaha, excellent. As a more casual fan of The Smiths, you're spot on.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The twelve shit Smiths songs

                    What Bogzilla said.

                    The back scrubber sounds like the verbal equivalent of an existentialist "acte gratuit"- put in for no reason, not even rhyme. I think that's why I like it.

                    The YWCA I see as a weak bit of bathos- ie not even the YMCA. And why should we care anyway?

                    Creating art based on the inarticulate is often a balance between sloppiness and a basically sound structure, with an articulate poet sounding through. I think this song balances that nicely.

                    I can't stand Asleep.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The twelve shit Smiths songs

                      Then you should lie down like everyone else!!!!!!!111111111111111111111111111111

                      Comment


                        #12
                        The twelve shit Smiths songs

                        Girlfriend in Coma, I think, sold less well than Heaven Knows I'm Miserable now. As the Smiths had a famously loyal fanbase, isn't it fair to assume most people who bought GiaC had bought HKIMN? How can the later record have been the first Smiths record for so many people?

                        Comment


                          #13
                          The twelve shit Smiths songs

                          I love "unhappy Birthday", me. I sing it to myself all the time.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            The twelve shit Smiths songs

                            Utter sacrilege, but I really love The Smiths, but really hate 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'.

                            Really.

                            Sorry.

                            Ducks

                            Comment


                              #15
                              The twelve shit Smiths songs

                              Tubby Isaacs wrote:
                              I can't stand Asleep.
                              What the fuck? That is mental.

                              You're willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a sorry sack of self-parodic shit like "Half A Person", giving it a load of high-falutin' theorising it scarcely deserves, and meanwhile you fail to appreciate one of The Smiths' genuinely untouchable songs?

                              Man, I sometimes feel like everyone other fan sees The Smiths as light Northern comedy, whereas to me they're as serious as it gets.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                centrifugal wrote:
                                Utter sacrilege, but I really love The Smiths, but really hate 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'.

                                Really.

                                Sorry.

                                Ducks
                                You know what? Fair play to you for saying that, but can you say some more? What bugs you about it?

                                (I think it's an amazing and majestic and deeply romantic song, but it doesn't feel 'mine' in the way a lot of Smiths songs do, for all sorts of personal reasons, for example the fact that I couldn't afford to buy The Queen Is Dead when it came out so I only had a chance to engage with the songs when I taped it off a friend a few months later, etc.)

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                  Spearmint Rhino wrote:
                                  "Half A Person" you seem to like primarily for the register of the language, but that's precisely the problem. Whereas previously Morrissey's florid vocabulary was only an appealingly baroque vessel for something very substantial, by the time "Half A Person" came out he was too used to being feted precisely for that language by sycophantic twats in NHS glasses, and gave into it too willingly ("Oh, that's what they want from me? Great, I'll just write some sub-Charles Hawtrey crap about being a back-scrubber at the YWCA, that'll make them laugh"). In the same way that people chuckle drolly at Neil Hannon's between-song banter even when he isn't being funny, just because of the way he's talking. I hate that.
                                  Very much in agreement here. It's why I always end up hating lots of the people involved in any scene or sub-scene in which I'm even vaguely interested - people like to latch on to the superficial elements (because they're easy signifiers of cool / intelligence / weirdness / whatever these people want) at the expense of (entirely the wrong phrase to choose here, but...) the meat. Next thing you know, the poseurs take over entirely, and the whole thing becomes a fashion parade or something (EDIT - just realised this could be taken as a shot at the Stay Beautiful lot - it's not at all, in fact I don't mind those people precisely because the dress-up is the major part of it... it is why I got sick of Romo very quickly, though, as it was the "principles" of that thing that appealed to me, more than the clothes or music, even if (especially because?) it was largely me and SR who invented these "principles" in the first place).

                                  Pretty much all the brainy / angsty / literary white-boy bands have suffered terribly from this, for as long as I can remember - you're playing with fire when you go with that, because you're going to get an audience of teenagers or students who consider themselves brainy / angsty / literary, which will include an awful lot of complete tossers, even if it also includes the very people you're trying to reach. The point is, the tossers will always be louder, and attract more attention to themselves, and become the public face of your audience - as well as the largest portion of it - and in many ways, they'll squeeze out the people who really "get" what you're trying to do. The question then is whether to play to that, or to go the opposite way. Morrissey, tickled by his sudden popularity, went for the former option, where (a few years previously) Mark E Smith had done the opposite, which is why no one thinks of The Fall as one of "those" bands (whereas they did, for a while, in the late 70s / very early 80s, before sub-Wildean faux-camp became a tediously essential part of "those" bands' style). Then you get people like the Manics, hovering somewhere in the middle ground (though their history makes them a bit of a special case).

                                  The reason I've never liked The Divine Comedy, actually, is that they seem to have been aimed at those very people who made it a bit embarrassing to like The Smiths - in fact, they seem to have been fronted by one. I've never got anything from their records but an overwhelming smugness and superficiality, and I did give them a chance, once. Their "cleverness" was a.) an end in itself, saying nothing, contributing nothing, and b.) not really clever at all. A waste of everyone's time, if you ask me - worse, a negative force, taking the kind of bright kids who should be restless to fulfil their potential, and making them feel terribly pleased with themselves as they are (The Smiths also guilty of this, towards the end of their career).

                                  Will come back with a proper response to this thread once I've thought about which are the worst Smiths songs, and why - and when I've rubbed my chin over SR's list up there.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                    Really interesting stuff, Taylor. I'm in 100% agreement on The Divine Comedy. I've always felt it's fairly obvious that they're not the real deal and been utterly shocked at their popularity.

                                    I see where you and Rhino are coming from about the "signifiers" and the "register of the language", but I think it's sometimes very difficult to seperate those things from the "meat"; to me, they sometimes are the "meat". For example, Morrissey's vegetarianism and stance on animal rights meant as much to me growing up as anything The Smiths ever recorded.

                                    Rhino, yeah GiaC does sound like some weird kids' telly show theme - another reason to love it in my book. I don't think it's cynical at all; I always thought it was a twisted take on a Kinks-style situation kind of song.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                      By the way Rhino, 'Asleep' means a hell of a lot to me but, if you were looking at it the way you're looking at Half A Person', you could say they were taking the easy option by playing up to their downbeat image, singing about death/suicide.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                        The only one I'd disagree with, and yet in a way not quite disagree is "Some Girls . . ." - I think it's a glistening paradigm of janglepop, I can quite understand Marr being proud of it, and quite an amusing, self deprecating Bennett-esque lyric - but it shows again the disconnect between Morrissey the singer and Marr the guitarist. They really didn't work "together". The split was inevitable because there was always a schism between them.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                          Pants wrote:
                                          By the way Rhino, 'Asleep' means a hell of a lot to me but, if you were looking at it the way you're looking at Half A Person', you could say they were taking the easy option by playing up to their downbeat image, singing about death/suicide.
                                          No, no, no, no, no. "Asleep" is the real deal. It possesses a genuine gravitas that "Girlfriend In A Coma" lacks, and a genuine human empathy that the cheap and cynical "Girlfriend In A Coma" doesn't even attempt.

                                          You know what "Girlfriend In A Coma" is? It's a fucking Hale & Pace 'satire' of a Smiths song, that's what it is.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                            centrifugal wrote:

                                            QUOTE:
                                            Utter sacrilege, but I really love The Smiths, but really hate 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'.

                                            Really.

                                            Sorry.

                                            Ducks

                                            You know what? Fair play to you for saying that, but can you say some more? What bugs you about it?

                                            (I think it's an amazing and majestic and deeply romantic song, but it doesn't feel 'mine' in the way a lot of Smiths songs do, for all sorts of personal reasons, for example the fact that I couldn't afford to buy The Queen Is Dead when it came out so I only had a chance to engage with the songs when I taped it off a friend a few months later, etc.)

                                            It's probably more to do with my state of mind at the time. I missed The Smiths first time around; I got into them with their mini-revival in the early 1990's, so I had their entire catalogue in one go. I was pretty much in the middle of my 'wishing I was really angst-ridden' phase, and I really was the whole cliched wanker (thinking that being miserable automatically made me more interesting etc.). God, I was a tosser (and probably still am). Anyway, 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' reminded me even at the time of my worst excesses; bad poetry about dying with another and excessive melodrama. It's partly that, and also, having had all the material in one go, I just felt that there was so much wit, soul and love in so much of his other lyrics before I even came to 'There Is A Light'. I reckoned that there was so much to this very special band; the public/tabloid image of Morrissey (especially) was so skewed towards this bedsit wallflower that so much got missed. Anyway, I just felt that 'There Is A Light' (inadvertedly) played up to this whole image. Sorry, SR, I know I'm not explaining myself that well; it just feels to me like a song you might get from a non-Smiths fan.
                                            Mind you, one of my favourites is 'Never Had No-One Ever', so I'm a hypocrite.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                              Loads to say here (and above), but I'm a bit inarticulate as I've been at the Conference Play Off final all day and I'm knackered.

                                              “Frankly Mr Shankly”
                                              I like this one. Strikes me as the one occasion where The Smiths' "light comedy" style really worked (maybe "Vicar In A Tutu", too). Perhaps because it was the first example of that style, rather than a lame retread. The guitars are really great on it, and I think there are enough genuine zingers in the lyrics to overpower that splayed-hand-on-chest "ooh, it can play hideous tricks on the brain, mother" bollocks.

                                              “Half A Person”
                                              Musically quite lovely, and a great vocal performance, so I can forgive Morrissey for those stupid lyrics for as long as this one lasts. Reprieved! Classic example of my theory, though, that if the late-period Smiths had appeared from nowhere fully formed, rather than mutating from the band of "This Charming Man", they'd be seen entirely differently - as a hybrid of Fleetwood Mac and Half Man Half Biscuit.

                                              “Hand That Rocks The Cradle”
                                              Lyrics about child abuse, from perspective of abuser, very "daring". But - crucially - not so look-at-me as to be entirely repulsive. I can give him the benefit of the doubt, here, as at least he was trying. It's serious enough to not belong on this list, leastways. Besides, it's not easy to play G - C - D on a jangly guitar over and over again for five minutes or whatever it is, without plumbing new depths of boredom. They almost manage it, which is quite a feat.

                                              “Vicar In A Tutu”
                                              See above. I think those are damn good lyrics, actually, apart from a couple of clunkers at the beginning. The music carries it, anyway - it's nothing that amazing, but you can hear a genuine love of rockabilly there, and it manages to create the upbeat mood you need to swallow a song like this. A light touch - in fact, that's the thing. "Vicar In A Tutu" has a light touch, as opposed to "Is It Really So Strange" or what have you, which is light, as in lacking gravitas and aiming for a cheap laugh, but clodhopping in every respect.

                                              I'd add:

                                              "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"
                                              You know how the Cheshire Cat disappeared, and just left its grin, hanging in space? Morrissey has disappeared from this record, and just left his mannerisms, hanging in space. That's what makes it so nauseating, for me - the video with the million miss-the-point Morrissey clones is somehow perfect, as it sums up what this record encourages, and to an extent, what it is. Marr deep in "I've always wanted to do one like this" territory... whole thing like a Smiths equivalent of the Stones circa "Goat's Head Soup" / "It's Only Rock And Roll".

                                              "Bigmouth Strikes Again"
                                              See, I love "Bigmouth Strikes Again". But only the music. 'Nuff said, as they used to say.

                                              There are bits in many other Smiths songs which make me grit my teeth, in fact there's probably one bit like that in almost everything they did. And there are plenty of mediocre tracks which wouldn't get a second look if anyone else had recorded them. I think they were great, but I think they often fell short, and I think they get a very easy ride when you look at how much stuff they recorded which really isn't all that, and how lightweight and clunky most of Morrissey's lyrics really are, relative to his reputation. But I think these are the only songs which, in their entirety, make me want to hate The Smiths.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                                Alot of the twelve tracks listed are obviously just fillers to pad out albums, never meant for consideration as a single, which was something that should have been observed with GiaC.
                                                I was disappointed to see Hand that rocks the cradle among those listed.
                                                Personally I can't listen to Shoplifters of the world, it's a poorly contrived lyric and the music accompanying the track goes nowhere at all.
                                                Another annoying track is Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me. Morrisey just goes along with a tried and tested nobody loves me formula which had been done so much better on many other earlier tracks, including Unlovable.
                                                Going off tack slightly if anyone was to make a list of underrated Smiths tracks, then I would have to go with I know it's over, a gorgeous, melancholic song, the best song ever on the subject of not coping with the end of a relationship.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  The twelve shit Smiths songs

                                                  "Paint A Vulgar Picture" is one of my least favourite Smiths songs. Yes, it's very clever and knowing about the way music is endlessly repackaged (and very prescient in the case of The Smiths) but, along with "Frankly Mr Shankly" (about Rough Trade's Geoff Travis), it's ultimately a song about being in The Smiths.

                                                  Posssibly these were what paved the way for all the self-pitying, self-regarding songs about judges, journalists, ex-bandmates etc that pepper Morrissey's solo career. Maybe for the obssessives this sort of stuff is fascinating but compared to the anger, wit, intelligence and daring he once brought to songs about the outside(r) world, it's a huge comedown.

                                                  Then again, I probably was one of those obssessives once. I remember when "Girlfriend In A Coma" came out theorising with some of my equally-obssessive friends that the song was about Morrissey's fear of love (this was the first time he'd sung about being in an actual relationship and look what happens). Thank God there was no internet back then.

                                                  I always assumed "Half A Person" was sung from a female perspective.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X