Videos by American Songwriter
10. “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”
It’s tempting to say “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” could have been the smash that “How Soon Is Now?” was – both feature some of the greatest depth in production in a Smiths tune, for starters. It’s sonically massive, and surprisingly heavy. But what hits the hardest is the acknowledgement of personal misery (made even more morose) that everyone has experienced at least once – that a laugh at someone else’s expense is only funny if you’re not on the receiving end.
9. “Now My Heart Is Full”
“Now My Heart Is Full,” the leadoff track from 1994’s Vauxhall And I, name drops a series of characters from Graham Greene’s “Brighton Rock,” as well as obscure ’50s-era British actor Patric Doonan, before Morrissey says of his friends, “I don’t have too many.” The song is a confession of a protagonist more comfortable in the company of forgotten or fictional figures, rather than real-life loved ones, who “will recline on an analyst’s couch quite soon.” There’s some ambiguity regarding its origins, but then again, it is a Morrissey song.
8. “Panic”
Musical rants against radio personalities aren’t anything new – Elvis Costello did a bang-up job of it with “Radio, Radio,” while R.E.M. did considerably worse with “Radio Song.” But The Smiths’ own rancorous airwaves anthem, “Panic,” takes on a populist feel, name checking cities like Leeds and Dundee, and going out with the ballsiest move possible: organizing a choir of children to sing “Hang the DJ!” repeatedly.
7. “Suedehead”
Morrissey’s first Top 5 hit in the UK, “Suedehead” concerns a subject about which Morrissey has never revealed, though there’s a sense it’s one of his most deeply personal. With a classic guitar riff and some of his most racy lyrics (“It was a good lay…”), “Suedehead” concerns the people in one’s past that might best be left there, but keep coming back: “Why do you come here, when you know it makes things hard for me?” Coupled with a title cribbed from a pulp novel, and a video with footage of James Dean, the mystery grows deeper, but the feeling of heartbreak is nonetheless inescapable.
6. “Girlfriend In a Coma”
The first thing to notice about “Girlfriend In a Coma” is how light it is. It’s so gentle and buoyant, with a reggae-inspired rhythm – a rare phenomenon in a Smiths song, itself. But in very short order, Morrissey uses that lightness to drop one of his most gut-wrenching lyrics. Crooning “I know, I know, it’s serious,” regarding his paramour’s affliction, he transitions from an almost deluded “Do you really think she’ll pull through?” to a resigned “Bye bye, baby, bye bye” in only a matter of seconds. Because, despite how it begins, the song is really anything but light.
5. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”
The song so nice John Hughes used it twice – the original in Pretty In Pink and an instrumental cover by The Dream Academy in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” is one of the shortest and simplest Smiths tunes with the longest name. Restrained and gorgeous, it glimmers with the faintest of hope, in spite of its description of a life that “can make a good man turn bad.” Marr, however, outshines Morrissey just a bit, closing out the song with an absolutely stunning solo.
4. “Everyday Is Like Sunday”
It’s easy to interpret Morrissey’s “Everyday Is Like Sunday” as a revisit to the “humdrum town” of The Smiths’ “William, It Was Really Nothing.” But the landscape portrait here is one far more dire, which Morrissey describes as a “Coastal town / That they forgot to close down,” and his prescription is a good dose of nuclear fallout. It’s not the first time he’s prescribed an A-bomb, but here it’s a lot more melancholically beautiful.
3. “How Soon Is Now?”
Very likely most listeners’ first taste of The Smiths orMorrissey, “How Soon Is Now?” is a fantastic anomaly of a tune in either’s canon. A sprawling, psychedelic and groove-based single with verses delivered with such cool detachment, it couldn’t be more uncharacteristic – not until Morrissey yawps, “I am human and I need to be loved / Just like everybody else does,” anyway. It’s The Smiths at their most weird and experimental; curiously, it also ended up being The Smiths at their most commercial.
2. “This Charming Man”
Not every artist knocks it out of the park the first time out, but The Smiths’ first single, “This Charming Man,” is also their most perfect. A three-minute gem buoyed by a sprightly (and seemingly highlife-inspired) riff by Johnny Marr, “This Charming Man” sets a slightly ambiguous scenario that touches on class, sexuality and youth, punctuated by inspired yelps. Most importantly, it introduces Morrissey in his full glory – charming, witty and inimitable.
1. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”
Where “I Know It’s Over” puts heartbreak in painfully real and fatal terms, The Smiths took almost the opposite tack with “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” which is easily the most romantic song ever written about a (hypothetical) suicide pact. “If a double decker bus crashes into us / To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die,” Morrissey sings, knowing that the joy and ecstasy of this brief moment of escape is probably as good as it’s going to get, so why not end it there? But more than that, it simply sounds romantic, thanks to Marr’s shimmering guitars and synthesized string arrangement. The song even brought Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel together in (500) Days of Summer. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out.) If the Smiths were to perform one last song together, this would, and should be it.
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