IF IT'S NOT LOVE THEN IT'S THE POLL THAT WILL BRING US TOGETHER - ILM Artist Poll #72 - THE SMITHS - RESULTS THREAD

I love the simplicity and humor of the verses contrasted with the sheer depth and complexity of the instrumental break section

love the lyrics but i've never particularly liked the song

I enjoy "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" but I wish it had an ending

I like the idea of just stopping a song once it runs out of things to say

"Give us your money" is a perfect ending!

0/5

On a roll

like many of you, i've been on a smiths binge this week, and i kinda wish i had snuck Frankly into my ballot. in general i'm not a huge fan of upbeat songs (ignoring the lyrics) that make me feel like doing a big bouncy walk and eating ice cream, but the wordless chorus just rules

0/5

On a roll

That's what you would expect to have got so far if your tastes exactly correlated with the results.

^^ lol

"Shankly" a very solid entry in the canon, marred by terrible placement after that furious opening jam. Might have been better as a beloved b-side than an album track? Anyway, not in my ballot but deserves its spot in the list about here IMO.

yeah, I always thought of it as the haunting was being done by Hindley/Brady, and it wasn't just the parents being haunted, but "everyone" affected by the child murders. For some reason I remember (could be false memory) that some of that part was derived from actual things said by Myra & Ian in court?

― sarahell, Thursday, March 3, 2016 4:57 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh, I hadn't even considered that! I heard the 'we' in "we will be right by your side" as referring to the children, the parents being haunted by the children as a constant presence/absence

I voted for 3/4 of the first four and regret failing to find room for the fourth. Blimey! On the other hand I didn't consider "Shankly" for even an instant, but it's still pretty great. Could "Vicar" perhaps be the only TQID track not to place?

For being such a canonical great album The Queen is Dead is often frivolous and flirts with banality, which is why I love it; it constantly undermines its own importance.

after 7 years on ilx, i'm rarely surprised how much other posters' tastes differ from mine

love the way that 'Shankly' comes straight after the title track and also the transition from 'Vicar' to 'There Is A Light', aside from 'I Know It's Over' being followed by 'Never Had No One Ever' the whole album is really well sequenced imo

http://i.imgur.com/Cz9ABci.jpg

45. WHAT SHE SAID (B-side of 'Shakespeare's Sister' | Album track from Meat Is Murder)
301 points | 13 votes | 1 first place vote

'Suffer Little Children' was one of those tracks that wasn't initially a favourite of mine, but grew on me a hell of a lot over time. It's probably one of the most creepy songs the band ever did. 'I Want The One I Can't Have' for me is one of those "this wasn't a single?" moments, and I've always loved 'Shankly' ...

'You've Got Everything Now' has never really been a favourite of mine, and probably has the worst use of Morrissey falsetto after 'Miserable Lie' ... I can't help but think it was a 2nd tied song for them even at that early stage.

'What She Said' fucking rules! Listening to the rhythm section on this in comparison with the stuff on the debut is like day and night. It wasn't an immediate favourite, but again, it's become a real favourite over time and it knocked me sideways when I last listened to Meat Is Murder. A real barnstormer.

soto and soref otm re: tqid

suffer little children is the only one of these that appeared on my ballot (at #10), to me it's a pretty quintessential smith's song in a lot of ways, depressing as hell subject matter (how many songs can you put on your debut album about child abuse/murder? a few if youre the smiths), "Manchester, so much to answer for" is a classic moz lyric, nice marr guitar twiddlings

xpost:

Yeah, the only sequencing issue I have with The Queen Is Dead is the placement of 'Never Had No One Ever' ... but where else could it have gone? It's definitely my least favourite track on there... yeah, I do prefer 'Vicar In A Tutu' ...

They got a lot of shit for 'Suffer Little Children', iirc.

i may have voted 'vicar in a tutu' but this girl i had a crush on always did this charming af performance of it at karaoke so extenuating circumstances

I remember at the time telling people "Oh I love country music, check this out" and then playing them "Vicar In a Tutu"

They got a lot of shit for 'Suffer Little Children', iirc.

yes, there's a scan of a contemporary article here: https://braceneckboy.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/smiths-moors-row.jpg

(also typed up about halfway down this page: http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/websites/index2.php?username=thesmithsfile&page=8)

after 7 years on ilx, i'm rarely surprised how much other posters' tastes differ from mine

― sarahell, Thursday, March 3, 2016 9:30 AM (1 hour ago

"what she said" is great, i nearly voted for it

I should have voted for it: it has such momentum.

love what she said, was in my top 10. great song, great vocal performance. what she said/rubber ring obv classic too

"What She Said" was in my top ten too. Largely for the lyrics, which I find hilariously over the top. "What she said was sad" obviously, but this is one that comes to mind when Morrissey insists there's more humour in his writing than is widely recognised.

I like the way that 'What She Said' sounds unlike so everything else on Meat Is Muder, murky and heavy where the rest of the album sounds clean and thin - it sounds more like a song from the debut or Hatful. and momentum is right, it sounds like it's about to careen out of control. I never heard it as being tounge is cheek, it seems like one of Morrissey's least ironic lyrics, it sounds genuinely horrified

tounge IN cheeck, rather

goes on way too long IMO. could be said of a lot of the MIM tracks mind, that's one thing they lost post-Hatful; timing. whole album could have a good 5 minutes shaved off.

I love "Suffer" despite the lyrics, which I think are pretty clumsy. I could listen to the guitar track over and over.

xp "What She Said" is the first Smiths song I ever owned, on an NME 7" I picked up in a used shop. It made me fall in love. Love "I smoke 'cause I'm hoping for an early death and I need to cling to something".

xxxxpost:

I think the humour in some of Morrissey's lyrics is impossible to miss, to be honest with you. Like the verse about breaking into the palace on 'The Queen Is Dead' ... "Eh, I know you and you cannot sing/I said 'That's nothing, you should hear me play piano'"

pian-ER

that's one thing they lost post-Hatful; timing

there are plenty of songs that go on too long both before MiM and after

xxxpost:

Hahahaha! Isn't 'What She Said', like, under 3 minutes long?

as a teen it was easy to take some of the miserablism at fake value, but it wasn't until later that the humor became evident and increased my appreciation tenfold. Morrissey is *really* funny.

face value

"I smoke 'cause I'm hoping for an early death and I need to cling to something"

this is nicked almost word for word from Elizabeth Smart, right? (no shade, I love the way Morrissey borrowed quotes and phrases for his lyrics)

it's gallows humor

I don't think I even really thought of them as sad when I first bought Smiths records. I got into them for the black humour.

3xpost

re: What She Said and most other songs, the humor in The Queen is Dead is not gallows humor, it's Morrissey making dad jokes, and is great in a different way

'Barbarism Begins At Home' could be double the length and I wouldn't mind, tbh.

Barbarism Begins At Home is a bit too long ... still voted for it, but didn't RANK it as high for that reason

This site gives the Smart quote as “I have learned to smoke because I need something to hold on to.” I really like the "hoping for an early death part" but yeah.

have i ever posted about that song being the reason i started smoking? That was my, er, "anthem" throughout the 90s

This page is a brilliant list of some of Morrissey's steals - including another from Elizabeth Smart in the same song: "I wonder why no one has noticed that I am dead and taken the trouble to bury me".

What She Said was in my top 10. Bizarre to think of it as too long - amazing guitar parts I could listen to over and over. The Rank version with the intro and outro of Rubber Ring is fantastic too.