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

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.

"You've Got Everything Now" placed in the middle of my ballot. It's prime bedsit-era Moz, moping over his bad life choices. <3

"all heady books she'd sit and prophesise (It took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead to really really open her eyes)" - love this flash of contempt, kind of an echo of "there's more to life than books, you know', and all the sacred/profane stuff in Morrissey's lyrics

Good song, and I like the sequencing between "I Want The One..." and "That Joke Isn't Funny..." I appreciate that run of the first six songs on MIM more than ever, but still think "Well I Wonder" brings it to a maudlin, dreary halt.

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

44. NOWHERE FAST (Album track from Meat Is Murder)
305 points | 14 votes | 1 first place vote

My #2. Another one that was going to be a single.

I don't read that moment as contemptuous, necessarily, but it does seem self-mocking, and in line with Morrissey's other appreciations of trade. Otm about the sacred/profane tension, though.

Xxp

WTFF? This should be top 15 at least! I drop my trousers to y'all.

I've never been into 'Nowhere Fast' much.

nowhere fast possibly best smiths lyric? up there anyhow

No matter what age you are a couplet like "I was looking for a job and then I found a job/And heaven knows im miserable now" is hilarious

This and 'Well I Wonder' are probably the two songs on Meat Is Murder that I don't have much to say about. I don't hate them, but neither of them have ever been favourites. They're both kinda just there for me.

One of Morrissey's very best manglings of the comic and the genuinely sad. So many brilliant lines: "Each household appliance is like a new science in my town"; "And when I'm lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death, and neither one particularly appeals to me". The latter is probably the best bit of lyric/singing he ever came up with.

shamed to say that I can't think of nowhere fast off the top of my head

xp that is the smiths lyric that will most often pops into my head. so perfectly captures the feeling it is describing.

nowhere fast possibly best smiths lyric? up there anyhow

yeah the couplet "if the day came when I felt a natural emotion / i'd get such a shock I'd probably jump in the ocean" made this song my college anthem

I think that's the song and album which made Christgau intimate that they were proto-Gamergate nerd-bullies.

Should have titled this poll "I was looking for a POLL and then I found a POLL, and heaven knows I'm miserable POLL!!!"

Nowhere Fast is one of the songs with a Peel session version that never saw official release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L-Fg6XWT9w. Less lively and doesn't have the brilliant guitar bits in the middle eight, but has a throatier vocal.

Was trying not to embed the youtube clip there. Guess I fucked it up.

I'm up to my ears in work deadlines or I'd do it – would someone consider assembling a Spotify playlist of the rollout?

Really nervous that "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" won't place...

can't imagine that there are 42 Smiths tracks ilm rates above 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes', I wouldn't worry about it

Just catching up. First of all - thanks to whoever posted the youtube link to the 1984 gig in Hamburg where Johnny Marr takes off his guitar and starts dancing around to Barbarism Begins At Home - brilliant. I ended up watching almost the whole gig and not going to bed until stupid o'clock. I was glad (I don't know why) that when they played Pretty Girls Make Graves he did the 'Hand in gloooove...the sun shines...' bit at the end that's on the record.

Secondly, I always assumed those lines in Suffer Little Children were about Hindley and Brady being haunted by their victims. I'd never considered any other possibility, but what I've read here has got me thinking.

Thirdly - just remembered how much I love These Things Take Time, but can't remember if I even voted for it. Need to check.

Really nervous that "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" won't place...

I am only nervous that it won't be in the top 2

immediately after i sent off my ballot i regretted not making "this night" my no. 1

my no. 1 is really weird anyway

xp Well that's reassuring.

This Night... will definitely place. I put These Things Take Time as my no.20, it turns out.

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

43. BARBARISM BEGINS AT HOME (Album track from Meat Is Murder)
310 points | 17 votes

Surprised at how low that one is

yeah less than 1 in 4 ballots seems low

TOO LOW!

idg what's so special about This Night Has Opened My Eyes, a song that has never left an impression w me

First of mine to place and what Turrican said

"barbarism" just missed my ballot. it is funky as hell

Love Morrissey's yelps on this track

I love how Morrissey's lyric says so much but in so few words.

TBH, I can totally see most being fond of "Barbarism" while not struggling to find twenty songs they like more. It is a bit monotonous [in the most literal, not-necessarily-disparaging sense] and atypical after all.

Well, it's their version of funk, and funk is kinda meant to be
repetitive!