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

Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear

Tracey Thorn stole the "I'm a girl and you're a boy" gender flip for "Protection."

Sheila just barely missed my ballot, kind of regret leaving it off now

It just snuck in on mine. My seven year old daughter loves it

"Learn to love me," eh?

"Sheila Take a Bow" is a pure endorphin rush for me

http://i.imgur.com/B4xmySA.jpg

23. SOME GIRLS ARE BIGGER THAN OTHERS (Album track from The Queen Is Dead)
648 points | 28 votes | 4 first place votes

A goodly number of first place votes!

"I wrote this almost sublime, roaming, guitar-led piece of music once, and the next thing I knew it was called 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'." —Johnny Marr

TOO LOW!

Like, I seriously expected this one to be easily in the Top 10. Surprised to see this placing now!

For his part, Moz sings beautifully on this.

xp I guess once you've heard the Gaz Coombes cover version the original pales somewhat in comparison.

girl afraid was my number 1 as well. it has such a pleasing composition

Oh yeah, Supergrass covered it. I'd forgotten about that.

Should have been an instrumental.

DavidM OTM, it's a lovely vocal.

'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' was the first song I ever played on the Infinite Jukebox.

"As Anthony said to Cleopatra, as he opened a crate of ale..."

I dig how the verses are little more than a bridge to the chorus. (Or he just kept quiet where the verses were 'meant' to be.)

I wonder how serious Marr is being when he suggests that he was nonplussed with Morrissey's choice of lyric for this one. actually, it makes me curious about how their singwritng relationship worked; could he have insisted that Morrissey go away and write some different words, or insist that the song be done as an instrumental, or would Morrissey have had the final say?

I think that the lyrics and the sinister, ominous music go together really well, though - obviously it's this Carry On style double entendre (the 'as Antony said to Cleopatra' bit is direcetly from Carry On Cleo), but the humour in the Carry On movies is pretty grim and ugly most of the time. the "I have just discovered" bit makes me think of it as being about some kind of sexual awakening like the song it follows , 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out', but the ugly side of banal, inescapable (hetero)sexuality. (and if 'There Is A Light' is all about anticipation and expectation, like 'Stretch Out And Wait, then 'Some Girls' seems like an aftermath, disillusion)?

it's so perfectly placed as this spooky closer on TQiD as well, makes me think of Morrissey lying on his pillow through the night, drifting in and out of consciousness

Shoplifters always sounds a bit drab to me. The promising verses are let down by a flat chorus. I always thought this was Morrissey's fault, but in the instrumental demo groovypanda linked to it's clear the problem was there in the music from the beginning. The guitar solo is funny re virtuoso talk.

Sheila used to be one of my favourites - I'd put it on before going out - but I'm a bit bored by it now.

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others was my #1. Marr's best tune, and I hear these supposedly inappropriate lyrics as heartfelt and sad, describing Moz's alienation from and horror of the world of flesh with the lightest touch of all his many variations on the theme.

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

22. HALF A PERSON (B-side of 'Shoplifters Of The World Unite')
706 points | 32 votes | 1 first place vote

"shoplifters" is one of the best smiths choruses imo! it swoons into place

anyway "half a person" is amazing and i regret cutting it at the last minute from my ballot

The placement of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' this low has completely thrown me. Really, really curious to see how the rest of these results pan out now.

I hear these supposedly inappropriate lyrics as heartfelt and sad, describing Moz's alienation from and horror of the world of flesh with the lightest touch of all his many variations on the theme.

yes that's what I always thought, dreaming on his pillow of higher things. though part of me has wondered if it was meant to be some double entendre about dick size. it's hard to separate his horror of the world of flesh from the fascination with the same sometimes

I'm really surprised at all the people who are surprised that some girls didn't place higher. It's my 3rd least favorite song on the album!

lol I had guessed Some Girls was one of the two songs no one voted for because I think it's not very good.

these images are really wonderful btw

Pretty sure Marr said that he and Moz were a unified front, never questioning the other's choices.

This really is reminiscent of an XTC thread. I can't believe so many of the best songs from Meat is Murder have already placed, and pretty low. I guess the title track isn't going to make it then. The title track is the first Smiths song I ever heard, I think I was 10. Really disturbing song, still. Beautifully haunting nonetheless.

the mooing cows were better recorded than some of the instruments

People need to talk about "Half A Person" some more. I hope to learn how a b-side like this accrues 2.5 as many points as a b-side like "These Things Take Time".

I quite like the weariness in Morrissey's voice when he sings "if you *have* five seconds to spare... "

And how he rhymes "sour" with "dour"

xxxpost:

The title track of Meat Is Murder is notorious for being most people's least favourite on the album. I don't consider it a contender at this stage.

Y...WCA

http://i.imgur.com/ocz9JSn.jpg

21. REEL AROUND THE FOUNTAIN (Album track from The Smiths)
708 points | 30 votes | 3 first place votes

my no. 2

way too low jesus christ

I dunno, this one feels like it's in the right place, as much as I like it. A great song that I don't really think they ever did a definitive version of.

It wasn't my #1 track, but in some ways I think Half a Person is The Smiths' finest song. Like, the music here absolutely fits the words (I thought this before I learned that this was pretty much the only one written by Morrissey and Marr together in the same room), and the melody/lyrics are really tightly structured. The chorus is for me their most hummable, and the tune/music when he sings "Sixteen clumsy and shy / I went to London and I..." is almost unbearably poignant. And then the "In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more" line is great.

My no. 1 (mostly for the Hatful version); I love how tonally slippery Morrissey's lyrics and vocal performance are here.

Yes, that's way too low. My #2 (Hatful/Peel version, not the studio take.)

it doesn't particularly matter to me that they never recorded it right; there's an uneasiness in the text and music that is imo enhanced by how the verse/chorus relationship never totally works

it's also just so gorgeous and summarizes everything i like about the smiths

"Girlfriend In A Coma" - their worst original composition.
"Shoplifters" and "Sheila" - I'm fond of these, but OK with their placements.
"Some Girls" - 4 first place votes? Y'all are wacky.
"Half a Person" - at least it didn't make top 20.
"Reel" - legitimately too low.

Also soref is otm about the tension in Morrissey's treatment of sexuality; I think of the Smiths, like the Velvets, as a band I latched onto as a teenager in part for their queer subtexts (at the time, I didn't have much access to explicitly queer punk, and I had rpckist ideas about disco that I've since outgrown). I'm not sure, though, how those subtexts signified in the context of the UK in the 80s, though, and how much they colored my listening for more arbitrarily personal reasons.

*rockist, I mean

I don't understand how anyone can read Moz's lyrics as having anything other than a queer subtext....though many have tried.

As a sexually confused teen, the mammary glands line in "Handsome Devil" is exactly the kind of way I would've looked at women whom I was expected to hook up with.