The Miracle of the Smiths

...easily the most mind-blowing was the discovery of a never-before-mentioned Morrissey/Marr song from 1982 called A Matter Of Opinion.

"Musically, it's very much in the same R 'n' B vein as What Difference Does It Make? while the lyrics are typical Morrissey and quite cynical."

It's not yet known whether the track will be released.
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Update: 05/25 00:48 GMT: An anonymous person adds details from the print NME:
...while the lyrics are typical Morrissey and quite cynical. The opening line is - "Sit by the fire with your books and pretend that you're active"

But they never played it live and there's just the one copy on a rehearsal tape. It's been kept quiet for nearly 20 years so from a fan's perspective this is sensational news."

...Simon Goddard's The Smiths - Songs That Saved Your Life will be published in November by Reynolds & Hearn
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i dunno what's more baffling; these unreleased tracks not leaking years back or Marr and Mozza not putting a proper box set out sooner that had them all on.
either way it's amazing to have them out at last.

Selling the music to a major label that's unbothered about legacy editions until US Rock radio do a legacy retrospective, can do that.

i dunno what's more baffling; these unreleased tracks not leaking years back or Marr and Mozza not putting a proper box set out sooner that had them all on.
either way it's amazing to have them out at last.

I agree.

i'm ecstatic with this version of the queen is dead, which i always wanted to be longer than it is.

can anyone explain me

"and so i broke into the palace
with a sponge and a rusty spanner"

why those two things?

spanner: clobber her over the head, sponge: to wipe up after. also because spanner reminds with 'piana'.

of course!

i was in London a few months back and i saw Morrissey on Brompton Road. my head was swimming with shock for about five minutes afterwards.

*rhymes with.

heck this new Smiths bootleg excitement has played havoc with my spelling.

does anyone need/want to hear the francois kervorkian remixes of "this charming man"? i have them here. vocal and dub.

"i broke into the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner" is a reference to Michael Fagan whose encounter with the Queen was notable for its mundane elements.

From the sources i've read Sony are totally into getting the rare stuff out there, its Morrissey/Marr who can't get their acts together.

I wrote to Johnny Rogan in 1992 and asked him about that verse.

He replied, in a fairly long handwritten letter, that the sponge and spanner were, he supposed, emblems of the proletariat.

I just hear it as two pathetic items with which to attempt a break-in. Whimsy. pathos and a nice turn of phrase seemed enough.

A great big LOLWUT at the sitar on Sheila Take a Bow.

yeah amazingly incongruous! kinda like it though.

best bits of the nu boot IMHO: the proper This Night Has Opened My Eyes and There Is A Light.. with new words! already a lot of Smiths types seem to be saying they *prefer* it to the original. strange to hear the american-ised "because i wanna see people and i wanna see life" instead of the traditional 'wanT To'.

can't quite see the fuss over the reggae-fied Girlfriend In A Coma mind.

I thought the sponge was to deaden the sound of the spanner hitting the Queen's skull...

A potted history of the end of The Smiths:

Marr: Let's try a sitar on Sheila Take a Bow
Morrissey: Let's do a Cilla Black cover

Exeunt

Interesting: Janice Whaley covers the complete Smiths discography, 71 tracks, with only her voice (and ProTools) : http://janice.bandcamp.com/

These unreleased versions are not so mind-blowing imo. There's nothing here better than the released version, except probably 'This Night Has Opened My Eyes' which sounds nice and clean, and possibly 'Frankly Mr Shankly' whose trumpet line is very pleasing. 'Death of A Disco Dancer' might be quite engaging too but I need to give it a while to bed in. Otherwise Morrissey's an erratic enough vocalist that the alternate takes make for an interesting listen, but there isn't really much new here.

Mostly I was left marvelling at how surprisingly flabby their early stuff could be - 'The Hand That Rocks The Cradle' meanders forever, and 'Reel Around The Fountain' has no business being six minutes long. I'm sure they run through 'Rusholme Ruffians' twice.

The two new instrumentals are terrific though, great to hear the band heads-down and going at it. And 'Heavy Track' keeps up a proud tradition whereby every indie track that's ever been described as 'like Led Zeppelin' in no way sounds like Led Zeppelin.

I love the disgusted growl of JM's guitar on Paint a Vulgar Picture.

'Reel Around The Fountain' has no business being six minutes long

using the 'repeat' button on my old Technics CD player, I made this song 600 minutes long

That's more like it.

updated!

In re the recent bootleg -- the Smiths Recycle folks gave it the treatment, and got it in stereo:

http://thepowerofindependenttrucking.blogspot.com/2011/01/mastered-smiths-stereo-demos-outtakes.html

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/

There's been a few updates of late.

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" posted last weekend.

Going back a bit, I think Rollins hated the Smiths b/c he didn't want to admit to himself that they really did ROCK pretty damn hard. ANy decent live recording of "Queen is Dead" will bear that out

god the title of this thread annoys the shit out of me

The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths
The Miracle of the Smiths

gaaaahhh must kill

and i like the smiths btw

The Miracle of the Smiths: The Indie Tribute Album to the Smiths - ft. Belle & Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut, Jens Lekman, the Magnetic Fields, Andrew Bird, of Montreal, Bon Iver & many more!

like, can't you just picture that shit??? (sorry lol)

Ease up on the caffeine.

More like The Miracle of Morrissey's Continued Popularity.

Ease up on the caffeine.

had a double iced coffee w/ extra espresso shot this morn :(

I'm quite grateful for this effort, as well as the Joy Division one, but honestly my ears can't hear any sonic improvement. The really rare live/alt versions are fun but not critical. Still, it's a good excuse to listen to it all again.

"William" up, look look it's the italian how soon!!

I do hear some improvements in the introductions. Once the full band gets going there isn't much difference though.

FYI:
http://www.morrissey-solo.com/content/141-Troy-Tate-sessions-straight-from-master-posted-on-smithstorrents.co.uk
http://www.smithstorrents.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18955

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/

lots of new updates and such.

Did something get removed? Those last two posts are a month old.

they weren't published when i checked the site a week or two ago..

I think pisces was just bumping bcz it's been four months since anyone noted new posts. I have seen those posts before.

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/smiths_1.jpg

Anybody going to fork out for the Rhino box set of remastered albums and singles?

http://pitchfork.com/news/43343-massive-smiths-box-set-on-the-way/

if they're the same remasters as the recycle ones then i'd consider it, otherwise no way

reissue repackage repackage...

hoping they please the press in Belgium too.

http://laughingsquid.com/lost-1992-press-video-for-the-smiths/

did they stop updating the blog in light of the official remasters coming out?

http://smithsrecycle.blogspot.com/

Comments in the last post say no.

j marr on the radio just this very minute talking about the remasters. they've gone back to the master tapes and redone them (some needed baking but apparently they sound good). he also made it obvious he's not a fan of the loudness war and there won't be any of that.

sounds promising.