Suffer Little Children

"I think we probably did it on our first two gigs. I think we were writing better stuff - that's the answer. It was always considered an album track. Maybe we had a doubt about it at the time."

"Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, 'Still Ill' and 'Suffer Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs."

-Johnny Marr

Suffer Little Children was played live only once that we know of, on October 4th, 1982. It has a haunting quality to the guitar line, which is fairly simple and repetitive compared to some other Marr compositions. I think that it's a good song for beginners to tackle because it sounds just as good slow as it does fast, and you can ramp up the speed when you get the hang of it.

First off, here are the scans from the debut album piano song book:





marrzipan is one of the many cool, generous guitarists who make this site possible, and he has a great version of this on youtube. He was kind enough to share the tabs he made from his cover. I have posted them here, with his notes(click to enlarge):



He also passed along a Guitar Pro tab that I have uploaded here. It has a tab of the second and third guitar parts as well!

Here's his version to follow along with:





For comparison, here is Daniel Earwicker's take on the song. He uses a pull-off where Marzipan fretted notes on the second chord of the verse. It's different in other ways as well, but both are really great versions.




adameater also does a nice acoustic version. It sounds a little different from both of these; I think he might be incorporating some of the second guitar, which is cool.




Here's uncleskinny on acoustic:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:




Here's a great multi-track version by captaincarwash: