Frankly Mr. Shankly

"If we needed some songs fast, then Morrissey would come round to my place and I'd sit there with an acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder. 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' was done that way, and so was 'Frankly Mr Shankly'."

"Another talking point is the lyric for 'Frankly, Mr Shankly.' At the time Morrissey didn't say anything about it being a dig at Geoff Travis and his bad poetry, but even if he had done, I wouldn't have cared. As I recall, a couple of people at the label said, 'Tut! Tut! Somebody's not very pleased with you boys.'"

"Lyrically it was supposed to be about Geoff Travis. I don’t know whether it is or not. All I can tell you is that it was part of three songs that I wrote all in the same night, alongside 'I Know It’s Over' and 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. Morrissey sent Linda McCartney a postcard and we got a polite reply saying she couldn’t do it. We were ready for her to come and to sing and play keyboards on it. I wish it had happened."

- Johnny Marr

I have posted a guitar Pro tab here.

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead songbook:




Awesome guitar version by nicknoh69:




Another stunning rendition by johnnymare:




Here's sonofdrcross with Rourke's bass part: