These Things Take Time

Here is the complete score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:














Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:






I have uploaded a guitar pro file here. This tab is based off a live version of the song.


Here's a great version by Daniel Earwicker:




Here's davidguitarist91:




thirdynumberone does a quick run through here:




Another awesome cover by johnnymare:

The Queen Is Dead

"I'd done the rhythm track for The Queen Is Dead, and left the guitar on the stand. The wah pedal just happened to be half open, and putting the guitar down made the guitar suddenly hit off this harmonic. We were back at the desk playing back the rhythm track and I could still hear this harmonic wailing away, so we put the tape back onto record while I crept back into the booth and started opening up the wah-wah, thinking 'Don't die, don't die!' Eventually I opened up the pedal, and 'Wooooohhhhhh!' Kept it going, too. Great accident.

For the frenzied wah-wah section on 'The Queen Is Dead,' I was thinking '60s Detroit, like the MC5 and the Stooges.

The album's title track was partly inspired by The MC5 and The Velvet Underground. A Velvets outtakes album called V.U. had just come out, and I loved 'I Can't Stand It', mostly because it had this swinging R&B guitar. I'd wanted to do something bombastic like that for a while, and 'The Queen Is Dead' was the right place to drop it.

I had The Queen Is Dead, the track, in my mind for a long time. I knew the song had the title, and I knew that was what the album was going to be called. To me, it was the MC5 playing 'I Can't Stand It'. I'd always felt let down by the MC5. When I was younger, people were going 'Oh, the Dolls, the MC5, the Stooges' -but when I first heard the MC5, it felt a little too gung-ho, too kind of testosterone-mad for me. I wanted to deliver what I imagined the MC5 to be - energy, coolness.

It was Morrissey's idea to include 'Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty' and he said, 'I want this on the track'. But he wasn't to know that I was going to lead into the feedback and drum rolls. It was just a piece of magic. I got the drum riff going and Andy got the bass line, which was one of his best ever and one that bass players still haven't matched. I went in there with all the lads watching and did the take and they just went, 'Wow'. I came out and I was shaking. When I suggested doing it again, they just said, 'No way! No way!' What happened with the feedback was I was setting my guitar up for the track and I put it onto a stand and it was really loud. Where it hit the stand, it made that note of feedback. I did the guitar track, put the guitar on the stand, and while we were talking, it was like, 'Wow, that sounded good'. So I said, 'Right - record that!' It was going through a wah-wah from the previous take, so I just started moving the wah-wah and it was getting all these different intervals, and it definitely added a real tension.

I loved Morrissey's singing on that, and the words. But it was very MC5. Morrissey has a real love for that music as well. I remember him playing the Ramones as much as he played Sandie Shaw.

The record company want to put out some rarities, so we’ve spoken about the longer versions of The Queen is Dead: the eight-minute one and another one where we played for 12 minutes. It sounds like Can or something.

The song 'The Queen Is Dead' I really like. I used to like the MC5 and The Stooges and it's as good if not better than anything The Stooges ever did. It's got energy and aggression in that kind of garagey way.

Using Dame Cicely Courtneidge's voice at the top of that track was Morrissey's idea, but it was also very apt for The Smiths collectively. We were all fans of classic British films like The L-Shaped Room, A Taste Of Honey and Hobson's Choice. The aesthetic of those movies was a huge source of inspiration, feeding into our music and artwork. Morrissey's never really been given full credit for that."

- Johnny Marr

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:






Here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead piano songbook with guitar chord boxes:












Daniel Earwicker does an awesome cover on bass, drums and guitar:




maudit80 does a cool version of the bass part:

Accept Yourself

"The fundamental request of Smithdom. Simply accept yourself, be yourself, relax, don't worry about anything as there's no point."

- Morrissey

I have posted a Guitar Pro tab file here.

Here's a great cover by stereovaritone on acoustic:




Daniel Earwicker does a cool multi-instrumental version here:




Here is Jonasmacca on a Tele:




Here is a multi-tracked version by Westerdd:




And here is raulfist on bass:





Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby

"One [1963 Stratocaster] I keep constantly high strung in Nashville tuning, which is the top two strings the same and bottom four like a 12-string set with the low strings taken off. It's a good tuning for coming up with new stuff 'cos you kind of feel like you're playing backwards. I used that on loads of Smiths stuff - You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby, Half A Person..."


- Johnny Marr

Macs899 sent me an awesome Guitar Pro tab that he transcribed from the comprehensive Louder Than Bombs: Off The Record book. I have uploaded it here. Right click to save as.



Here is the complete score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:






















Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:





cdwheel does a great version. The phasing sound is really close to the original:




Daniel Earwicker has done two versions, and they're both excellent:







Here's nicnoh69 on his Les Paul Custom:

Barbarism Begins At Home

"I came up with the riff the day that Troy Tate came up to Manchester to meet with us. It was almost because our first proper producer was about to arrive that I thought we needed a new song, maybe, and it was a sunny afternoon. We played it in the daytime, which was unusual because there were these machinists working downstairs on the floor below, and we wouldn't want to be working stuff out at high volume. There was no drums there, it was just me and Andy jamming like we used to when we were 14 or 15. I know a lot of fuss has been made and Andy is, quite rightly, proud of that bassline, but, personally, harmonically I don't think it comes anywhere near Andy's other stuff. 'Nowhere Fast', 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore', 'The Headmaster Ritual', all tower above it. It was one of those things where it was a good idea at the time, but later, as we played it, I didn't think it really represented the band. The overall thing, all of it, was a little bit corny."

"Barbarism Begins At Home is a bit naff. I don't like the tune - there's no emotion in it."

"With 'Barbarism Begins At Home,' a lot's been made of the funky aspect of the bassline, but that track harks back to what I was doing with Andy before The Smiths. I guess it came out of this love of retro kind of James Brown records, and things like Rip Rig & Panic and The Pop Group. That period of anemic, underfed white funk. It's me and Andy being townies in Manchester, liking a bit of the American No-Wave thing. James Chance, I guess."

-Johnny Marr

I have uploaded a Guitar Pro file here(right click to save).


Here are the scans from the Meat Is Murder songbook:




Thanks to Ted Maul for these scans.


Here's another great version by Daniel Earwicker:




Here's juttkeys:




Here's buckleyboyben:




Here's IFoughtTheLaw369 with two full-length versions on guitar and bass:






Here's sonofdrcross on bass:




Here's a full-length version from nicknoh69:




Awesome acoustic version by WilliamFs11:




Here's lunachangue with his Ric 330:




Here's barjabulon:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

Cemetry Gates

"When we signed with Rough Trade we were being hailed as The Great New Songwriters, and I was on the train coming back thinking, "Right, if you're so great - first thing in the morning, sit down and write A Great Song." I started with Cemetry Gates' Bm to G change in open G."


- Johnny Marr

I don't have a Guitar Pro tab for this song yet, but here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead piano songbook with guitar chord boxes:







Here's a great multitracked version from Daniel Earwicker:




kfb76 does a cool acoustic cover, in standard tuning:




sonofdrcross nails the bass part, as usual: