Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

"'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want', I did in a period of about four to five days when I was living in a flat in Earls Court. That was done when we needed a follow-up to 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'."

"I think the mandolin was suggested by the producer John Porter, I had the tune and he thought the mandolin would be good. The music was written because I was thinking about my childhood in Ardwick Green."

"There's a sad song by Del Shannon called 'The Answer To Everything' that my parents used to play, and it struck a chord in me because it sounded so familiar. That song was the inspiration for 'Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want'. I tried to capture the essence of that tune; its spookiness and sense of yearning."

-Johnny Marr

Another beautiful song. I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab file here. It has 9 tracks, including 4 guitar tracks and 2 mandolin tracks for the outro. Thanks again goes to Nanuke for his help with this tab file.

Here is a short snippet of Johnny playing the song:




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















Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:









Dan, a reader, sent word of this great video below. Johnny plays it with Neil Finn and you can get a great view of his hands:




There are a lot of great solo covers of this song on youtube with vocals, but to stay focused I've posted the most helpful non-vocal versions:


Here is kfb76 with no capo:




ResidentSmith78 plays a nice version with the capo at the 2nd fret. He does a nice job with some of the little movements between chords.




KintrickPinch does another capoed version:




Here's backinnyc playing along with his own backing track. He also plays the mandolin solo on his Rick 12-string which sounds really good:




Pandaprops does another great version on an acoustic 12 string:




325C58 does an awesome multi-instrumental version here. Look out for a cool surprise when he does the outro solo:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

Girl Afraid

"I had just got back from New York and was obsessed with Little Richard. I just kept thinking, 'What'd sound like Little Richard on guitar?', which is how I came up with it."

"I started to think about piano melodies. For example, Girl Afraid, which is an extra track on the Heaven Knows single; I started off playing 'pidgin' piano in the studio one day and transferred it to guitar. When I wrote the song I was conscious that it should have a fast New Orleans piano part. It turned into a Kinks-style, real 60's erratic drum beat bop, which is fine but it started off as a piano part!"

- Johnny Marr

Girl Afraid is one of my favorite Smiths songs. The intro is just jaw-dropping in it's virtuosity, and I love the way it just ramps up from an awesome intro, to a menacing verse riff, to the amazing harmonized chorus chords/riffs. It's like packing 3-4 songs worth of great riffs into a single 2 minute song.

I have uploaded 2 Guitar Pro tab files here.


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














Here are the chords from the Complete Chord Songbook:





Here's Daniel Earwickers first attempt, on a Rick 12 string:




Here's his second, which he does in more of an "instructional" style. Really cool! We could definately use some more videos like this:




ResidentSmith78 does a good attempt here. It's rough in a few places, but one thing to note is that he starts the riff at the 3rd fret, which is what Johnny does.




Here is a really awesome version by markpaterson, on a strat through a JC-120:




Here's a full length(!) cover by isisluna23:




adameater does a slowed down, step by step lesson here:



His full version is here:




moz77 does a slowed down version here:




barjabulon does a great job here, and the camera angle is perfect:



Here's his slowed-down tutorial of the intro:




Masterful version by johnnymare:




And here is viniciuskiko, with a cool version of Rourke's bass part:

Well I Wonder

"'Well I Wonder' I really like as well. It's one of those things that a modern group could try and emulate but never get the spirit of. It's so simple."

"I remember the start of the record because I moved back to Manchester very deliberately- to get the atmosphere right for the instrumental tracks I was writing. And that worked out immediately because 'Well I Wonder' came out of that, with the rain and everything. When we did it I knew it would be popular because it had that real sense of yearning in it."

"I think [the outro] is an A minor shape capo'd, I'd have to listen to it."


-Johnny Marr

Well I Wonder is another one of my favorites. The ending guitar coda is one of my all time favorite Marr guitar runs. It comes at the perfect time, after setting up a great musical tension.

I have found a Guitar Pro tab for this song which I have uploaded here. The ending riffs aren't exactly right, but the rest of it is very good in my opinion.

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Here are the scans from the Meat Is Murder songbook:






Thanks to Ted Maul for these scans.


This version by ResidentSmith78 is very good:




Rodtomcab does a nice cover as well, integrating the bassline at times:




Oscar80It does a cover here with vocals. He doesn't get the end guitar part exactly right, but he's the only one who's attempted it. It still sounds cool, and it's in the right direction.




dhowellbassist has a great multi-tracked version here:




I don't usually post full-band renditions, but this one by rider1967 is truly great. The Smiths never played this song live! Que lástima.




Here's an amazing version by davidguitarist91. He does a great job on the coda:




frankshankley does a cool rendition of the intro/outro chords on bass: