Stretch Out And Wait

"'Stretch Out' I think, is in open G tuning: D,G,D,G,B,G."

- Johnny Marr

From the quote above, Marr says he 'thinks' the song is in open G, but the general consensus is that it's actually in open E. For instance, Headmaster Ritual is definitely in open E, and Johnny would sometimes play Stretch Out And Wait immediately afterwards, on the same guitar.

I do have a Guitar Pro tab file that I have uploaded here(right click to save as). This is a really accurate transcription to my ears, in the correct tuning(!). marrzipan also transcribed his version and I have included it in this same zip file. These versions are both in open E, but they are both different.

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














Here's marrzipan's version. This is one of the very few versions of the song on youtube that are played in open E, as marr played it. So cool!




Here's a very nice acoustic version by 3rd Monty Effects:


Here's a cool cover by theglimpse, who also plays the song in open E:




Here's dhowellbassist on a ric 360:




barjabulon covers a short snippet here, very well:




And here is the Smiths playing live on June 29, 1985. Here we can see that Marr has his telecaster tuned up to open E:

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

"After that I started getting turned on to Chic, The Fatback Band, The Ohio Players and War. If you listen to 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', the rhythm part from verse two onwards - that chick-a-chick part - it's pure Nile Rogers.

That was the first time I used a Strat on a record. I got it because I wanted a twangy Hank Marvin sound, but it ended up sounding quite highlify.

Will the new stuff be radically different? Yes. There is the single which will probably be 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and then the album which we have pretty much got in hand and which will undoubtedly shock a lot of people. Well, let's hope so. From a purely personal point of view there will be a move away from the old jingly-jangly guitars of old. Everyone knows I can do that.

'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' is about us. Well, Morrissey specifically. The thorn is the music industry. If you listen to the words, 'how can they hear me say those words and still they don't believe me'... By the time we'd written that song, we'd been put down so much for our beliefs, in the music industry, we'd been put down for all these things that we said were dead. And then we did 'The Boy...' and it was a real pleasure that people who were actually responsible - people who were the 'thorns' in our side - were actually buying this record and championing it in the music industry. It's about all the bigotry and idiocy in the music business really. And how a lot of people who are in a responsible position actually don't know squat."

- Johnny Marr

I have uploaded two Guitar Pro tabs here:

Here is a tab from the Play Guitar With The Smiths book:









I have uploaded the accompanying backing tracks here(right click to save).


Here are the scans from the Singles tab book:








Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:











Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:





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







Jahnli does a great version on acoustic 12 string, using a capo at the 5th fret. I don't know if this is exactly how Marr played it, but it sounds really similar. He also posted the chords he used in the comments section on Youtube:

D Am7
C D
G Am
D Am7 C D

G Am D
Am7 C D
G Am D
Am7 C

D G Am D
Am7 C
D G Am D
Am7
C D C D C D C Cmaj7 Dsus4 C D




Another great version from KintrickPinch:




Here's Oscar80It:




Here's nicknoh69:




Here's johnnymare:




Here's dhowellbassist:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

Wonderful Woman

"I loved that song. I really, really loved it. Thats a good example of John Porter bringing out the essence of the band and a certain kind of sadness and putting it on the record. I always saw 'Wonderful Woman' as this thick, melancholic, dense atmosphere. It needed to drip with atmosphere and John had the patience to pour over it and do that. It all started to come together at about half four in the morning. I was thrashed through sheer tiredness because we'd been working three days non-stop. Those schedules that Rough Trade put John Porter under were unbelieveable by anyone's standards. But I was dying on me knees and John was going, 'Let's put a vibrato on that bit, let's do a high string thing here.' We were restringing guitars at five in the morning, just for one little bit, but he helped me through it."


"I always liked that song. I did it with John Porter during the night and I was pretty spaced out, it was magic though. I think I was 'muffled and strange' so that's why it sounds the way it does. "


- Johnny Marr

I have a Guitar Pro tab file and have uploaded it here(right click to save as). It seems fairly accurate to my ears, which is fantastic, because this is an amazing song that is often overlooked. The bass part is included in the tab.

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:

Daniel Earwicker does a haunting instrumental version on his Rickenbacker:




Here is captaincarwash, with a great sounding multi-track version:




dhowellbassist does a great version on his Ric 360:




And here are The Smiths, playing the song live, on July 6th, 1983:

What Difference Does It Make?

"It was all right. I didn't think it was a particularly strong one. A lot of people liked it and it got to No. 10. It followed 'This Charming Man' and was part of that peak. It was all right. It went down great live, and that's when I liked it.

Every song has to be worth doing every single night. There was one stage where I was playing 'What Difference Does It Make?' seven or eight gigs on the trot and I didn't like the feeling. I knew that this was not why I had got involved in a band in the first place."

-Johnny Marr

I prefer the version on Hatful Of Hollow to the version on the debut album, because I feel the song works better in a more stripped-down form. On the debut version, the guitar production is too busy in my opinion.

I have posted two Guitar Pro tab files here.

It was featured in Total Guitar Magazine, and here are the scans of the transcription from that issue. I have uploaded the backing tracks which came with the issue here:









Here is another version to compare with. This tab also came with backing tracks which I have uploaded here(right click to save as).










Here are the scans from the Singles tab book:








Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Here are the piano and guitar chord boxes from the debut album songbook:







nicknoh69 does an awesome, complete version on his Ric 330:




sonofdrcross does a really good job on his version. The pre-chorus and chorus riffs are the hardest for me to get, and he pretty much nails them.




lunachangue doesn't do as well on the chorus and pre-chorus parts, but he locks the rythym down.




dhowellbassist does a pretty faithful cover of the studio version, with overdubs:




Here's johnnymare playing along to the backing track in Play Guitar with The Smiths:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul: