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:

Ask

"Me and Johnny were sat in the library playing acoustic guitars and they must have been miked up as we were probably putting down the acoustic tracks for 'Panic'. I just started playing the chord sequence which would later become 'Ask' in exactly the way it appears on the record. Johnny then joined in playing the same... I then forgot about the idea and left it at that... Johnny must have played Morrissey this idea or given him the recording I already mentioned. I was completely surprised as we were now recording this for the next single. The only section of the chord structure that I didn't come up with for 'Ask' was the middle eight section with the chords E-minor, D and C. That was actually what Johnny came up with. All the way through the song there is an overdub with me and Johnny sat around a mike with acoustics, playing a riff that he came up with towards the end of the recording of the song. That is a great riff and a real hook but it was still just an overdub and I felt the song was nearly complete without it. Up until the release of 'Ask' I still thought I'd be given a writing credit. When I found that I wasn't given a writing credit, it didn't really bother me, but I thought it was pretty bad that no one even acknowledged that it was my idea in the first place."


- Craig Gannon



"That really hurt me. That's one of the things in The Smiths that you don't do. We were always very careful from the very first day all the way through the sessions to bring in our own songs. It was ridiculous. no one ever had any inclination to write any songs, and that was fine."

"On 'Ask', Craig Gannon and I are playing Martin acoustics. I play the G-Am-C-D progression on a Rickenbacker 330. The highlify part is played on a '63 Strat. I'm also vamping on a G harmonica through a Urei Boom Box, an early '70s piece of outboard gear that we also used a lot on guitars, as well. It's like one of those vulgar 'loudness' buttons on a hi-fi. It pushes things slightly out of phase, but gives them a bottomy, dense sound. It's a big chrome box with one knob: 'intensity.'"


- Johnny Marr

I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab for this song here. Right click to save as.


Here's the complete band score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:























Here is another tab, from the Singles book:














Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:

















Here's a great version by nicknoh69 on a Les Paul:




Jahnli does a nice version here, with vocals.




fdealencar has a nice attempt at all the riffs here:




Here Daniel Earwicker does an amazing 3-track breakdown:





Here's johnnymare on a Tele and Rickenbacker 330: