"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:
Posts
