Frankly Mr. Shankly

"If we needed some songs fast, then Morrissey would come round to my place and I'd sit there with an acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder. 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' was done that way, and so was 'Frankly Mr Shankly'."

"Another talking point is the lyric for 'Frankly, Mr Shankly.' At the time Morrissey didn't say anything about it being a dig at Geoff Travis and his bad poetry, but even if he had done, I wouldn't have cared. As I recall, a couple of people at the label said, 'Tut! Tut! Somebody's not very pleased with you boys.'"

"Lyrically it was supposed to be about Geoff Travis. I don’t know whether it is or not. All I can tell you is that it was part of three songs that I wrote all in the same night, alongside 'I Know It’s Over' and 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out'. Morrissey sent Linda McCartney a postcard and we got a polite reply saying she couldn’t do it. We were ready for her to come and to sing and play keyboards on it. I wish it had happened."

- Johnny Marr

I have posted a guitar Pro tab here.

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead songbook:




Awesome guitar version by nicknoh69:




Another stunning rendition by johnnymare:




Here's sonofdrcross with Rourke's bass part:

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:

Still Ill

"Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, 'Still Ill' and 'Suffer Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs."

"'Still Ill' came to me on the train back from London to Manchester around the time of Hand In Glove's release."

- Johnny Marr

I have posted a Guitar Pro tab file here(right click to save as).

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




I have also uploaded the version from the debut album piano songbook with guitar chords, for whatever that's worth... very little, I suspect:







lunachangue does a very good cover on his hollowbody:




sonofdrcross does another really accurate version:

Daniel Earwicker does a great version on Rick 330 and bass:

hughred follows everyone up with yet another really cool version:

cdwheel does a great version here:




nicknoh69 does another really accurate version here:




IngialV does an awesome cover of Andy Rourkes bass. This has got to be one of my favorite smiths bass parts. Kind of a menacing counterpoint to Marr's part.

chiasson65 does another great version of the bass part:




Here's a rollicking take on the Hatful version by 325C58 on guitars and bass, and Daniel Earwicker adds drums:




keithbtv does a nice acoustic version here:




johnnymare does a great full length version here:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

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:

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: