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:

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

"The song, as it was, just faded in, so i thought we had to do something a bit more interesting. Basically, I put all the reverb on the drums up so it sounded like it was coming in from some large hall, then faded it down really quickly. Then I took all the reverb back off and faded it up again. The effect was supposed to be like the musics in a hall somewhere, it goes away, then it comes back and it's nice and clean and dry. A bit like opening a door, closing it, then opening it again and walking in."

-Stephen Street

"Other times, I'd drop off a cassette of some music at Morrissey's house. He lived about two miles away, and I'd ride round there on my Yamaha DT 175 and post them through his letterbox. 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' was done that way. All the music for that came in one wave while I was watching telly with the sound down."

"Some things just drop out of the heavens, and 'Some Girls...' was one of them. It's a beautiful piece of music."

"I think I used a Rickenbacker 330 with delay on and a Strat for the outro. A lot of chorus and delay, I think."


- Johnny Marr

This one has a lot of renditions on youtube, which is great. It's a challenging part, but it's something that once you hear, you want to learn... at least I feel that way. A lot of people have taken it on, so I have posted as many good versions as I could find

Also, there are 2 Guitar Pro tab files I uploaded here(right click to save). One is for the live version, but it's not complete.

Daniel Cárdenas informed me that the Guitar Pro version posted here was in a weird tuning(second string was tuned up 1/2 step) and was in the wrong key. He transcribed the song into the correct key, and I transposed the fretboard positions into something that I think is more accurate. I moved the figures down one fret, which eliminates 1st fret barre chords and utilizes more open strings and open chord positions. I have left the older version in the rar file for comparison purposes. If you can help improve it further, let me know.


Here is a scan from Guitare Xtreme, a French magazine:



Thanks to reader Dupont Dupond for the scan.


Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




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








Daniel Earwicker's first attempt:

His second attempt, this time a fairly definitive cover of the 'live' version:

tomscotland on a strat:

goleirinho, whose version is the first left-handed video I have posted!

elvismarinho's cover:

and here's Stevebanany:

smitestyle is next:

sonofdrcross again does both guitar and bass really well:

Here's buckleyboyben:




Here's another version by barjabulon:




Here's Salvia02390 with his take on the live version:




Here's two spot on guitar and bass covers by johnnymare:






Here's a great bass cover by my friend John Biscuiti:

And lastly, here's The Smiths at their final show. Johnny plays it, um, like a ringin' a bell. Just totally effortless and smooth, it's

amazing.

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

"My favourite song on that LP now is 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore'. I think Morrissey is incredible on that, the end is brilliant."

"On Smiths songs such as "How Soon Is Now?" and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore", I turned the 2" tape over and learned to play the parts backward."

"I played the part, turned the tape over and learned it backwards, played the backward part with the tape the right way round then turned the volume up and down. The intro is a Martin D-28 acoustic with Lexicon Reverb on."

"'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' was always one of my favorites. It just fell through the roof. It was one of those lovely times when the feeling just falls down on you from the ceiling somewhere and it almost plays itself. It gives an almost esoteric feeling."

"When you go out live you want to give people at least a general impression of the whole thing, but if you're on your own, you end up compromising a lot of the chord inversions and inflections that were there in the overdubs. You generally end up being reduced to playing that big-sounding first position chord. With my one-man band approach I managed that fairly successfully for a while, but other times it didn't really work. From a guitar point of view 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' could have been absolutely incredible live, but in the end it was only good."

-Johnny Marr

A Guitar Pro tab file has been uploaded here.


Here are the tabs from the Singles book:












Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:





Here are the scans from the Meat Is Murder piano songbook with guitar chord boxes. Thanks to Ted Maul for these scans.










Current definitive version from karloslim:



He also does a slower tutorial version:




jl92509 plays the bass part along with karloslim's version above:




Another cool version from juttkeys::




Here's theglimpse with a really neat version... he plays the bass part with his feet on a synth. Pay attention to the outro where he uses a looping pedal of some kind, to amazing effect:




Here's a version by 00000999998888 on acoustic:




dhowellbassist does a nice multi-tracked version, with the backwards guitar parts at the end:




Daniel Earwicker does another amazing multi tracked version here:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:




Here's WilliamFs11 on acoustic: