"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.
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:
I created this blog to showcase the guitar work of Johnny Marr from the Smiths, and to help those who want to learn his guitar parts or learn more about his gear and production techniques.
I will cover the catalog song by song, using youtube videos from guitarists, chords, tab, and comments from Johnny when they are available. Many of the songs feature many different guitar tracks; often one person will capture something that another will not, so I will be posting everything that I feel helps with the understanding of the overall song, or any part of it. If anyone has anything to contribute, please email me at thom@smithsonguitar.com