113. The Smiths, "The Queen Is Dead"
Remember a couple of days ago when I was like "oh god where's the Smiths" because we had gotten this far without a Smiths album? Here's the Smiths.
Not my favorite Smiths album (that would be Meat Is Murder, which it would be for Johnny Marr's guitar tone on "How Soon Is Now" alone, never mind the other fantastic songs on that album), but it's usually and widely regarded as the "best" Smiths album. Not to take anything away from it; it's a fantastic album.
Right now we're watching the very trashy/highly enjoyable series "Pistol" on Hulu, a docudrama about the Sex Pistols, and I would love to see the Smiths get the same treatment because Morrissey is such a messy bitch who loves drama. By the time the band recorded this, their third album, they were already a trainwreck. Marr was deep in his cups, and Andy Rourke would soon be fired by Morrissey for drug use via a Post-It note left on his car windshield that said "Andy – you have left the Smiths. Goodbye and good luck, Morrissey." CAN YOU IMAGINE. So things were shaky at best when recording started.
But damn, what a collection. You could ask 10 people (well, 10 Smiths fans anyway) what their favorite track on this record is and get 10 different answers. I'm going to be a big dumb predictable guy and pick "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out," with its famous chorus:
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-tonne truck kills the both of us
To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine
I read somewhere that if this chorus doesn't move to you to tears, you're probably not alive and while it didn't move me to tears yesterday when I was listening to it I'm sure it's at least given me a lump in my throat at some point.
Theo Hutchcraft of the band Hurts said "Bigmouth Strikes Again" has maybe the best opening lines of any song ever and it's hard to argue with that: "Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking when I said/I'd like to smash every tooth in your head." In fact, Morrissey is pretty much a brilliant lyricist and this album shows that off. It's like W.H. Auden started writing slam books about English rich kids. Same song:
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt
Godfuckingdammit that is so good. But let's don't take away from the music; Marr does an incredible job fitting the perfect guitar sound to the moment and the idea of the song. He's justifiably famous for the ringing, bright jangly guitar sound you hear on "Cemetry Gates" and "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" but there's like five different guitar sounds in "Frankly Mr. Shankly" alone. You've also got to love the wild drums on the title track. And Rourke is probably one of the most underrated bassists in indie rock history. Same title track, listen to what he's doing, bobbing in and out and punching up and exactly the right moments.
The Smiths are properly regarded as one of the premiere indie rock acts of the 80s, still highly thought of to this day. They routinely come up in conversations about who you'd most like to see reunite, and, in fact, they were offered sums between 50 and 75 million dollars to reunite for a series of shows but turned it down. Morrissey is famously prickly and hard to get along with (and has been doing himself no favors lately by comparing Covid lockdowns to slavery) so I'm sure that played a part in it but still. Wouldn't you just die? (Wait, that must be a Smiths lyric.)
Is this album in my personal Top 500? Without a doubt.
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