It took 31 years, three months and six days, and now we’re hearing the demo of “Never Had No One Ever,” and it’s got a trumpet in it, a crazy jazz horn, and Morrissey yodels and begs and whimpers and laughs, it is “Miserable Lie” with “Suffer Little Children” and “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me”. You didn’t take it. “Cemetry Gates” and “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and “I Know It’s Over” aren’t much different from the later versions – but the small deviations, the crackling bass, the dangling vocals, the drier drums, the wrong beginning of “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others” is, how to say, invigorating. How often have you heard the songs? two hundred times? Not enough.
There really isn’t a better song than this, and every demo of the songs proves that The Smiths were the answer to prayers we didn’t say. Not so golden and redundant thoughts and songs like “Money Changes Everything” and “Unloveable” came on single b-sides like in the old days. The live versions of “What She Said” and “Hand In Glove” and “Rubber Ring” and “How Soon Is Now?” (performed in no other city than Boston) suggest that Johnny Marr may be fond of a robust rock band led and played solos.
“The Queen Is Dead” has melancholy, wit, moaning, bitterness, has poetry in a word and so forth and immediately. The album is a trinity of Lord Byron, John Keats and Miss Marple. The slightly showy green vinyl of the first edition referred to the mossy character of the record: the last English album of the 60s. The dead Alain Delon on the cover photo (from the 1964 film L’Insoumis) is of course the most beautiful corpse possible.
Now the photo is black and white, it’s been a year since the throne jubilee, and Morrissey is releasing a new record. But this box is a beautiful, graceful thing and also of, well: historical value. (Warner)
SIMILAR REVIEWS
Marlon Williams :: “My Boy”
Clever pop songs from the talented New Zealander
Julian Lennon :: “Jew”
The Eternal Son returns with forgiving pop.
Ozzy Osbourne :: “Patient Number 9”
Amazingly good vocals and lots of great guitarists
SIMILAR ARTICLES
The Smiths and “The Queen Is Dead”: Get out of the whining niche
1986 was a big year for The Smiths. But as in a Greek drama, at the moment of victory, doom was already lurking on the horizon. With “The Queen is Dead” the four musicians still managed their greatest work.
Queen Elizabeth II: Royal code for the pop culture of migrants and working class kids
During her 70-year reign, Elizabeth II went from dutiful young queen to pop icon in brightly colored Ascot hats
Queen Elizabeth II is dead: Songs about the Queen
The Queen passed away at the age of 96. We take a look back at the life of the British monarch through songs that were famous or notorious.
<!–
–>
<!–
–>