The Smiths - best song, no Singles

studio recorded and released, so no James and no Elvis.

"Half a Person", easily.

"This Night Has Opened My Eyes", easily.

i voted "asleep". :(

i'm surprised people are finding this so easy. i still haven't even decided myself.

"Stretch Out and Wait" has always been my favorite non-single Smiths choon. Great for mixtapes.

The correct answer, of course, is the one I'd most like to hear at work now, and that's "You Just Haven't Earned It, Baby."

Please Please Please was not a single??

I ask this because I recall that it was included in SPIN's top 100 singles list from like 1989 or whenever it was.

^ b-side to 'William...', released in 1984. the 'Singles' comp used the singles released in the UK during the band's existence. a bunch of other songs were released as singles, some in other countries and some after the split.

"Reel Around the Fountain" got my vote.

Handsome Devil, for the riff.

suffer little children

'Suffer Little Children' should've been a single instead of 'This Charming Man'. the clip off The Tube with all the flowers would've had a completely different resonance.

One more for Reel Around The Fountain

"Still Ill"

"Frankly Mr. Shankly"

Queen Is Dead - it's the biggest thing they ever recorded!

Is It Really So Strange

"Girl Afraid." I love that layered guitar line.

handsome devil, but this was hard as hell

I'm a total sucka for Strangeways album tracks but here's how my formula would break down:

Cemetary Gates < Is It Really So Strange? < Barbarism Begins At Home < Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours < The Headmaster Ritual < The Queen Is Dead < Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before < Death Of A Disco Dancer (winner)

Such a difficult decision. I'm almost tempted to throw in "Franky Mr. Shankly" and "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" for smirks. I guess it's between "Cemetery Gates" and "Still Ill," although there's also "The Queen Is Dead," "Asleep," "Please, Please, Please etc."

This is a great idea for a poll, but man...the competition is fierce. I'm trying to figure out how I can NOT vote for "Jeane" and still live with myself.

I wish I could split my vote eighteen different ways, but since I can't I'm going with "This Night Has Opened My Eyes."

too hard.

christ. this is less tough than the unknown pleasures one, but tougher than the fall one.

my problem is that i've only recently allowed myself to admit how much i love the smiths (i had a very big problem with morrissey's general wankshaftishness throughout my twenties) so in some ways my view of their work is now totally skewed.

with that in mind, i'm going for "london" because a) it rocks, b) i find it pops into my head frequently, especially when i'm on a train, c) voting for "asleep" would be just too, too 16-year-old of me.

dan "hi dere agony tits" perry otm.

Had trouble deciding between "Nowhere Fast," "Jeane," and "Girl Afraid."

Another for "Handsome Devil."

I've always LOVED "Stretch Out & Wait", especially the one off "The World Won't Listen".

This Night Has Opened My Eyes", easily.

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, June 12, 2007 2:55 PM (7 hours ago)

DAN OTM.

I was going to vote "Stop Me If You Think..." (which might truly be my favorite), but figured that was a tad boring, so went with "Hand That Rocks the Cradle". Also strong contenders for me in the list: "Asleep", "Please Please Please", "Well I Wonder", "What She Said", "Queen Is Dead", "Rusholme Ruffians"

'tad boring of a choice' (not the song itself) that is

"Please Please Please..." narrowly wins out over "Suffer Little Children".

"Stretch Out and Wait" here as well.

I don't really want to vote "Half A Person" even through I love that song to bits (mostly due to going to London at 16 and staying with women). "Cemetry Gates" might be too obvious. Oh, I think I'll vote for "Well I Wonder" because of the dramatic rain effects that borderline on a La Mozza hysterical weepage.

Oh crap, I half forgot how much I love "Stretch Out and Wait." Thinking through why I love those others:

- "Girl Afraid" is the high-point bonanza for Marr lovers -- his whole style showily condensed into one performance

- "Jeane" is a bit of a style exercise, really -- it seems like Morrissey getting his first clear chance to try and channel the kind of Cilla Black / Twinkle 60s stuff he loves so much -- but it comes out so well, and turns out to be one of the pair's best bits of "classic" songwriting: it's not the most covered of their songs, of course, but it has a kind of classic portability that keeps it sounding great (and always lyrically perfect) in so many people's hands. (I dig the Billy Bragg one best, I think)

- but I voted for "Nowhere Fast" because it seems like such a great, succint, pitch-perfect combination of everyone's strengths, and everything basically great about the Smiths

(NB that's the slow Bragg b-side version of Jeane, not the punky Peel Session one)

i went for queen is dead, but jeane was probably second choice

Dan OTM OTM. Although I voted for You've Got Everything Now, that's probably my 2nd choice.

In the end: "Rusholme Ruffians".

After "London", "Girl Afraid" and "Back to the Old House".

'I Know It's Over'

I voted for "Stop Me", its a Smiths song that sticks with me.

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

You are sleeping. You do not want to believe. You are sleeping.

On first pass I could only discount about 5 songs! Finally whittled down to three - Rubber Ring, I Know It's Over and Jeane. This is too difficult, but I have to vote for I Know...

Ask me in an hour and I will have changed my mind.

from the comments so far i have no idea how this is going to go, which is awesome. i guessed 'Half A Person' might edge it going in, and i'd say that that is still the favourite, probably.

glad to see 'Stretch Out and Wait' getting some shout outs. maybe surprised at the lack of attention for 'Still Ill' and 'Barbarism...', which have always seemed to be fan favourites.

i think i am going to go for 'I Know It's Over', if only for the "and it never really began" admission, which i took glum satisfaction in reading in multiple different ways into my own life as i walked home alone of an evening listening on my enormous plastic walkman to a copy of TQID i made from the cassette i borrowed from the public library. it had 'More Songs About Buildings and Food' on the other side. it was a good tape.

oh shit I forgot about "Stop Me..." and "Please Please Please." Damn my gun-jumping.

Reel Around The Fountain, becuase it's been my nominated favourite Smiths track for almost 20 years, so it seems silly to change it now and I'm not even sure I even want to.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Giurl Afraid is terrific - the guitar lines are just so...kinetic. But in the end I had to go for Reel Around the Fountain. Perhaps the perfect Smiths song. It has space and room, wonderful production, good lyrics, and a great understated melody.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Frankly Mr Shankly gets *5* ??

have a word with yourselves.

would be an interesting experiment to put those 0 vote songs on a CD-R for someone who'd never heard the Smiths before and see what they said

pretty low showing for Headmaster... too but HATS OFF for all the
Cemetry Gates votes.

by the way as there is so much Half A Person love doing the rounds, it may please the voters of same to know that the (unreleased on record) BBC session version (without craig gannon) is considered among the hardcore to be way better. certainly it's brighter and tighter. i'm sure many of you know about it already but hey.

(it was on s0uls££k last time i looked)

over 130 votes and nothing breaks into double figures, which says a lot i guess. craziness happens at the 5-vote mark, with three songs that seem much too high up; above that, the picks are pretty much as i'd have expected, with the order maybe a little surprising, but pleasingly so.

you know who were a kinda awesome band? The Smiths.

I don't know what to say. These results are so wrong.

"I Know It's Over" should have been left in the scrapheap of teenagerism. I'm disappointed in ILM.

NO VOTES FOR JEAN! No love for Money Changes EVERYTHING!

What scrapheap of teenagerism? Is there a weekly collection?

I think the list is great. Suffer Little Children only getting two votes (the same as sodding Unloveable) is my only major gripe.

I like the list, though 'These Things Take Time' and 'Unhappy Birthday" should have received at least one vote.

STOP ME OH HO HO STOP ME STOP ME IF YOU THINK THAT YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

pure ear bliss

yeah these results are good - a agree w/ Alba re: "suffer little children" although i didn't vote for it either so i can't complain.

i just decided i change my vote to Rubber Ring. came on random and kept it on repeat for a few plays. superb.

can't remember if i voted in this, but this night has opened my eyes is the one for me. even the recording of it has a fantastic creepy atmosphere that for me only the s/t version of 'reel' comes close to matching..

x-post

That's a good choice. Has anyone ever told you that you have very good taste in music?

ps - I love you.

pps - Sorry but I had to.

someone needs to do this poll but with the Cure.

that's a helluva a lot of songs tho. Smtihs is easy cos they have quite a limited body of work. if you wanted to do the Cure you'd probabaly have to break it down into seperate polls for different periods and then make the winners face off like Nic Cage and John Travolta.

someone with only a few albums would definitely be simpler tho, like Joy Division.

Their singles aren't on their albums, Joy Division I mean.

the point is to exclude the more obvious choices to make the poll more interesting, so it doesn't matter if their singles aren't on their albums.

I was the only sod to vote for Rusholme Ruffians then? Bloody hell.

Stop Me sucks!

whats the best of the songs that got zero votes?

i think its these things take time in a walk

i guess i could just poll that

Big polls have smaller polls upon their backs to bite 'em...

that's actually pretty tough. i guess maybe Wonderful Woman or Never Had No One Ever, but ther's a bunch it would be difficult to seperate.

i'm staaaaaaarved ohhf mirth, let's go and trip a dwarf

I DON'T OWE YOU ANYTHING

Do you know I heard a rap song that sampled the first guitar part of "This Charming Man" on this airplane I was on today...it was in someone's headphones. It tortured me to hear the first part of Marr's guitar line over and over and over against my will and without being able to hear the SECOND part and then some asshole rapped over it. Disgusting. What a way to sample a song and ruin the whole fucking thing.

Guys, "Unhappy Birthday" is beyond classic. I hate you all.

What an incredible canon, so many good songs no matter how you group them. I'm surprised Morrissey's favorite (the flawless "Well I Wonder") only got one vote.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who loves I Know It's Over. All my other Smiths-fan friends detest it for some bizarre reason.

awww no, I love "I Know It's Over".

I've got a magnificent, crackly cover of 'I Know It's Over' by Jeff Buckley, which I love even if sometimes I can barely listen to it. I'm sure I read that 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' was Morrissey's favourite - it's probably my least-favourite Smiths song. 'Well I Wonder' is a much better choice.

What would I vote for? It's written all over my face.

I recall both Morrissey and Johnny Marr singling out "Well I Wonder" somewhere, but there are lots of different info on that on the web. Some say Morrissey's favourites are "I Keep Mine Hidden" and "Shoplifters Of The World Unite" (I recall Moz mentioning that one as well); others say it's "Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me" and so on.

Oh "I Keep Mine Hidden" has a special place in my heart. But "Well I Wonder" would be an interesting thing for them to single out as well.

'I Keep Mine Hidden' was one of only two songs that failed to get a vote in the follow-up to the present thread (which I think makes it the joint least-popular Smiths song ever) so it's safe to say that neither Morrissey nor Marr are regulars round here. I don't think I've ever heard it, actually

Oh fuck you, every Smiths fan should hear their entire oeuvre.

The Scrapheap of Teenagerism would be a great title for that 0-vote CDR.

LOL you can say that again.

i missed this, but for me it would've been a toss up between "suffer little children", "this night has opened my eyes", and "i don't owe you anything". but since nobody voted for it, i choose "i don't owe you anything". such a beautiful perfectly formed little song (this is also mike joyce's favourite smiths' song)

I'm stung enough by that xp to fill in the gaps in my Smiths experience/memory:

* 'I Keep Mine Hidden' - slight, if inoffensive enough. They had a weak period around Sheila Take A Bow and Shoplifters, I see it fitting in there. I don't like the pace of it, I think - they just don't sound committed.
* 'Oscillate Wildly' - really excellent, it feels entirely complete as it is, as if designed as an instrumental from the start. Nice range of instruments too.
* 'Money Changes Everything' - my least-favourite of the instrumentals (I'm working from a live recording here, but it sounds quite strong). I do like it though. I think I prefer what Bryan Ferry did with it, if that's not some kind of sacrilege.
* 'Wonderful Woman' - outstanding. It's got that menacing feel to it (bitchy, camp, 'Handsome Devil' Morrissey), and the unusual structure of the first album. It would have fitted well on there. I'm listening to it on tinny speakers, but it sounds much sharper than the first album too. The songwriting's quite impressive in an odd way - it often sounds like it's about to be let meander, before being dragged back (e.g. the last couple of bars before the 'chorus'). No messing about at the start either. It sounds like a band not quite having found their feet, but really making an effort to do things properly.
* 'Work Is A Four-Letter Word' - pleasant enough performance, but obviously throwaway. Morrissey sounds like he's really straining, as if it's in entirely the wrong key for him. Those backing vocals are kind of ominous. I'm presuming it's a cover (unless it's a really early effort) - it really shows up how strong their own songwriting was.
* 'Golden Lights' - puzzling - I'd guess that if Strangeways had been stretched to a double album, it would've been full of stuff like this. I've always sensed with Unhappy Birthday or Girlfriend in a Coma that they were close to running on empty, but this is beyond that. I'd really rather it didn't exist.

The lack of love for Back To The Old House is beyond me.

* 'Golden Lights' - puzzling - I'd guess that if Strangeways had been stretched to a double album, it would've been full of stuff like this

oh, i would have fucking loved that.

Oh, I missed one:

* 'Stretch Out and Wait' - really nice. iirc, Morrissey's rallying cry to fans in their early days was something to do with it being time for 'cultivation of the body, not the mind' - possibly the most misunderstood agenda in music, if true. Appropriately, this tune's quite a slippery creature - the weird, circular structure and unexpected key change reminds me a bit of something like 'Sexy Sadie', but much more likeable. Nice backing vocals too (I'm actually not sure whether I'm imagining them or not)

Nice, Ismael! I should probably go back and hear a couple of these again, myself. I can't remember what Golden Lights even sounds like now! Must not have been that outstanding...

OSCILLATE WILDLY!! Woah...piano turns me to mush, sorry.

Also, I didn't realize "Golden Lights" had bloody Kirsty MacColl on it. Hell, I don't think I even knew who she was in those days...quite nice, if unmemorable.

Sorry, but Reel Around the Fountain is gross.

one of my least favorite smiths songs as well.

"girl afraid" would have been my pick for this poll. it's one of their most efficient songs. it all fits together like really nice furniture.

One of my favorite Smiths songs ever. I guess I like misery and pedophilia.