Which one of you will actually try to defend "Some Girls are Bigger Than Others" by the Smiths?

I like it. You don't. Why should I bother trying to defend it?

Some great Marr showboating in this track.

<I>I like it. You don't. Why should I bother trying to defend it?</I>

I guess you don't cotton much to the "defend the indefensible" game that happens around here. I'm sorry if you were offended by my dislike of this bad, bad song.

truly the only "Ringo song" in The Smiths' catalog...

I can't hear you, "Wood" Johnson, I'm too busy listening to this awesome song, it's called "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" by the Smiths

It's funny and a light bit of Smiffs fluff. And it gives you good mental imagery.

erm. one of the best smiths tracks imo.

its fucking funny and deliberately silly and it references carry on cleo. and it makes me dance.

Hasn't this been done already?

The only thing sub-par about this song is that Morrissey isn't really doing much -- the backing Marr's assembled isn't really any more slight than the usual Smiths single, but Morrissey just kind of casually rides it, keeps doing the refrain, not trying anything big. I don't think it's a bad choice for the backing, really, which I think was just a little too smooth and even for him to try and pull it in any direction.

I can't imagine what anyone would find so indefensible about it, except for just being a little lighter than most of the stuff around it. There's nothing bad about it that I can hear. (Ha, except for Rourke's top bass string being a little sharp, per usual.)

Oh wait, I'm thinking of different songs with the sharp bass string -- I can't remember if it's on this one or now.

easy mark for a conceptual ilx troll, c+

It's also a really great song to know about if you happen to come across a really large squirrel.

" just being a little lighter than most of the stuff around it."

admittedly this is why i can still tolerate it whereas most of the other stuff on TQID i find ponderous, laboured. even "vicar in a tutu" is "hey look how wacky this is" in comparism. "some girls" is more enduring".

Funny, the other day I was thinking about how classic this song is. It always makes me think of a 'tween-age kid, rife with hormones, desperate to amuse himself whilst being bored shitless in history class: the perfect soundtrack for people who'd rather be doing anything other than what they're currently up to.

Musically, this song is outstanding; it basically encapsulates the entire musical mood they tried to replicate with Strangeways, Here We Come.

I guess we didn't do this exact question, although there was this thread: Best Song On The Queen Is Dead

Anyway, it works really well with the previous song- "There Is A Light" has an end-of-album finality and then along comes SGABTO as this really cool outro. I like it fine.

This thee standout track on Queen is Dead IMO. Carries a tone, in spite of the lyric, which is anything but light.

Having just read the lyrics but never having heard the song, I must ask, is there a meaning I have missed to this song?

My current favorite Smiths song and the perfect album closer in my opinion. Basically I'm with James Redd on this one.

Morrissey's a better singer when wistful rather than anguished. The music is the dreamiest on the album, like the string coda on "There Is a Light" become fully evanescent. What everybody said up there, really. Not lumpen enough for some people, apparently.

Having just read the lyrics but never having heard the song, I must ask, is there a meaning I have missed to this song?

I think I will have to echo this sentiment... Can someone explain what we're missing here? All I can think of when I hear it is *cringe*.

Musically, it's fine. But God, those lyrics.

Last Thursday, I put this on our iPod mix for the birth/labor of my (as I would soon learn) daughter. At the time, I thought it'd be funny.

However, as it was about to come on and there were about four very serious women in the delivery room as my wife writhed in agony, I thought better of it and fast-forwarded.

I think this thread would be better if it were titled "Which one of you motherfuckers will actually try to defend "Some Girls are Bigger Than Others" by the Smiths?"

a decent song, but easily my least favorite on The Queen is Dead.

girls = gay men
mothers = penises

great & highly memorable Smiths tune!

pete otm.

there are worse song on TQID. "cemetry gates" for starters.

"cemetry gates" for starters.

BLASPHEMY!

"Cemetry Gates" is the glue that keeps that album together, jed.

The motherfucking glue. Jed.

i actually think it's sort of a cool way to wind down the record. at worst, it's totally harmless and inoffensive. at best, it's haunting, enigmatic and tuneful. lyrically void of course, however.

I think this thread would be better if it were titled "Which one of you motherfuckers will actually try to defend "Some Girls are Bigger Than Others" by the Smiths?"

Well, it's what I was thinking, but see how indignant Michael White was without it. I guess maybe I should have asked which one of you motherfuckers will try to defend the lyrics for this song!

From the best song on The Queen Is Dead thread:

i just was think nah about starting this. that andrew marr program and the scott walker doc last night made me think a lot about how special this album is. i'm going for SGABTO never has anyone, anything quite captured the feel of a rainy day in a provinical town it seems like you'll never leave. that doesn't make it sound like a good thing does it? hmmm

-- acrobat, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 10:28 (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

I am so glad to hear someone else raving about SGABTO. That's a great way of describing it. Not that I've actually lived in a provinical town it seems like I'll never leave. I suppose it's a Marr triumph above all really, and I can understand why he was reportedly pissed off on hearing the lyrics Morrissey put to it, but for me they work perfectly to evoke that arch, poignant distancing stance he made his own.

-- Alba, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 10:42 (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

i think the album needs SGABTO, it's somewhere between a raspberry and a sigh. it's "forget it, this is chinatown england" after the preceding moment of almost transendence. i know you can't really blame them but you can see the worst paraochial tenedencies of the next twenty years of brit rock formenting here. it's an album about decline and stasis that doesn't point a way forward, it leaves you there with moz. that's what the scott walker docu got me thinking about, eno complaining about bands just imitating talking heads and so on and never going as far out as nite flites and then you have all these bands jus refining what was said, what was done in 1986. the smiths couldn't say anymore really and morrissey only had things to say about himself afterwards.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 10:57 (2 months ago) Bookmark Link

The music is the dreamiest on the album, like the string coda on "There Is a Light" become fully evanescent.

OTM. All that keeps this song from perfection is that it's not an instrumental.

but Al "arch, poignant, distancing" surely you dig that?

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the best song on TQID is all of them except "Never Had No One Ever" and "Vicar In A Tutu".

"I wrote this almost sublime, roaming, guitar-led piece of music once, and the next thing I knew it was called 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'."

Always makes me laugh. The fade-in-out-in is another reason why this is classic.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the best song on TQID is all of them except "Never Had No One Ever" and "Vicar In A Tutu".

nb I still like "Vicar In A Tutu"

I like it in the medley with "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame"

Good song, good album closer too, though not among the best tracks on TQID.

Where do you find the medley? I've only got Marie's the Name/Rusholme Ruffians

Best Smiths song ever. Plenty of OTMs here.

Um, in my mind, since they have a similar beat, but yes you are right, the medley is with "The Rusholme Ruffians."
(xpost)

Some Girls is definitely an essential Smiths track. The way I see it, this is one of Marr's best compositions, and Morrissey took it, and laid down some ridiculous lyrics. Just when you thought The Smiths were gonna close out their album with a big, serious, emotional song like There is a Light, Some Girls comes on and reminds you that the Mozza is quite the funny guy. This song is great and a key to Morrissey's sense of humor, a real fuck you to all those critics who lazily call him depressed and humorless.

the lyrics just seem lazy and misguided to me; funny, i guess, but more stupid than clever. i dunno, i guess if that's what he was shooting for, then mission accomplished.

This song can be proven empirically and therefore it speaks the TRUTH. You may deny the greatness of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. But you cannot deny that some girls are bigger than others.

Wilde wins out over Keats and Yeats?, not likely.

although thats obv not my reason for thinking it's weak. i probably dug it at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h2KxXgx95E

so does this song have sexual connotations?

So what exactly was the deal with the mastering-error thing in the beginning? And if a mistake, why never corrected?

And this is one of my favorite songs on the album. Excellent Marr riffs.

The music is the best of Marr.

I saw a TV programme the other day about, I think, teaching dogs to behave better. The programme I watched had a dog that obsessively humped things. It humped its owners and it humped the sofa. It humped the dog expert who turned up to sort it out. It humped the four-year-old girl whose house it shared, paying no mind to how scared she was of it. Usually I think I see shame in the eyes of dogs having sex, but I saw no shame in this one.

When I watch programmes such as this, and also when I don't, I understand the desperation of most religions to separate sexuality from human-ness. I generally, approximately, want to hump things constantly, and so does every man and woman I happen to know. It's a real barrier to transcendence, wanting to hump things.

The nicest thing to do, the easiest way to get over this, is to twist this into love. Which I have done, wholeheartedly, but never as completely as in "There is a light that never goes out". That song describes one thing, but it's perfect that it's followed by "Some girls are bigger than others".

Morrissey presented himself as someone above humping, above sex. In 1986, I'd still believe him. A combination of fear & repression & sheer willpower led him to believe that you could get to the centre of life still avoiding all that stuff. I love "Some girls" because of its admission of missing the point, its final revelation ("I have just discovered") that he can't ever comprehend the principles on which the world is run. He never did want to get his hands on mammary glands. The song in essence says: "For everything I've said, it comes down to this." It's one of the saddest songs he wrote.

This song can be proven empirically and therefore it speaks the TRUTH. You may deny the greatness of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. But you cannot deny that some girls are bigger than others.

There's also no sex in the champagne room.

I can't hear you, "Wood" Johnson,

Bahhaahahah

as obvious as snow
as if we didn't know

I always thought this song was about that moment when you are completely fucking struck dumb, or at least slightly spellbound, by something painfully obvious that you'd somehow managed to miss heretofore because you had your head up your ass.

Great song.

Dammit, would someone please elaborate on the significance of there being some girls that are bigger than others?? I fail to see the profundity of this statement.

I seem to remember a great quote from Marr who said he'd spent a few days in the studio concocting this beautiful, transcendent, glistening instrumental piece that was the song he was most proud of, left the studio, came back the next day, and Morrissey had called it "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" and Marr wanted to kill him on the spot.

It's light relief, after some serious stuff. The people laff and the album ends.