Fiona’s final Smiths selection is one I did introduce to her (after she expressed an interest in the band). ‘Half a Person’ is an obscure B-side that shows up on the compilation Louder Than Bombs and it’s a favorite of mine.
The song finds Morrissey recounting the story of a girl he obsessed over when he was a teenager, only to hear from her years later and find that she is unimpressed with his now-famous self.
I was starting to get a little worried about Sophia after her first three Smiths selections. ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves,’ ‘Well I Wonder,’ and ‘Never Had No One Ever’ are bleak songs about failing to find love and connection in a cruel world.
With today’s selection she swerves into less morose territory, offering up ‘Sweet and Tender Hooligan,’ a punk-inflected satirical defense of a violent criminal on trial in the British justice system.
Fiona’s next Smiths selection gives us a break from the melancholy — the 1986 single ‘Ask’ is one of the peppiest songs in the band’s catalog.
That was by design. Morrissey worried that a dour single would be viewed as more of the same following the band’s recent releases. So the band came up with this bright anthem about getting past the crippling shyness usually depicted in his lyrics.
Way back in July of 2009, before this Song of the Day blog was even a year old, I posted a week’s worth of songs by The Smiths.
The reaction was swift and ugly: “Ugh!” “I can’t stand it!” “Grating!” “I can’t believe you are doing a whole theme week on the Smiths.”
Even my wife, largely a stranger to the blog’s comment section, chimed in to register her disgust.
‘Panic’ is one of the better-known tracks from Louder Than Bombs, The Smiths’ 1987 compilation of singles and B-sides that hadn’t had a U.S. release. Pound for pound, this album rivals any of the band’s studio releases.
The story goes that Morrissey and Johnny Marr wrote ‘Panic’ after listening to coverage of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster followed immediately by a silly pop song. The opening verses describe a chaotic scene as people react to world events, before the chorus shifts to a call to arms against the DJ whose music choices are too frivolous.
Meet Me In Montauk 