Sophia is really going for the jugular with her second Smiths selection, a track from the band’s 1985 sophomore album Meat is Murder. ‘Well I Wonder’ is a tear-soaked lament about unrequited love sung by a narrator who is “gasping, dying, but somehow still alive.”
This is the sort of song — and The Smiths have many — that makes longing and despair achingly beautiful. It turns sadness into something sacred.
Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1985…
#5 – Meat is Murder – The Smiths
The Smiths released just four studio albums in their five-year existence, a remarkably small footprint for a band with such a huge and passionate fan base.
Meat is Murder was the band’s sophomore release and the one I rank lowest of the four. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t great enough to be #5 on my list of 1985 albums.
‘Barbarism Begins at Home’ is a track from The Smiths’ sophomore studio album, 1984’s Meat is Murder.
It concerns corporal punishment, three years before the United Kingdom banned the practice in state-run schools. It seems many an English schoolboy who grew up before the ban went on to write songs about their experiences on the wrong end of the cane.
The band’s second studio album, 1985’s Meat is Murder, was their most commercially successful and received widespread critical acclaim. It’s also my least favorite of their albums.
That’s not to say it isn’t a strong collection — it is — but it’s one for which you have to be in the mood. Marr really went to town on this album, stylistically jumping all over the map. The Elvis Presley rockabilly of ‘Rusholme Ruffians’ runs into the jangly alternative sound of ‘I Want the One I Can’t Have’ then crashes headlong into the rock shredding of ‘What She Said.’ The album’s title (and weakest) track is a dissonant, sound effect-fueled screed about vegetarianism.
Meet Me In Montauk 