The Smiths “The Queen is Dead” 1986/2017 12″ single. Today, May 22nd, is Morrissey’s birthday (b. 1959) so I’m spinning the title track from my favorite Smiths’ album on this significant date (besides being Morrissey’s birthday, it’s also our 19th wedding anniversary). (Here is a picture of me and Joe, the closest one I could find to my replication of this single’s cover.)

This is the limited edition “The Queen is Dead” 12″ which was reissued in 2017, and features the 1992 edit of the track (no “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty” intro like on the Queen is Dead LP) with the B-side containing three instrumentals: “Oscillate Wildly,” “Money Changes Everything,” and ‘The Draize Train.’ “The Queen is Dead” is one of my favorite tracks from the 1986 album, musically it’s beautiful chaos, best played very very loud, and lyrically it’s brutally scathing in that so-very-Morrissey way, ripping apart the monarchy and ripping apart himself (“Oh, I know you and you cannot sing. I said, That’s nothing, you should hear me play piano). About his lyrics Morrissey says, “I didn’t want to attack the monarchy in a sort of beer monster way. But I found, as time goes by, this happiness we had slowly slips away and is replaced by something that is wholly grey and wholly saddening. The very idea of the monarchy and the Queen of England is being reinforced and made to seem more useful than it really is.” And about the music Johnny Marr states, “I had an idea to do a song that had the aggression of the Detroit garage bands, ‘cos I’m such a Stooges fan. And it’s influenced by the Velvets too- it’s The Smiths does The Stooges does The Velvet Underground. ‘VU’ [compilation of Velvet Underground outtakes, released in 1985] had just been released, so there’s a little not to ‘I Can’t Stand It’ in there. We chopped a couple of minutes off the song in the end. The long version felt more like us running a marathon, then doing a lap of honour!” Bassist Andy Rourke adds, ““Me, Mike [Joyce] and Johnny were jamming on this heavy riff – we played it solidly for about 20 minutes, looking at each other thinking, ‘We’ve really got something here.’ Johnny made me feel good about it; said it was one of the best basslines he’d ever heard, so my head was kind of swelling through the roof. Then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Morrissey comes and puts his lyrics over the top.” (NME blog)

Farewell to this land’s cheerless marches
Hemmed in like a boar between arches
Her very Lowness with her head in a sling
I’m truly sorry but it sounds like a wonderful thing

I say Charles don’t you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother’s bridal veil?

And so I checked all the registered historical facts
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I’m the 18th pale descendent
Of some old queen or other

Oh has the world changed, or have I changed?
Oh has the world changed, or have I changed?
Some nine year old tough who peddles drugs
I swear to God, I swear I never even knew what drugs were

So I broke into the Palace
With a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said: “Oh, I know you, and you cannot sing”
I said: “that’s nothing – you should hear me play piano”

We can go for a walk where it’s quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
But when you are tied to your mother’s apron
No-one talks about castration

We can go for a walk where it’s quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
Like love and law and poverty
These are the things that kill me

We can go for a walk where it’s quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
But the rain that flattens my hair
These are the things that kill me

Passed the pub that saps your body
And the church who’ll snatch your money
The Queen is dead, boys
And it’s so lonely on a limb

Pass the pub that wrecks your body
And the church, all they want is your money
The Queen is dead, boys
And it’s so lonely on a limb

Life is very long, when you’re lonely

If you have close to 15 minutes to spare, here’s a film by Derek Jarman that incorporates “The Queen Is Dead” (for its official video) plus “Panic” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.”