 Genius Meanings
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The Smiths – The Headmaster Ritual
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It’s safe to say that nobody else, before or since, has opened a significant rock album by hammering the bejesus out of the capoed, open-tuned chord that begins “The Headmaster
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Radiohead – The Headmaster Ritual
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Radiohead covered this Smiths' classic in their webcast in November 9th, 2007. Thom introduced it saying
This is a Smiths' song. This is about when we were younger. But we didn’t
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The Smiths – What She Said
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“What She Said” is told from a female perspective – it’s rare for male songwriters to write about women with empathy rather than desire – and how it taps into a certain kind of
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The Smiths – That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore (Live in Oxford)
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[Verse 1] / Park the car at the side of the road / You should know time's tide will smother you / And I will too / When you laugh about people who feel so very lonely / Their only
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The Smiths – I Want the One I Can't Have
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This is a record full of yearning, the humiliating obviousness of when you want something, low expectations, the melodrama of youth and romance.
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The Smiths – Well I Wonder
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“Well I Wonder”’s narrator is gone, with no hope of return. The song isn’t so much a cry for help as a futile, bleak, almost pathetic fading into a darkness with no light at the
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The Smiths – Meat Is Murder
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“Meat Is Murder”, with its simulated bovine cries and buzz-saw guitars, took vegetarianism to a new height in popular media. At the time when this song was recorded, animal welfare
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The Smiths – Rusholme Ruffians
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“Rusholme Ruffians”, with Johnny Marr’s rockabilly riff, is about Manchester and makes the city (home of much of the history of British feminism, socialism, vegetarianism and the
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The Smiths – Nowhere Fast
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“Nowhere Fast” shows Meat Is Murder from its funny side as Morrissey croons:
I’d like to drop my trousers to the Queen
It’s hard to hear the song without wondering if Morrissey
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Morrissey – The Teachers Are Afraid of the Pupils
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[Verse 1] / There's too many people / Planning your downfall / When your spirit's on trial / These nights can be frightening / Sleep transports sadness / To some other mid-brain
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The Smiths – That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
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The gorgeous, swirling “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” might be the emotional peak of Meat Is Murder. It was released as the second and last single of the album.
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The Smiths – Barbarism Begins at Home
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The brilliantly titled “Barbarism Begins at Home”, during which Morrissey yelps as if in pain, is also about children being hit – a crack on the head is what you get for asking
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Radiohead – Bishop's Robes
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This song is about the terrible experiences one faces going through the strict, violent discipline and bullying of the British school system.
The Smiths wrote a classic song
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The Smiths – I Started Something I Couldn't Finish
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Perhaps not the most obvious choice for a single, “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish” was the second of four singles from Strangeways, Here We Come.
It was released in October
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The Smiths – Shakespeare's Sister
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“Shakespeare’s Sister” was released as a single in March 1985, and later appeared on the Louder Than Bombs compilation.
The title comes from Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s
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The Smiths – Barbarism Begins at Home - 7" Version
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[Verse] / Unruly boys who will not grow up / Must be taken in hand / Unruly girls who will not settle down / They must be taken in hand / [Chorus] / A crack on the head is what you
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The Smiths – The Draize Train
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[Instrumental]
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The Smiths – Nowhere Fast (Live in Oxford)
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[Verse 1] / I'd like to drop my trousers to the world / I am a man of means (of slender means) / Each household appliance is like a new science in my town / [Refrain] / And if the
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The Smiths – Oscillate Wildly
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[Instrumental]
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Johnny Marr – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
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[Verse 1] / Take me out tonight / Where there's music and there's people / And they're young and alive / Driving in your car / I never, never want to go home / Because I haven't
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Johnny Marr – How Soon Is Now?
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[Intro] / [Refrain] / I am the son and the heir / Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar / I am the son and heir of nothing in particular / [Chorus] / You shut your mouth / How can
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The Smiths – Reel Around The Fountain (Troy Tate Version)
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[Verse 1] / It's time the tale were told / Of how you took a child / And you made him old / It's time the tale were told / Of how you took a child / And you made him old / You made
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Johnny Marr – Bigmouth Strikes Again
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[Verse] / Sweetness, sweetness I was only joking, when I said / I'd like to smash every tooth in your head / Oh... sweetness, sweetness, I was only joking when I said / By rights
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The Blasters – Dark Night
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[Verse 1] / Hot air hangs like a dead man / From a white oak tree / People sitting on porches / Thinking how things used to be / [Refrain] / Dark night, it's a dark night / Dark
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Frank McCourt – Angela's Ashes
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Angela's Ashes / A Memoir of a Childhood / By Frank McCourt / This book is dedicated to my brothers, Malachy, Michael, Alphonsus. I learn from you, I admire you and I love you
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