Anyone who thinks The Smiths were a bunch of pasty-faced wimps incapable of rocking out should give this a good listen:-mp3 : The Smiths - What She Said
The fourth track on Meat Is Murder is a real tour de force for the musicians in the band with Johnny making all sorts of screechy guitar sounds while Mike pounds away as if his very life depended on it. Andy?? He just us very cool as he picks out a great rhythmic bass beat.
Having said that Moz also makes a big contribution to what I reckon is one of the band's most underrated songs. It rarely makes it near to the top of any lists compiled by fans or critics, yet it is the sort of track that makes it obvious that the Fab Four were far from one-dimensional.
This description of the tune by Simon Goddard a few years back is very worthy of Pseud's Corner:-
"A clever musical palindrome of premeditated fall followed by a reverse crest."
I've no idea what that means. But I'll translate it as IT RAAAAWWWKKS.
An earlyish live version of the song was made available on a free 7" given away with the NME in mid 1985:-
mp3** : The Smiths - What She Said (live in Oxford, March 1985)
** link now fixed....
A live rendition of What She Said with an intro from Rubber Ring, recorded in October 1986 was later made available on the posthumous live LP Rank
But here's one from an American gig on 28 August 1986:-
mp3 : The Smiths - What She Said (live in Laguna Hills, August 1986)
Happy Listening.
4 comments:
Great post, as always - first two tracks seem to be the same, though.
JC one of my favourites from one of my favourites.
I hadn't heard the laguna hills version before thank you.
The free eps given away by nme and sounds were always a highlight for me and almost worthy of their own VV series IMHO. I remember an awesome remix of subculture on one of them which I never found anywhere else.
Any chance of a repost of the NME version of what she said if I ask really nicely? I think you have posted the MIM version twice and would love to have it on mp3 for old times sake and reminisce about my old C90 compilations.
Thanks as always.
Mike
Great tune. For some reason I hadn't listened to it for years and couldn't remember it from the title. But as soon as it heated up it all came back in a rush, lyrics and all. The Smiths were really something - difficult to find someone to compare them to, before or after.
Funny that they played Laguna Hills. That's a quiet suburb north of San Diego, California, populated by conservatives. Can't imagine what the venue might have been. Or is 'Laguna Hills' just the name of a venue located in the UK?
Not at all appropriate but can we dedicate this to the wonderful Kirsty MacColl. 10 years today since her untimely death.
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