Still Ill


"Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, 'Still Ill' and 'Suffer Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs."

"'Still Ill' came to me on the train back from London to Manchester around the time of Hand In Glove's release."

- Johnny Marr



I have posted a Guitar Pro tab file here(right click to save as).

Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




I have also uploaded the version from the debut album piano songbook with guitar chords, for whatever that's worth... very little, I suspect:







lunachangue does a very good cover on his hollowbody:




sonofdrcross does another really accurate version:




Daniel Earwicker does a great version on Rick 330 and bass:




hughred follows everyone up with yet another really cool version:




cdwheel does a great version here:




nicknoh69 does another really accurate version here:




IngialV does an awesome cover of Andy Rourkes bass. This has got to be one of my favorite smiths bass parts. Kind of a menacing counterpoint to Marr's part.




chiasson65 does another great version of the bass part:




Here's a rollicking take on the Hatful version by 325C58 on guitars and bass, and Daniel Earwicker adds drums:




keithbtv does a nice acoustic version here:




johnnymare does a great full length version here:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

TECHNICAL PROBLEM:


I have guitar pro for mac. I've tried to save and open the .rar files so that i can view the tabs in .gp4 or .gp5 format but when i extract the file using a mac extractor only the backing tracks are extracted ("this charming man") and curiously the .rar file is usually tiny (like 4K in the case of "Girlfriend in a Coma" or 8K in the case of "This charming man and others") Any direction you can offer to help is HUGE. I'm loving learning these songs.

Thom said...

The .gp5 files are very small. This Charming Man has only the backing tracks in the second rar, the tabs are scans.

I've tested the rar files and they are working, maybe it's a mac issue.

Boloisinsane said...

Many of us would appreciate tabs NOT in a Guitar Pro format. Anyway, thanks a lot for this complete and helpful blog, just love it!!

Unknown said...

Awesome site my friend!!! :)

This song truly does possess a BEAST of a bassline!

earlhenry said...

This is the best thing I've come across ever on Johnny Marr. It made me by a Rickenbacker 330.

John said...

Awesome blog. Still Ill Guitar Pro file works flawlessly for me on Mac. Only question is why it comes out transcribed for capo on the first fret. Is that intentional?

Capo on the second fret makes sense to me if you assume Marr tuned a whole step sharp for this tune like many others. Actually, a lot of open strings open up if you put the capo on the 4th fret, too.

Thom said...

Hi John, I don't think the first fret capo is correct, either. I just post the files as I found them online. I do plan to redo all the guitar pro files in the future to make everything as accurate as possible, but that's a long-term goal.

Mr. Mandelbrot said...

I learned it almost by myself (with a hint only about where it starts) with capo on 2nd fret and it works fine... maybe the 4th fret helps the rythm parts, will try that later on.

Anonymous said...

another cover, featuring guitar and bass:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-OM8vDPoc

LUK3Y93 said...

Would appreciate it if somebody were to post an actual tab of this.
Cheers

Unknown said...

Everyone thinks that the Rickenbacker 330 is the go-to guitar for Smith song just because it's jangly and they've seen Johnny using one live or something. But the first album was done with a Telecaster, and it sounds much more authentic with the Tele.

Thom said...

To be fair, the first album still had a lot of guitars represented, not just the Tele. The 330 was used as well. This Charming Man has something like 15 tracks of guitar, so it wasn't just one sound they were using, they were using everything but the kitchen sink.