Half A Person

"I remember Johnny and Craig were both playing acoustic guitars, which we set up separated with one in the left and one in the right speaker. That was put down together, very simply, with just a few overdubs on top."


- Stephen Street


"Me and Morrissey would just disappear. Some of my favourite songs came about that way, like "Half A Person". We just locked ourselves away and did it. In the time it takes to play it, I wrote it. Morrissey was great in that respect. He knew when I was going to play something good."

"We officially wrote it on the stairs at Mayfair. Morrissey got his part of it together overnight, and it was amazing. That was probably the best writing moment I think me and him ever had because we were so close, practically touching, and I could see him kind of willing me on, waiting to see what I was going to play. Then I could see him thinking, 'That's exactly where I was hoping you'd go!' It was a fantastic, shared moment."

"One [1963 Stratocaster] I keep constantly high strung in Nashville tuning, which is the top two strings the same and bottom four like a 12-string set with the low strings taken off. It's a good tuning for coming up with new stuff 'cos you kind of feel like you're playing backwards. I used that on loads of Smiths stuff - You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby, Half A Person..."

"This is a 1962 Epiphone Coronet. Shortly after I got it I put it in 'Nashville Tuning', which means putting on an electric 12 string set (the bottom four strings are an octave higher than standard). It feels like your playing backwards because the higher strings are at the bottom. I used it to double a lot of the Rickenbacker arpeggios on Smiths records, most notably on 'William It Was Really Nothing', it's also the main guitar on 'Half A Person'."

"It might have a capo on the second fret.The chords are around G to E on the intro."

- Johnny Marr

Recorded:
October 1986, Mayfair Studios, London

Known Guitars used:
1962 Epiphone Coronet in nashville tuning
1963 Fender Stratocaster in nashville tuning


I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab here.

Here is the complete score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:















Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:




Daniel Earwicker does a nice cover on his Rick 330:



And he tackles the fade-out riff in a separate video:




marrzipan does a great version on acoustic, sans capo:




Pandaprops does an amazingly accurate version in nashville tuning, fade out riff included:




Here's davidguitarist91:

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

"'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want', I did in a period of about four to five days when I was living in a flat in Earls Court. That was done when we needed a follow-up to 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'."

"I think the mandolin was suggested by the producer John Porter, I had the tune and he thought the mandolin would be good. The music was written because I was thinking about my childhood in Ardwick Green."

"There's a sad song by Del Shannon called 'The Answer To Everything' that my parents used to play, and it struck a chord in me because it sounded so familiar. That song was the inspiration for 'Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want'. I tried to capture the essence of that tune; its spookiness and sense of yearning."

-Johnny Marr

Another beautiful song. I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab file here. It has 9 tracks, including 4 guitar tracks and 2 mandolin tracks for the outro. Thanks again goes to Nanuke for his help with this tab file.

Here is a short snippet of Johnny playing the song:




Here is the complete score from the "Louder Than Bombs:Off The Record" book:















Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:









Dan, a reader, sent word of this great video below. Johnny plays it with Neil Finn and you can get a great view of his hands:




There are a lot of great solo covers of this song on youtube with vocals, but to stay focused I've posted the most helpful non-vocal versions:


Here is kfb76 with no capo:




ResidentSmith78 plays a nice version with the capo at the 2nd fret. He does a nice job with some of the little movements between chords.




KintrickPinch does another capoed version:




Here's backinnyc playing along with his own backing track. He also plays the mandolin solo on his Rick 12-string which sounds really good:




Pandaprops does another great version on an acoustic 12 string:




325C58 does an awesome multi-instrumental version here. Look out for a cool surprise when he does the outro solo:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

This Charming Man

"Of all our singles I think I like 'This Charming Man' best, just because the rhythms are so infectious. Smiths music really moves me."

- Andy Rourke


"A couple of days before I wrote 'This Charming Man' I'd heard 'Walk Out To Winter' (by Aztec Camera) on Radio 1, and I felt a little jealous. My competitive urges kicked in. I felt that we needed something up-beat and in a major key for Rough Trade to get behind. That's why I wrote it in the key of G, which to this day I rarely do. I knew that 'This Charming Man' would be our next single. I did the whole thing in one go into this TEAC 3-track tape recorder that I used to write on. I came up with the basic chords and immediately overdubbed the top line and intro riff."

"I wrote This Charming Man for a John Peel session. I just leapt out of bed and wrote it. It was the culmination of trying to find a way of playing that was non-rock but still expressed my personality. I felt we needed something more upbeat in a different key and was miffed that Aztec Camera's Roddy Frame was getting on the radio and we weren't. That's why it's got that sunny disposition; my usual default setting was Manchester in the rain. When we were recording it, Rough Trade's Geoff Travis came in and said: 'That's got to be the single.'"

"I remember writing it, it was in preparation for a John Peel single. I wrote it the same night as 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' and 'Still Ill'."

"'This Charming Man' was the first record where I used those highlife-sounding runs in 3rds. I'm tuned up to F# and I finger it in G, so it comes out in A. There are about 15 tracks of guitar. People thought the main guitar part was a Rickenbacker, but it's really a '54 Tele. There are three tracks of acoustic, a backwards guitar with a really long reverb, and the effect of dropping knives on the guitar -- that comes in at the end of the chorus."

"I don't want to be playing 'This Charming Man' when I'm... 22."

- Johnny Marr

Here is a great video of Johnny looping the rhythm part and overdubbing the lead:



Notice he starts the riff on the second and third strings, around the twelfth fret(14th if you have his usual 2nd fret capo on).

I have uploaded several Guitar Pro tab files here. Each file has several different guitar tracks, some with bass tracks as well. I have uploaded a multitrack for the song here. This has the isolated guitar and bass parts, and it's a great tool for learning the song.


Here are the scans from the Singles tab book:








I have uploaded another tab and it's accompanying backing tracks. Those are here(right click to save as). Here's the tab:








UPDATE 10/12/08: I have also uploaded these scans from the debut album song book, for completists only.







lunachangue gives us a pretty spot on version:




The cover sonofdrcross does is equally good:



He also does a great version on bass:




325C58 tackles the hatful version, with bass and rythym guitar as well:




Daniel Earwicker plays just a few bars on his 12 string Ric:




martinyyz has another good version. Really clear recording of the fretboard, too:




Here's nicknoh69 on his les paul:




Here's WilliamFs11 on acoustic:




Here's isisluna23 on a Les Paul:




Here's chiasson65 with another great bass cover:




abyface does an awesome job:




adameater does the Hatful version on acoustic:




Another take by martinyyz:




Here's a cool version by johnnymare:




Here's Pandaprops on guitar:



and bass:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:




Here's a great multitrack version by captaincarwash:

Reel Around The Fountain

"'Reel Around The Fountain' was my interpretation of Jimmy Jones' version of 'Handy Man'. It came from one of mine and Joe Moss' marathon R&B record sessions one morning at Crazy Face. We went from listening to The Platters, which I wasn't really getting behind, to Jimmy Jones. I remerbered hearing the track from when I was a kid, 'cos one of me aunties or somebody used to play it. So I remembered the melody of 'Handy Man' but then when I tried to play it myself I got it all wrong, which was useful really. I was trying to do a classic melodic pop tune, and it had the worst kind of surface prettiness to it. But at the same time, Joy Division was influencing everybody in England. That dark element -- it wasn't that I wanted to be like them, but they brought out something in the darkness of the overall track. In a sense, Bernard Sumner was one of the most influential guitarists and writers of the '80s. There would never have been a U2 or a Cure if it hadn't been for Joy Division."

-Johnny Marr

I've found two different Guitar Pro tab files for this song and I have uploaded them here(right-click to save as).

Here also are the scans from the Smiths debut album piano song book with guitar chord boxes:








Daniel Earwicker's version:




Another version by lzymot:




Here's kusaka2580 on a Ric 330/12:




Here's pljnr on a Tele:




Here's hnavarro on a strat: