I Want The One I Can't Have

"The Housemartins! 'Happy Hour' was a complete rip-off of 'I Want The One I Can't Have', and they've nicked others too..." 

 - Johnny Marr

Another one of my favorites from Meat Is Murder, this song is one of the reasons why the album is such a guitar masterpiece. The seamless combination of fast rhythm guitar and serpentine riffs is a huge inspiration to me. I have posted a Guitar Pro tab file for this song here. Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary: Here are the scans from the Meat Is Murder piano songbook with guitar chord boxes. Thanks to Ted Maul for these scans.

My friend Peter Weldon does an incredible multi-guitar version here:

   

  

 And here's Oscar80lt on an acoustic in standard tuning:

   

 cdwheel does an awesome, full length version to his own backing track:

   

 Here's another great version by johnnymare, playing with a backing track:

 

Hand In Glove

"When we did 'Hand In Glove,' that was brilliant because it was a fantastic piece of vinyl. But there was never a time when I put my feet up and said, 'Ah, I'm happy.'"

"That song came about when I was round my parents' house one Sunday evening. I started playing this riff on a crappy guitar I kept there. Angie - who's now my wife - was with me and she kept saying, 'That's really good!' I was panicking because I had nothing to record it on, so we decided to drive to Morrissey's, because he had a tape recorder. I sat in the back of the car playing the riff over and over so I wouldn't forget it. On the way, as is her want, Angie kept saying, 'Make it sound more like Iggy'. I was just hoping Morrissey would be in. Well, I knew he would be, he was always in. When we got there he was a bit taken aback, it hadn't been arranged and it was a Sunday night-unheard of! He let me in and I played the riff and he said, 'That's very good'. About five days later we were rehearsing and Morrissey wanted to play the song. When we heard the vocals to that we were all like,wow... From then on it was always going to be the first single."

- Johnny Marr

I have uploaded a Guitar Pro tab file here.


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
















Here are the tabs from the Singles book:










Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:












Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:





Here's the scans from the debut album piano song book with guitar chords:





Here's AX100G's version, which is the only one I could find at this time. He does a great job though:



Here's a cool acoustic version from thirdynumberone:




He also did a great version on electric:




Here's juttkeys on his tele:




tnyhung does a great version on a Les Paul:




Another awesome version by johnnymare:




Here's a great version by Jonasmacca:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul:

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

"After that I started getting turned on to Chic, The Fatback Band, The Ohio Players and War. If you listen to 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', the rhythm part from verse two onwards - that chick-a-chick part - it's pure Nile Rogers.

That was the first time I used a Strat on a record. I got it because I wanted a twangy Hank Marvin sound, but it ended up sounding quite highlify.

Will the new stuff be radically different? Yes. There is the single which will probably be 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and then the album which we have pretty much got in hand and which will undoubtedly shock a lot of people. Well, let's hope so. From a purely personal point of view there will be a move away from the old jingly-jangly guitars of old. Everyone knows I can do that.

'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' is about us. Well, Morrissey specifically. The thorn is the music industry. If you listen to the words, 'how can they hear me say those words and still they don't believe me'... By the time we'd written that song, we'd been put down so much for our beliefs, in the music industry, we'd been put down for all these things that we said were dead. And then we did 'The Boy...' and it was a real pleasure that people who were actually responsible - people who were the 'thorns' in our side - were actually buying this record and championing it in the music industry. It's about all the bigotry and idiocy in the music business really. And how a lot of people who are in a responsible position actually don't know squat."

- Johnny Marr

I have uploaded two Guitar Pro tabs here:

Here is a tab from the Play Guitar With The Smiths book:









I have uploaded the accompanying backing tracks here(right click to save).


Here are the scans from the Singles tab book:








Here are the scans from the Smiths Best Complete Score:











Here are the scans from the Complete Chord Dictionary:





Here are the scans from the Queen Is Dead piano songbook with guitar chords:







Jahnli does a great version on acoustic 12 string, using a capo at the 5th fret. I don't know if this is exactly how Marr played it, but it sounds really similar. He also posted the chords he used in the comments section on Youtube:

D Am7
C D
G Am
D Am7 C D

G Am D
Am7 C D
G Am D
Am7 C

D G Am D
Am7 C
D G Am D
Am7
C D C D C D C Cmaj7 Dsus4 C D




Another great version from KintrickPinch:




Here's Oscar80It:




Here's nicknoh69:




Here's johnnymare:




Here's dhowellbassist:




Here's davidguitarist91 on his Les Paul: