127: THE QUEEN IS DEAD | THE SMITHS

The Queen Is Dead is the third studio album by English rock band the Smiths. Released on 16 June 1986 in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records, and on 23 June 1986 in the US by Sire Records, it spent 22 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at number two. It also reached No. 70 on the US Billboard 200, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in late 1990. In 2009, Rolling Stone ranked The Queen Is Dead 218th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2013, British Magazine NME labeled The Queen Is Dead the greatest album of all time.

Guitarist Johnny Marr wrote several songs that would later appear on The Queen Is Dead while the Smiths toured Britain in early 1985, working out song arrangements with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce during soundchecks. The title of the album is from Hubert Selby Jr.'s 1964 novel Last Exit to Brooklyn.The album's cover art features French actor Alain Delon in the 1964 film L’Insoumis.[9] The album was produced by Morrissey and Marr, working predominantly with engineer Stephen Street, who had engineered the band's 1985 album Meat Is Murder.

Marr was heavily influenced by the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, and the Detroit garage rock scene while crafting the album. The song "Vicar in A Tutu" was considered "throwaway" by Marr, who stated "It made a change from trying to change the fucking world." "The Queen is Dead" was based on a song Marr began writing as a teenager.:78

"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" was, according to Marr, "an effortless piece of music", and was written on tour in the spring of 1985. The song's lyrics refer allegorically to the band's experience of the music industry that failed to appreciate it.:48 In 2003, Morrissey named it his favourite Smiths song.

A demo of the music for "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" was posted by Marr through Morrissey's letterbox in the summer of 1985. Morrissey then completed the song by adding lyrics. Marr has stated that he "preferred the music to the lyrics".:405

"Frankly, Mr. Shankly", "I Know It's Over" and "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" were written by Morrissey and Marr in a "marathon" writing session in the late summer of 1985 at Marr's home in Bowdon, Greater Manchester.:136 The first of these is reputed to have been addressed to Geoff Travis, head of the Smiths' record label Rough Trade. Travis has since described it as "a funny lyric" about "Morrissey's desire to be somewhere else", acknowledging that a line in the song about "bloody awful poetry" was a reference to a poem he had written for Morrissey. Read more