The Smiths track Morrissey called “the song of my life”
Love him or loathe him, Morrissey has given the music world a lot. The Smiths songwriter and lead singer, if it wasn’t for his contributions to indie rock, who knows what the genre might have sounded like? Pioneering a lyric-heavy, literary and poetic songwriting form, Morrissey was always trying to prove his intellectual prowess through music. And never more so than in one song…
The band held their hands up several times for being utterly wrong about their material. Seemingly uncompromising regarding their sound and vision, The Smiths would back their most complex numbers and reject the crowdpleasers. Some of their biggest tracks, like ‘How Soon Is Now?’, were only ever released as B-sides. In a constant string of arguments with their record label, there was one track that Morrissey especially refused to budge on, calling it the song of his life.
At the centre of the arguments was the 1985 track ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’. Eventually featuring on their 1987 compilation album Louder Than Bombs, the track was initially released as a single with ‘What She Said’ and ‘Stretch Out and Wait’ at its B-sides.
The song is only just over two minutes long, which their label boss Geoff Travis said was too short. The band’s drummer, Mike Joyce, remembers the battle for the track, stating: “We didn’t always choose the right singles. ‘How Soon Is Now?’ was originally a B-side remember,” he said. But the arguments only motivated them, “Geoff Travis was very sniffy about the length of ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ but the fact people said we were wrong only fired us up.”
However, for Morrissey, the argument was personal. ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ is arguably the peak of Morrissey’s pretentious approach in the very best way. Referencing Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room Of One’s Own, Woolf argues that if Shakespeare had a sister who was equally as literary and just as much of a genius, she would not have had the opportunity to put her talent to use.
The references don’t stop there, either. Morrissey also draws inspiration from The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, as well as Elizabeth Smart’s sharp and devastating novella, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. A feat of Morrissey’s literary mind, he pulls inspiration from a whole host of poetic sources and boils them down into two minutes of classic Smiths catchiness.
The material has always stood out to the band as a song they were particularly proud of. Even Johnny Marr has spoken about the magic of the track, telling Mojo in 2011 that “’Shakespeare’s Sister’ was pulling an odd star out of the sky”.
He said: “I had imagined this strange song and strange sound. Morrissey encouraged me and then we captured it. It was a statement of solidarity between us four and I was extremely proud of that togetherness.”
For Morrissey, the song also stands out as a rare and grand moment, leading him to be gravely disappointed when it didn’t perform well in the charts. In 1985, after its release, the singer maintained his pride in the song, telling Record Collector: “’Shakespeare’s Sister’ – regardless of what many people feel – was the song of my life.”
Seemingly placing the blame on their label and possibly Geoff Travis’ lack of belief in the song, he addedL “We can talk about independents and majors till the end of the day – but ultimately, when you make a good record, you want it to be heard.”
Either way, ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ stands as a track Morrissey felt incredibly proud of, saying, “I put everything into that song and I wanted it more than anything else to be a huge success and – as it happens – it wasn’t.”
