William, It Was Really Nothing
"...a short burst of nothing much"
"... a good record..."
William, It
Was Really Nothing
Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
How Soon Is Now?
Released in August, 1984
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Yea-Sayers: "Not
only is this a good record but it's good on the 7" (shock, horror).
I haven't got a clue what it's all about, but suffice to say the voice
sounds as dextrous as ever and thirty words go where twenty belong.
This ambles along nicely but is this guy sane? What's the betting the
next one is called 'Mum I'm Just Going Down the Shops'?" "Although
he's written a lot of great solo songs, this song is nostalgic because
it reminds me of the time when we played with The Smiths, especially
in Inverness, 1984.""
- Justin Currie (Del Amitri) on "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want", Q, September 1992
Nay-Sayers: "The
Smiths are impossible to love unless you wish to mother Morrissey. There
is a wistful optimism about the music they make that is very easy to
like a whole lot but the main man-child's self-adoring ennui sticks
in the craw once you realise that this is what he is going to be doing
on his death bed. Ennui gets a little boring after a while." "A
simple cross-pollination of their earler singles brings us this short
burst of nothing much. Clifford T. Ward with his new haircut still handles
the vocals (with a different script to the rest of us) and the guitars
wobble about. I shall probably play it for weeks, unless I die (because
when you're dead you can't play many records really)."
Smiths-Speak: Morrissey,
when asked if he thought "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want"
was the perfect Smiths song: "I think it was very close indeed, and
hiding it away on a B-side was sinful. I feel sad about it now although
we did include it on Hatful Of Hollow by way of semi-repentance.
When we first played it to Rough Trade, they kept asking, "where's the
rest of the song?" But to me, it's like a very brief punch in the face.
Lengthening the song would, to my mind, have simply been explaining
the blindingly obvious." "I
haven't managed to work out his exact angle on that one yet. Usually
his lyrics are very much black and white to me, but this one is taking
a little bit longer. 'William' is quite a whimsical song really. I don't
think it's broken all the rules in pop music, but to start a song with
a short verse and then follow it with three choruses is quite good." "I
recall that The Smiths made a record called 'William, It Was Really
Nothing,' which was only two minutes nine. And we were heavily chastised
by the record company for doing such a short song because Bronski Beat
had released a record that same week which was 13 minutes long. There's
so much to fight against. It's a terrible, terrible business. I have
the bruises..." "I
did 'How Soon Is Now?' on a portastudio. That, 'William, It Was Really
Nothing' and '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'. 'How Soon Is Now?' was really a good one. Musically
it was a perfect cross between a sweaty swamp backing track and an intense,
wired shock every few bars. I knew what I was doing with those tracks.
The priority was to do 'Please Please Please' and 'William'. Then we
needed the extra track and just nailed that one."
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