The Queen is Dead Lyrics

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About

Genius Annotation

“The Queen is Dead” parodies media fascination with the royal family over bombastic guitar bursts and an aggressive bass line. Officially listed on physical tracklist as “The Queen Is Dead / Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty (Medley).”

In a 2015 Reddit AMA interview, Noel Gallagher has named this track as one of his favourite the Smiths songs.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did The Smiths say about "The Queen is Dead"?
Genius Answer

Morrissey explained to NME in 1986,

I didn’t want to attack the monarchy in a sort of beer monster way but I find as time goes by this happiness we had slowly slips away and is replaced by something that is wholly grey and wholly saddening. The very idea of the monarchy and the Queen of England is being reinforced and made to seem more useful than it really is. The whole things seems like a joke. A hideous joke.

What was the making of this song like?
Genius Answer

Johnny Marr broke down the creative process in-depth to Record Collector magazine in 1992:

It was Morrissey’s idea to include ‘Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty’ and he said, ‘I want this on the track’. But he wasn’t to know that I was going to lead into the feedback and drum rolls. It was just a piece of magic. I got the drum riff going and Andy got the bass line, which was one of his best ever and one that bass players still haven’t matched.

I went in there with all the lads watching and did the take and they just went, ‘Wow’. I came out and I was shaking. When I suggested doing it again, they just said, ‘No way! No way!’

What happened with the feedback was I was setting my guitar up for the track and I put it onto a stand and it was really loud. Where it hit the stand, it made that note of feedback. I did the guitar track, put the guitar on the stand, and while we were talking, it was like, ‘Wow, that sounded good’. So I said, ‘Right – record that!’ It was going through a wah-wah from the previous take, so I just started moving the wah-wah and it was getting all these different intervals, and it definitely added a real tension.

I loved Morrissey’s singing on that, and the words. But it was very MC5. Morrissey has a real love for that music as well. I remember him playing the Ramones as much as he played Sandie Shaw.

What inspired Johnny Marr's guitar style on this track?
Genius Answer

For the frenzied wah-wah section on ‘The Queen Is Dead,’ I was thinking ‘60s Detroit, like the MC5 and the Stooges.

— To Guitar Player, January 1990

How did they get the guitar sound on this track?
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