The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs
NME.COM feature on The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.
Release date: 25 October 1990
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![The Smiths - Asleep [ Louder Than Bombs 12" ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mFCFx23lN10/0.jpg)
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The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs: Wikipedia Album Entry
Louder Than Bombs is a compilation album by The Smiths. It was released as a double album in March 1987 by their American record company, Sire Records. Its highest chart position was number 63. Popular demand prompted their British record company, Rough Trade, to issue the album domestically as well. Upon its release in the UK in May 1987, it reached number 38 on the British charts. In 2003, the album was ranked number 365 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in 1990.
The album was released as the American counterpart to their recent British compilation The World Won't Listen and consisted of all singles and nearly all b-sides that had not at that point been available in the States, either on single or album, with a few other tracks added. The title is borrowed from a line in Elizabeth Smart's extended prose poem "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept."
The album was intended to substitute for both The World Won't Listen and their 1984 compilation Hatful of Hollow as these had not been released in the United States. This is why the non-single track "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" from Hatful of Hollow was included. (Single a-sides "This Charming Man" and "How Soon Is Now?" had already been released in the U.S. as bonus cuts on the LPs The Smiths and Meat Is Murder, respectively.)
As with The World Won't Listen, this compilation includes the scrapped single "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby" (passed over in favour of "Shoplifters of the World Unite"), albeit in a different mix.
Because the album offered many B-sides (and the "Sheila Take a Bow" single) that had never been collected onto an album before, Louder Than Bombs became very popular on import with fans in the UK. To avoid high import prices being paid, The Smiths' domestic record company, Rough Trade, decided to release the compilation as well, provoking cries of outrage by fans who only two months previously had shelled out for the slimmer UK counterpart. The blow was somewhat softened by the fact that the double album retailed at single album price.
After WEA acquired the Smiths back catalogue in 1992, all Smiths albums were re-released at mid price, including Louder Than Bombs.
The sleeve for Louder Than Bombs, designed by Morrissey, features British playwright Shelagh Delaney of Salford, Greater Manchester. The photograph was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post after Delaney, at the age of 19, had made a striking literary debut with her play A Taste of Honey. The play inspired many early lyrics written by Morrissey, and the song "This Night Has Opened My Eyes" (included here) is based on the plight of the play's heroine, Jo, an unwed mother.
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The Smiths - Louder Than Bombs Lyrics
The Smiths - Ask Lyrics
Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life you'd like to
Shyness is nice and shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life you'd like to
The Smiths - Shakespeare's Sister Lyrics
Young bones groan and the rocks below say
"Throw your skinny body down, son"
But I'm going to meet the one I love
The Smiths - Sheila Take A Bow Lyrics
Is it wrong to want to live on your own?
No, it's not wrong but I must know
How can someone so young
Sing words so sad?
The Smiths - Shoplifters Of The World Unite Lyrics
Learn to love me assemble the ways
Now, today, tomorrow and always
My only weakness is a list of crime
My only weakness is well, never mind, never mind
The Smiths - Stretch Out And Wait Lyrics
On the high-rise estate
What's at the back of your mind?
On a three-day debate, on the high-rise estate
What's at the back of your mind?
The Smiths - Sweet And Tender Hooligan Lyrics
H was a sweet and tender hooligan, hooligan
He said that he'd never, never do it again
And of course he won't, oh, not until the next time
The Smiths - These Things Take Time Lyrics
My eyes have seen the glory of the sacred wonder kind
You took me behind a disused railway line
And said, "I know a place where we can go where we are not known"
And you gave me something that I won't forget too soon
The Smiths - This Night Has Opened My Eyes (BBC) Lyrics
In a river, the color of lead
Immerse a baby's head
Wrap her up in the news of the world
Dump her on a doorstep, girl
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The Smiths - Unloveable Lyrics
I know Iâm unloveable, you donât have to tell me
I donât have much in my life, take it, itâs yours
I donât have much in my life, take it, itâs yours
The Smiths - William, It Was Really Nothing Lyrics
The rain falls hard on a humdrum town
This town has dragged you down
Oh, the rain falls hard on a humdrum town
This town has dragged you down
The Smiths - 'you Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby' Lyrics
If you're wondering why
All the love that you long for eludes you
And people are rude and cruel to you
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The Smiths - Rubber Ring Lyrics
A sad fact widely known
The most impassionate song
To a lonely soul
Is so easily outgrown
The Smiths - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want Lyrics
Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man turn bad
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The Smiths - Asleep Lyrics
Sing me to sleep
Sing me to sleep
Iâm tired and I
I want to go to bed
The Smiths - Back To The Old House (BBC) Lyrics
I would rather not go back to the old house
I would rather not go back to the old house
There's too many bad memories
Too many memories there, there, there
The Smiths - Girl Afraid Lyrics
Girl afraid
Where do his intentions lay?
Or does he even have any?
The Smiths - Golden Lights Lyrics
Golden lights displaying your name
Golden lights it's a terrible shame
But oh my darling
WHY DID YOU CHANGE ?
The Smiths - Half A Person Lyrics
Call me morbid, call me pale
I've spent six years on your trail
Six long years on your trail
The Smiths - Hand In Glove Lyrics
Hand in glove
The sun shines out of our behinds
No, it's not like any other love
This one is different because it's us
The Smiths - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now Lyrics
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But Heaven knows, I'm miserable now
I was looking for a job and then I found a job
And Heaven knows, I'm miserable now
The Smiths - Is It Really So Strange? Lyrics
I left the North
I traveled South
I found a tiny house
And I can't help the way that I feel
The Smiths - London Lyrics
Smoke lingers 'round your fingers
Train, heave on to Euston
Do you think you've made the right decision this time?
The Smiths - Panic Lyrics
Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself could life ever be sane again?
The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
