Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
"William, It Was Really Nothing" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths. It was released as a single in August 1984, featuring the B-sides " Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want " and " How Soon Is Now? ", and reached No. 17 in the UK Singles Chart .
[2] [3] In 1985, Morrissey disclosed to Melody Maker that the song was a response to journalistic mockery of his songwriting that dwelt "on the unhappy side of life" and to persistent attempts to expose him as a "fake". [4] In 1998, Uncut reported rumours that the song's inspiration was an " 'intimate friendship' with a journalist around 1984 ...
Johnny Marr wrote the music to "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" shortly after its eventual A-side, "William, It Was Really Nothing".Marr commented, "Because that was such a fast, short, upbeat song, I wanted the B-side to be different, so I wrote 'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want' on Saturday in a different time signature—in a waltz time as a contrast". [5]
[2] [7] The live album Rank followed in 1988. [8] The majority of the Smiths' songs were written by the songwriting partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr. [1] Throughout their career, their songs differed from the predominant synth-pop British sound of the early 1980s, [2] instead fusing together 1960s rock and post-punk. [9]
WEA (now the Warner Music Group) had acquired the entire Smiths back catalogue in early 1992 (sister label Sire Records already had the North American rights). Along with the re-release of the eight original albums (the four studio albums, the Rank live album and the three compilation albums issued while the band were still active), they immediately set to work compiling a 'best of' collection ...
Failing to find a replacement, the Smiths disbanded by the time of the release of their final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come, in September that year. Strangeways, Here We Come climbed to number two in the UK and became the band's highest-charting release in the United States when it reached number 55 on the Billboard 200 .
This template's initial visibility currently defaults to autocollapse, meaning that if there is another collapsible item on the page (a navbox, sidebar, or table with the collapsible attribute), it is hidden apart from its title bar; if not, it is fully visible.
Rolling Stone ranked the song as the Smiths' 36th best song, while Consequence of Sound named it as the band's 53rd best track. [ 9 ] Comedian Stephen Merchant praised the song, stating that the song "has this electrifying opening; it sort of eases in slowly with this fade and then the guitars (sic) come crashing in.