The Boy with the Thorn in His Side (song)

"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side"
Single by The Smiths
from the album The Queen Is Dead
Released	23 September 1985
Format	7", 12"
Recorded	August 1985
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	3:18 (album version) 3:16 (different mix)
Label	Rough Trade
Writer(s)	Johnny Marr Morrissey
Producer	The Smiths (single); Morrissey and Johnny Marr (album version)
The Smiths singles chronology
"That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" (1985) "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" (1985) "Bigmouth Strikes Again" (1986)

"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" is a song by The Smiths. It appears on their third album The Queen Is Dead but was released as a single (albeit in a different mix) several months before the album, reaching #23 in the UK Singles Chart in Autumn 1985.

This was the first single by The Smiths to be accompanied by a promotional video, something the band had previously resisted. Some of the Smiths' more purist fans at the time derided this as a sell-out.^{[citation needed]}

The following year, the New Musical Express greeted the news that the band had signed a contract with EMI with the headline "The Boy With The Thorn-EMI On His Side".

The jumping man on the cover of the single release is a young Truman Capote.

The song was featured in the third episode of the British drama musical series Blackpool. The Smiths performed this song on an episode of the popular British television program Top of the Pops.

Margi Clarke asked Morrissey if this song was inspired by Oscar Wilde and Morrissey replied: "No that's not true. The thorn is the music industry and all those people who never believed anything I said, tried to get rid of me and wouldn't play the records. So I think we've reached a stage where we feel: if they don't believe me now, will they ever believe me? What more can a poor boy do?"

The chief difference between the single version and the one appearing on the album The Queen Is Dead is in the use of synthesized strings. They are largely absent from the single version, only appearing in the song's coda.

Track listing

7" RT191
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side"	3:17
2.	"Asleep"	4:09

12" RTT191
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side"	3:17
2.	"Rubber Ring/Asleep"	7:56

CD Single RTT191
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side"	3:17
2.	"Rubber Ring"	3:48
3.	"Asleep"	4:10

The original 12" has "Rubber Ring" and "Asleep" segued into a continuous piece with the voice sample at the end of the former looped and faded into the wind noise preceding the latter. Described by Simon Goddard (in Songs That Saved Your Life, 2nd edition p154) as a "spectacular combination" - a suggestion with which Johnny Marr concurs — this carefully executed sequence can only be found on the original 12" single, the two tracks having been separated on all subsequent compilations.

Etchings on vinyl

• UK 7" and 12": ARTY BLOODY FARTY / "IS THAT CLEVER"...JM

The words of the B-side etching are the ones heard at the end of the B-side song "Rubber Ring", a sample taken from a recording of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. "JM" stands for Johnny Marr.

References in other media

In the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, the main character Charlie references the song Asleep several times.

Cover versions

The song was covered by Scottish band Bis on the tribute album The Smiths Is Dead. Music reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine trashed the cover, stating: "In particular, the Bis utterly disembowel 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side' with a single-minded stupidity that is just bewildering."

The song has also been covered by The Crusifixtion, Belle & Sebastian, Scott Matthews, Emilie Autumn and Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis in live performances. The song's title was also adopted for the name of a book written by Pete Wentz, bassist of the band Fall Out Boy.

Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis covered the song on his 1996 solo album, Martin + Me.