Song: “How Soon Is Now?”
A song about shyness became the Smiths most enduring — thanks to tremolo?
Instantly recognizable for its oscillating guitar riff — one that proved devilishly difficult to record — The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” was originally released as a B-side to the 1984 single “William, It Was Really Nothing.” Included on the compilation album Hatful of Hollow, it wasn’t released as a single until 1985, where it reach #24 on the UK singles chart. Re-released in 1992, it climbed to #16.
Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr described as their “most enduring record.” It is about frontman Morrissey’s crippling shyness and has become an anthem for the alienated and socially isolated.
The trademark sound of the song started as a standard guitar riff, but Marr and producer John Porter played it back through Fender Twin Reverb amplifiers set to different tremolo speeds, adjusting them on the fly to keep them in sync. A slide guitar part was layered on top. Marr described the process later:
I wanted it to be really, really tense and swampy, all at the same time. Layering the slide part was what gave it the real tension. The tremolo effect came from laying down a regular rhythm part with a capo at the second fret on a Les Paul, then sending that out in to the live room to four Fender Twins. John was controlling the tremolo on two of them and I was controlling the other two, and whenever they went out of sync we just had to stop the track and start all over again. It took an eternity.
As if that weren’t enough, The Smiths installed red lightbulbs in their London studio to create a spooky atmosphere to record the song.
Despite being one of their most popular songs, “How Soon Is Now?” didn’t often show up in setlists because it was really hard to play live. Bassist Andy Rourke called it “the bane of The Smiths’ live career.”
The video released to support the song was cobbled together for $5,000. The promoter at Warner Music hired Paula Greif, who had been designing album covers, to make the video, giving her the instruction, “Find some performance footage and put a girl in it.” The band detested the result.
This is the shortest version of the song, which in full form runs to nearly seven minutes.
Enjoy!