40 things you didn't know about The Queen Is Dead by The Smiths

16 June 2026, 11:32 | Updated: 16 June 2026, 20:04

The Manchester band's landmark third album was released in June 1986, becoming an instant classic. Now, four decades on, here's everything you need to know about this classic LP, from Morrissey's lyrical ideas to the stories behind the artwork and beyond.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead album profile

• Released: 16th June 1986 (UK); 23rd June 1986 (US)
• Track listing:
  Side 1: The Queen Is Dead (includes "Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty"); Frankly Mr Shankly; I Know It's Over; Never Had No One Ever; Cemetry Gates.
  Side 2: Bigmouth Strikes Again; The Boy With The Thorn In His Side; Vicar In A Tutu; There Is A Light That Never Goes Out; Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others.
• Chart position: 2 (UK); 1 (UK independent); 70 (US Billboard).

1. You already know that the cover star of The Queen Is Dead is French actor Alain Delon, but the still is taken from is the 1964 film L'Insoumis (The Unvanquished), in which the actor plays a deserter from the French Foreign Legion.

2. Delon didn't ask for payment for the use of the photo as The Smiths' album cover, but he did say in the letter: "I would appreciate it if you could send me a T-shirt so that I can see the final result firsthand."

   

3. According to Smiths sleeve designer Jo Slee, Morrissey explained the album's title to label Rough Trade, saying: "It's about the death of a panto queen... Yes, it's autobiographical."

4. "The Queen Is Dead" is the title of the second section from Hubert Selby Jr's controversial 1964 novel, Last Exit To Brooklyn.

5. The album was almost called something different, as Morrissey told Sounds magazine in June 1986: "There was a working title, Margaret On The Guillotine, but that was ditched because... well, I can't say why." That title was later used for a song on Morrissey's debut solo album, Viva Hate, in 1988.

   

   Margaret on the Guillotine (2011 Remaster)

6. Engraved in the run-out groove on the original vinyl edition of The Queen Is Dead were the phrases "FEAR OF MANCHESTER" and "THEM WAS ROTTEN DAYS", the latter said by Aunt Ada (played by Hylda Baker) in the 1960 film Saturday Night Sunday Morning.

7. Saturday Night Sunday Morning was also an influence on the Salford Lads Club image in the gatefold sleeve, thanks to its Salford-born star, Albert Finney. "Finney was the Northern boy made good, which is why I can relate to bim even more," Morrissey told No 1 in June 1986. "I find that mood of a Northern person going to London and then returning home very poignant. The beauty of Finney was his natural quality as an actor. Even when I'm asleep I can't look natural."

   

8. Salford Lads Club complained about the photo. According to Jo Slee's Peepholism book, their legal letter to the band's label Rough Trade claimed: "It is our clients' view that the photograph may be taken to imply that the individuals shown on it are, or were , members of the club - which we are advised is not the case."

   

9. In his autobiography The Drums, Mike Joyce claims that the jacket he's wearing in the Salford Lads Club photo cost him 70p from a charity shop.

10. The photos of The Smiths on the inner sleeve of the CD edition were taken by Stephen Wright on the same day as the Salford Lads Club session, with the lads sitting in Halle Square in Manchester's Arndale Centre.

    

11. The album cover photo could have looked very different, according to sleeve designer Jo Slee: "We proofed the gatefold photo six times in different colours like black and red," she told Q magazine in 1994. "It was important to get it right. The picture was simply too busy, so we eventually gave up and did it in green because it just looked better."

12. In his Autobiography, Morrissey claims that The Smiths approached both Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti and Beatles genius George Martin to produce The Queen Is Dead. "George Martin declines," wrote the singer, "saying he only wants to be known for his work with The Beatles."

13. The Queen Is Dead was completed in November 1985 - but a court injunction from The Smiths' record company Rough Trade meant its realease was delayed by six months. Label boss Geoff Travis had heard that the band were about to accept an offer from the major EMI, but claimed their contract still owed Rough Trade two more albums.

    

14. Johnny Marr made an attempt to "liberate" the tapes of The Queen Is Dead from the studio in Farnham, Surrey, where the album was recorded. "Me and Phil, the roadie, went on this midnight jaunt to steal the mastertapes of the LP," Marr told Record Mirror in June 1986. "It got really silly. We drove all the way down in the snow, but they caught us and said we couldn't have them."

15. Also released the same week as The Queen Is Dead was Sound Of Confusion by drone rockers Spacemen 3, Smiths tour support Easterhouse and their debut Contenders and, er, Sting's double live album Bring On The Night.

    

16. Despite this lack of competition in the nation's record stores, The Queen Is Dead only made it to Number 2 on the UK album charts, being kept off the top spot by Invisible Touch from Genesis, then enjoying its second week at Number 1.

17. Morrissey writes in his book Autobiography that "The Queen Is Dead is the album of the moment in England, but there remains zero airplay", adding "Radio One continues to ignore The Smiths". According to contemporary issues of the trade magazine Music Week, Bigmouth Strikes Again was on Radio 1's "A" playlist the weeks of 2nd June and 9th June 1986. Please draw your own conclusions.

18. The opening of the song The Queen Is Dead is a recording of actress Cicely Courtneidge in the 1962 film The L-Shaped Room - but you probably already knew that. Did you know Courtneidge later stared in the ITV sitcom On The Buses?

    

    Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty

19. Written by Arthur J Mills, Fred Godfrey and Bennett Scott in 1916, the best known recording of Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty was by music hall singer Florrie Forde, who made a recording the same year.

20. The L-Shaped Room was broadcast on BBC-2 on the evening of Saturday, 3rd August 1985.

21. The title track makes a reference to the case of Michael Fagan, a London-born painter and decorater who broke into Buckingham Palace in July 1982 and entered the Queen's bedroom. He claimed at the time that he'd sat on Her Majesty's bed and had a long conversation - but later revised his story to say she'd actually legged it out of the room immediately.

    

22. The Royals were one of Morrissey's favourite targets. "The establishment - the Monarch and the government - don't care as far as I can see," he told No 1 in June 1986. "Many of them are of advanced years but they do nothing for old people. People in Britain are dying from poverty and cold beacusse they can't afford heating. Others will never ever work again. But if you say these things, people stare at you as if you're mad."

23. The song The Queen Is Dead features a sampled loop of Mike Joyce playing the drums. "I heard Johnny and Andy just running through [the song] and Mike playing along," Stephen Street told Sound On Sound magazine. "It was then that I said 'I'd like to try sampling the drum loop so it's really, really strong and the same speed all the way through.' It had a certain quality and a kind of darkness thanks to the constant tom pattern."

24. The Queen Is Dead originally ran even longer - the album version cuts additional Johnny Marr guitar riffs and some amazing drumming from Mike Joyce.

    

    The Queen Is Dead (Full Version)

25. You may know that Frankly Mr Shankly was reputedly written about Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis, but did you know that the original take included a sprightly trumpet part? The story goes that a glitch on the physical tape meant that the band had to re-record the song from scratch, but the original take survives, drop-out free.

    

    The Smiths - Frankly Mr. Shankly (Trumpet version november 85) NEW bootleg 2010

26. According to Johnny Marr, Morrissey's vocal on I Know It's Over was "one of the highlights of my life". He told Record Collector in November 1992: "Every line he was hinting at where he was going to go. I was thinking, 'Is he going to go there? Yes, he is!' It was just brilliant."

    

    I Know It's Over (2017 Master)

27. The date mentioned in Never Had No One Ever- "20 years, 7 months and 27 days" - works out for Morrissey as 18th January 1980. Smiths biographer Johnny Rogan claims that the singer's diary noted that on that day he "read The Murderer's Who's Who and complained of a sore foot".

    

    Never Had No One Ever (2017 Master)

28. Cemetry Gates is famously written about Morrissey and Linder Sterling's habit of walking around Manchester's Southern Cemetary and playing a game of "spot the fake literary quotes. But did you know that the Smiths frontman also used to visit cemetaries with Magazine and former Buzzcocks singer Howard Devoto in the mid-80s?. "It's a most gripping pasttime I can assure you," he explained to No 1 magazine. "Gravestones have a very dreamlike quality. It's a private pleasure that Howard and I share because we're such boring people."

    

    Cemetry Gates (2017 Master)

29. Cemetry Gates quotes the 1939 play The Man Who Came To Dinner, in which the character Lorraine Sheldon says while looking at a mummy in a museum: "You know, the first time I went to Pompeii I cried all night. All those people, all those lives. Where are they now? Here is a woman like myself, a woman who once lived and loved, full of the same passions, fears, jealousies, hates. What remains of it now? Just this, nothing more. A span of 4,000 years, a mere atom in the attentive time. And here am I, another woman living out her life. I want to cry." A film version was made in 1941, with Ann Sheridan playing Lorraine and a TV movie in 1972, with Joan Collins in the role.

30. Beloved singer Kirsty MacColl recorded backing vocals for Bigmouth Strikes Again. “That’s the first time we met her," Johnny Marr told Simon Goddard in his book The Songs That Saved Your Life. "She came down to the studio and put on these really weird harmonies.” MacColl's contribution was left off the final mix, but the singer would return later in the year to accompany Morrissey on the single Ask.

    

    Bigmouth Strikes Again (2017 Master)

31. The backing vocals on Bigmouth Strikes Again are credited to "Ann Coates", but this is a pitch-shifted Morrissey performance. "I was experimenting one day, trying the AMS harmoniser with different pitch changes, and it kind of worked," Stephen Street explained to Sound On Sound magazine. "Morrissey was a great one for wanting me to try out effects on his vocals."

32. The album version The Boy With The Thorn In His Side is a different mix from the single released in September 1985. Johnny Marr added fake "strings", for one thing.

    

    The Smiths - The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (Full 12" Single) - Vinyl

33. The strings on The Queen Is Dead are credited to "The Hated Salford Ensemble", but this is actually Johnny Marr playing the early sampler, the Emulator II.

34. Despite what Vicar In A Tutu claims, there is no vicar at the Holy Name Church on Manchester's Oxford Road, as it's a Catholic place of worship (although yes, you can get parochial vicars, so please don't write in).

    

35. The first take of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, had a slightly different lyric, which explains the title a litle better: "There's a light in your eyes that never goes out."

    

    The Queen Is Dead (Full Version)

36. Johnny Marr claims that the distinctive opening to There Is A Light That Never Goes Out was not nicked from The Velvet Underground's There She Goes Again, but actually pinched from The Rolling Stones' cover of the Marvin Gaye tune Hitch Hike.

    

    Hitch Hike (Mono / Remastered 2002)

37. Morrissey said of the album's final track Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others: "The whole idea of womanhood is something to me that is largely unexplored. I'm realising things about women that I never realised before and Some Girls is just taking it down to the the basic absurdity of recognising the contours to one's body. The fact that I've scuttled through 26 years of life without every noticing the contours of the body are different is an outrageous farce!" (NME, 7th June 1986)

38. Send Me The Pillow You Dream On (quoted in Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others) was a country song from 1949 that was a British hit for Johnny Tillotson in October 1962.

    

    Send Me The Pillow You Dream On

39. Derek Jarman made a short film based on the songs The Queen Is Dead, Panic and There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. The 13-minute clip was shown as a support feature to Alex Cox's punk biopic Sid & Nancy in some cinemas.

    

    The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead - A Film By Derek Jarman (Official Music Video)

40. The only authentic Queen Is Dead t-shirt is the grey version, as sold on the accompanying tour.

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• Thanks and respect to the excellent Smiths Museum Instagram account, well worth a follow if you're at all interested in Smithdom: @thesmithsmuseum
• RIP to the now defunct Smiths website Passions Just Like Mine for its pioneering work.

Further reading:

• Morrissey - Autobiography (Penguin Classics, 2013)
• Johnny Marr - Set The Boy Free (Century, 2016)
• Mike Joyce - The Drums (New Modern, 2025)
• Simon Goddard - The Songs That Saved Your Life: The Art Of The Smiths 1982-1987 (Titan, 2013)
• Johnny Rogan - Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance (Omnibus Press, 1992)
• Jo Slee - Peepholism (Macmillan, 1994)