Lyrically, "The Queen Is Dead" is almost without equal in the Smiths' canon: Here's an England darkened and in decline, where the Windsors are brought low and nine-year-old toughs peddle drugs ("I never even knew what drugs WERE"). but it's Johnny Marr, not Morrissey, who supplies the song's full-pelt momentum - churning gnarled guitar lines all undercut with a layer of swampy feedback. Marr played it alone in a virtual trance, an attempt to find the midpoint between the Velvets and MC5. You can only wonder what the original, eight-minute version sounded like.