Very haunting in parts.
Thanks for this, I hope he will find more to share.
Regards,
FWD.

This is great! Love hearing this! Thanks Dale!!

"A first demo version recorded at Manchester’s Decibel studios in August 1982, with Simon WOLSTENCROFT on drums and Marr overdubbing bass, featured a cameo from the mysterious Annalisa JABLONSKA providing its exaggerated Hindley laughter, also calling the victims by name: ‘Lesley! Edward! John!’ Equally experimental was a separate piece of music tacked on to the end which Marr had pre-recorded at home; a mournful piano coda, quite similar to the later ‘ASLEEP’, accompanied by the tinkling of a music box and the distant sound of children playing outside his window". (From Mozipedia)

This is one of the very greatest the Smiths songs and its awesome to be able to hear how it was made, pure gold !

Although I love Moz's solo material, I wonder if he puts as much effort on it as he seemingly did with not only The Smiths tracks, but their album art.

You'd get arrested for that nowadays

That laughter on Suffer always creeps me out ... it really is quite disturbing, as it conjures up such depths of depravity (at least in my mind). Very interesting to hear it isolated like this, thank you.!

Without doubt, Suffer Little Children is easily in the Smiths top 10.

Such a beautiful, haunting melody that puts the ache and loss of the true events into music and Morrissey's meandering vocal lines and touching lyrics are no less stunning.

It's telling that the repetitive, mournful guitar melodies - especially on the fade out - can be taken to represent Winnie Johnson's endless and ultimately fruitless search for the burial place of Keith Bennett.

Haunting, thanks for the post... .. .

Marr overdubbed the bass? I thought the "accepted version" was that Hibbert "produced" the session and also played bass.

"...it was a girl Stephen turned up with" Who is Stephen?

Usually as one grows they may put more attention in other areas. How about you, don’t you find?

It is mentioned in Dale Hibbert's book "Boy, Interrupted" that Johnny took over bass while Dale worked on the actual recording. Also he mentioned that Dale came up with bass parts, but Johnny said while those bass parts were good, Johnny's parts fit the songs better.

Stephen Street?

Dale played on the demo of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle but not SLT. Also, he said on this very site when his book was coming out that Johnny wrote all the bass parts, and they stayed the same after Andy took over. Maybe Dale had a go at writing his own but, if so, it seems like they were never used.

Hope Dale doesn't wait too long before uploading the full recordings, or I reckon he'll likely be stopped.

"...I have no idea who the girl is. It wasnt Linder, it was a girl Stephen turned up with. She left after the part was recorded...."

No mention of Stephen Street. and the girl is Annalisa Jablonska?

Wikipedia says:
"The Smiths

• Morrissey – vocals
• Johnny Marr – guitars, harmonica
• Andy Rourke – bass guitar
• Mike Joyce – drums, tambourine ("Hand in Glove")[27]

Additional musicians

Paul Carrack – piano, organ ("Reel Around the Fountain", "You've Got Everything Now" and "I Don't Owe You Anything")

• Annalisa Jablonska – female voice ("Pretty Girls Make Graves" and "Suffer Little Children")

Production

• John Porter – production (except "Hand in Glove"), remixing ("Hand in Glove")
• The Smiths – production ("Hand in Glove")
• Phil Bush – engineering
• Neill King – engineering

Design

• Morrissey – sleeve
• Caryn Gough – layout

Better information from Songs That Saved Your Life:

"The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ (Morrissey/Marr)
‘Suffer Little Children’ (Morrissey/Marr)
Recorded August 1982, Decibel Studios, Manchester

Engineered by Dale Hibbert

First studio recording

In Hibbert, Morrissey and Marr finally had the means to access free studio time, even if The Smiths were still a ‘group’ in name rather than body when they made recorded their first demo at the end of the summer. ‘If there were any local bands that I liked then we used to do these overnight sessions’, says Hibbert of his job at Decibel. ‘I was left to lock up so I used to let these bands in. Nobody ever paid. I used to justify it by saying that I was learning a skill.’ Accordingly, Hibbert refutes the myth that his keys to the studio were the only reason Morrissey and Marr accepted him into their bosom to begin with. ‘I always maintained that it wasn’t because of free session time’, he stresses, ‘because as a friend of Johnny’s I would’ve given them that anyway whether I was in the band or not.’
Over an insomniac marathon seven hour session between 11.00 pm and 6.00 am the next morning, two tracks were recorded and mixed, aided by former Freak Party drummer Simon Wolstencroft who’d been coerced by Marr to help out at the eleventh hour. The chosen songs were the first two they’d written together. ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ featured a grumbling low Morrissey vocal, typical of the group’s formative recordings, while Marr soaked his sketchy, central riff in a shallow flange-pedal wash. Surprisingly, the surviving demo also reveals Marr’s shaky attempt at a backing vocal harmony. Though Hibbert played bass, come the next track, the Moors Murders elegy ‘Suffer Little Children’, he was banished to the control room, leaving Marr to overdub a crude bass part of his own.
At seven minutes plus, the Decibel ‘Suffer Little Children’ is a much longer prototype than that which was finally to appear on 1984’s The Smiths. Though Wolstencroft’s pattering rhythm was discernibly different from that later applied by Mike Joyce, Marr’s basic melody was intact, if less pithy. So too was Morrissey’s stirring baritone, utilising wraithlike reverb for added drama (the only lyrical difference being the surplus lament from Myra Hindley’s conscience, ‘oh, what have you done?’). The mock Hindley voiceover was also more explicit, cackling haughtily and audibly crying out the victims’ Christian names: ‘Lesley! Edward! John!’.
‘That was a girl, a friend of Steven’s,’ says Dale. ‘She just turned up towards the end and did this weird laughing.’
‘Never saw her before, never saw her afterwards,’ laughs Marr. ‘She was nice. Very kind of studenty. From what I remember she had an archetypal 60s vibe — a bob haircut and a duffle coat. Morrissey never being one to miss a sartorial angle!’ The mystery girl was one Annalisa Jablonska, whom Morrissey had previously named as being his ‘girlfriend’ in correspondence with Scottish pen pal Robert Mackie. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ he teased Mackie in a letter dated 4th December 1980. ‘Do you like girls? I have a girlfriend called Annalisa. We’re both bisexual. Real hip, huh? I hate sex.’
In preparation for ‘Suffer Little Children’, Marr brought in a cassette of a separate piano melody to tack on as an eerie epilogue. Grinding to a halt on a slovenly strummed minor chord, the song segues into this fittingly maudlin piano coda. Its grief-stricken tone would be amplified by the distant sound effects of children playing (a device they would repeat on ‘What Difference Does It Make?’) and a chiming music box.
‘I’d recorded that on this little piano in Shelley Rohde’s house,’ remembers Marr. ‘I stuck a microphone out of the window as there were children coming out of school. So I had this music box going, kids playing outside and me playing this piano part all at the same time. I can remember it clearly, a beautiful summer’s day, because when me and Morrissey met it was the start of summer so our relationship, our writing relationship, just bloomed all the way through that summer of ’82. I was living in the attic of this groovy bohemian house with an inherited record collection [from his friend, record shop owner Pete Hunt] and an amazing girlfriend [Angie, who he later married], having just met The Other Guy. So, y’know, no wonder I was happy. It was a fantastic time and that’s how I remember that whole first demo.’"

I have always wondered about the 'Decibel/le Demo' that was leaked (the master being allegedly sold to a fan by Dale).
It certainly isn't 7 minutes long and makes me think that it is an edit of some variety, but if it came from the master - why an edit!?
There is confusion regarding what tracks he's actually played on and there needs to be some acknowledgement that 'Decibel' and 'Decibelle' are separate places despite how books conflate the two (one's in Manchester & one's in London).
So, people may have seen Hibbert's bass attributed to several tracks from those recording sessions, but there's nothing concrete to go on - hopefully, the 7 minute version will surface and some clarity will follow. That said, the general accepted view is he wasn't playing on Suffer... and was on Hand That...
Regards,
FWD.

Posted at smithstorrents December 2011
http://www.smithstorrents.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2461

Hi, my name is Philippe Delcloque,
1 I am the owner of Decibelle Studios (note the correct spelling of Decibelle to differentiate it from Decibel Studios, London) where The Smiths recorded their first demo.
I only heard the demo at the mixing stage so cannot shed light on who recorded what but I am surprised that Andy Rourke didn't record the bass because Andy was Johnny Marr's partner on bass well before the creation of the Smiths.
In my recollection, the first demo included 4 tracks, you will know the tracks better than me because I wasn't a Smiths fan although I thought Johnny was an exceptional guitarist! In fact, Johnny asked me if I'd like to manage the Smiths and I turned him down, silly me! I'm still hoping they will reform so I can manage them some 30 years later!
All the best,
Philippe

2 Dale Hibbert definitely played bass for the Smiths at the beginning, he was very keen to join the band full-time but Andy Rourke was a much better bassist and a good friend of Johnny's.
Dale Hibbert was also a trainee recording engineer with me and because of his friendship with the band, he recorded their demo so he kept the tapes including the master tape which he tried to sell later on.
Yes, if I had managed the band, they might have lasted a few years more.
Now, I think there is no prospect of them re-forming.
Bye for now,
Philippe

3 Yes, the name of the studios was Decibelle spelt in a feminine French way! Of course, the bands used to call it Decibel Studios and would never write it down anyway.
All they knew is that the owner was French.
The band that preceded the Smiths was called two names, there were in fact 2 bands, the Rhythm Method and Freak Party.
Marr and Rourke were the guitarist and bassist in both bands, they were my second rehearsal customers in early 1982 after I opened the studios.
I'm not sure Goddard picked up any of these facts!
Atb,
Philippe

Who is this Stephen he speaks of?