The Smiths A-Z: "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby"

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Vulgarian
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Re-recorded by Kirsty MacColl with Johnny Marr on guitar - initially included on the "She’s Having a Baby" film soundtrack & single (1998) and then included on her Steve Lillywhite-produced "Kite" album of 1989.

3:32 (The World Won't Listen version)
3:23 (Louder Than Bombs alternate version)
3:13 (Swords live version)

Mozipedia (2009).

"A quintessential Morrissey lyric examining the agony of frustrated ambition, the title was rumoured to have been a comment from Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis directed at Morrissey. ‘I’m sure it was,’ insists Mike Joyce. ‘I think Morrissey had asked for a car or a driver to pick him up or something and that’s what Geoff said in reply.’
‘Obviously Geoff was staunchly against [the song] because he thought it was a personal letter addressed to him,’ Morrissey later disclosed. ‘I never said it was.’ Marr also recalls Travis ‘not thinking very highly of it’ while the fact Morrissey repeated the same phrase in his subsequent critique of shady record company politics, ‘Paint A Vulgar Picture’, also seems more than coincidence."


(Mozipedia is quoting Morrissey in NME, February 13, 1988).

Said to have taken less than 24hrs to create.
Never played live by The Smiths.
Played 9 times by Morrissey (all in 2009).

Hands up if you went to Tower Records to buy Louder Than Bombs long box CD for this track 🙋
Has it earned a comment yet, baby?
FWD.

 
I adore this song so much, I heard it sung live at the Troxy and bought a signed album, a perfect night

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I have always loved this song. I used to listen to it on my way to a low-paid job I hated, when the line 'You must suffer and cry for a longer time' felt like what the world was telling me about my life. This song would have been very good as a Smiths single. The wonderful singer Kirsty MacColl had great taste in music. Looking back, I think that in general Morrissey should have trusted John Porter more. As for the title of the song, I suppose it was probably inspired by the Elvis Presley song Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby from the movie Speedway (1968).
 
The guitar, if it was slower, would fit perfectly over Duran Durans Is There Something I Should Know. Once I noticed that it put me off the song ha ha.
 
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