The earliest-known recording of iconic outfit The Smiths has finally surfaced online, with a full-length cover of ‘I Want A Boy For My Birthday’ appearing over the weekend.
If you’ve ever found yourself researching the history of The Smiths, you’d likely be aware that the group’s debut recordings have remained unavailable ever since they were first put to tape.
As the story goes, August of 1982 saw a 23-year-old Steven Patrick Morrissey team up with 18-year-old Johnny Marr, and bass player Dale Hibbert to work on some original compositions.
Having recorded versions of ‘Don’t Blow Your Own Horn’, ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’, and ‘Suffer Little Children’, Hibbert decided that they should focus on recording a cover version to wrap things up.
Setting their tape recorder to capture the magic, the pair laid down a version of The Cookies’ ‘I Want A Boy For My Birthday’, which subsequently became lost to time.
While a handful of snippets appeared online in the late ’90s, the full recording had never been shared in full, leading countless fans to treat it as something of a holy grail of the group’s early years.
Now though, indie blog Slicing Up Eyeballs has reported that after Dale Hibbert shared snippets of the sessions earlier this year, he has now offered up the full version of the sought-after cover.
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Check out ‘I Want A Boy For My Birthday’ by The Smiths:
While the cover was only ever played twice during the band’s first few months, the lo-fi recording gives fans an insight into the early days of the now-iconic group, serving as a snapshot of a pair of musicians who did not know what their futures would hold.
According to Simon Goddard’s Songs That Saved Your Life, Dale Hibbert had possession of this recording for quite some time, before selling it to a collector after sharing snippets online back in the ’90s.
“The earliest known surviving document in the recording history of The Smiths stems from those very first attic practice sessions with Morrissey, Marr and Hibbert,” Goddard wrote.
“It was for the latter’s benefit that the singer and guitarist taped a simple arrangement of ‘I Want A Boy For My Birthday,’ a 1963 B-side by New York girl group The Cookies, on Marr’s TEAC machine so that Hibbert could learn the melody in preparation for The Smiths’ first demo session.
“The cover was Morrissey’s idea. ‘I’d never heard it before,’ says Marr, ‘but I thought, “Great, this’ll really freak ’em out!” I was really happy to encourage it.’”
Check out the cover above, and take a listen to the original version of the song below. Frankly, we reckon it’s about time Morrissey popped this one back into his setlists.
Check out ‘I Want A Boy For My Birthday’ by The Cookies:
