The song was very likely written at the end of 1986 or very early in 1987, very shortly before it was first attempted in a recording studio, which was during the "Sheila Take A Bow" session in January 1987 at Good Earth Studios in London. A few rocksteady takes came out of this session, but they were shelved.

The definitive version of the song was recorded and mixed during the "Strangeways, Here We Come" sessions in March-April 1987 at Wool Hall Studios in Bath, with Stephen Street as producer with help from Johnny and Morrissey.

single / album version {2:02}

• "Girlfriend In A Coma" single, all formats

• "Strangeways Here We Come" album

• "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" Germany all formats, Japan cd-single

• "Best...I" album

• "The Complete Picture" (video)

• "Singles" album

• "The Very Best Of The Smiths" [remastered 2001]

• "The Sound Of The Smiths" [remastered 2008]

This song has never been performed specifically for radio or television.

This song was never done live by the Smiths. It has been performed live 163 times by Morrissey after the Smiths. It was introduced on the Tour Of The Tormentors MMVI and played at each and every one of the 93 dates of that tour. It was occasionally found on the setlist on the 2007-2008 Greatest Hits tour, played a total of 28 times over 91 concerts. It then returned to the set 6 weeks into the Tour Of Refusal and done every night bar one following that, until the end of that tour (total 42 times).

There are no officially released live recordings of the song at this point in time.

monitor mix aka demo {2:02}

Taken from a record company cd-r of a scrapped reissue project, this was leaked at the end of 2010 on the rarities LP bootleg simply titled "The Smiths".