This song came together during the recording sessions for the "Strangeways, Here We Come" album which took place in March-April 1987 at Wool Hall Studios in Bath, with Stephen Street as producer, helped by Johnny and Morrissey. However, musical elements within it can be traced back to a jam recorded during the "Sheila Take A Bow" sessions in January 1987.

album / single version {3:32}

• "Strangeways Here We Come" album

• "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" single, all formats except for Europe

• "The 12" mixes", an Australia EP

• "Best...I" album

• "The Complete Picture" (video)

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

• deluxe edition of "The Sound Of The Smiths" [remastered 2008]

single version {3:32}

• "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" single, Europe edition (slightly different mix with different tambourine treatment and louder vox)

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

This song has never been done in concert by the Smiths, but it has been done 53 times by Morrissey after the Smiths days. It was on the setlist for Morrissey's live debut at Wolverhampton in 1988, backed by Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon. The first tour on which it was featured was the Tour Of The Tormentors MMVI. For some time it looked like Morrissey wasn't too fond of it, as he did it twice at the very beginning of the tour, then dropped it for two and a half months, played it once again, gave it another long break exceeding two months, to finally play it 10 more times in quick succession. It was then dropped until mid-September 2007 on the Greatest Hits tour when it returned to be played on a majority of dates until the end of that tour.

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

multi-tracks {3:32}

The multi-tracks for this song were extracted from the game Rockband 3 and leaked on the internet in the ogg format. There are 14 tracks in total, for vocals, guitar, bass, snare, keys, etc.