God Save the Smithereens
Original release date: October 19, 1999
2 disc deluxe edition release: February 8, 2005
Disc One:
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She’s Got A Way
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House at the End of the World
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Everything Changes
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Flowers in the Blood
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The Long Loneliness
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Someday
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The Age of Innocence
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Gloomy Sunday
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I Believe
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All Revved Up
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Even If I Never Get Back Home
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Try
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The Last Good Time
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A World Apart Smithereens (Unreleased Demo)
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This Is The Way The World Ends (Unreleased Demo)
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King Of The World (Unreleased Demo)
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Sundown (Unreleased Demo)
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All Revved Up (Unreleased Demo)
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On The Beach (Unreleased Demo)
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House At The End Of The World (VIP’s EP Version)
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I Want To Tell You (from George Harrison Tribute CD “Songs from the Material World”)
Disc Two:
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Where I Am Going [Jennie’s Song]
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Nobody But Me
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124 MPH
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Running, Jumping, Standing Still
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Everday World
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No Love Lost
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A World Apart
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Today It’s You
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Liza
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Somewhere Down the Line
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You Should You Know
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I’d Rather Have Blues
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A Girl Like You (from Pat DiNizio Live in Spain)
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Yesterday Girl (from Pat DiNizio Live in Spain)
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Behind the Wall Of Sleep (from Pat DiNizio Live in Spain)
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She’s Got A Way (from Pat DiNizio Live in Spain)
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Blood And Roses (from Pat DiNizio Live in Spain)
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Someday Boy (Unreleased Demo)
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Afternoon Tea (Unreleased Demo)
When the members of the Smithereens convened to record what would become their sixth full-length studio album, they were not sure how things would go. It had been, after all, five years since their last album of new music, and much had transpired in the interim.
“Everyone was a bit nervous at first, but we set up in a way that we could see and hear each other properly,” says DiNizio. “We went back to our old guitars and old practice amps-back to small Fender combo amps instead of the big Marshall stacks. It was a return to the rock’n’roll, Buddy Holly and Beatles-influenced sound of the band.”
Among the album’s highlights are catchy opener and lead single, “She’s Got A Way”; the dark, shuffling “Age of Innocence”; the rollicking “The Long Loneliness”; a reinvention of the Billie Holiday hit “Gloomy Sunday” (the only bonafide cover to appear on a Smithereens album); and “The Last Good Time,” a meditation on the impending millennium.
The album sports an upbeat, easygoing vibe that reflects a realignment in the songwriting forces within the band. On past albums, DiNizio would write songs and record his own demos, which would then serve as templates for the rest of the band. However, on God Save The Smithereens, all four band members contributed to the songwriting process and are accordingly credited.
“This record offers a real band vibe and has an organic sense about it,” says Diken, the band’s rocksteady drummer and unofficial historian.
Sonically, God Save The Smithereens left the band feeling like they had gone further than ever before in capturing their sound on tape.
“It’s one of the most ear-pleasing records I’ve ever heard sonically;” says Mesaros. “It has a warmth to it and it captures an element that my favorite records and my favorite bands have always had. It rocks and has balls and is raw and at the same time it’s beautiful and melodic. All the bands we love, the Kinks, the Who, the Move, have done that.”
Already a cohesive effort thanks to the band’s collaborative spirit, God Save The Smithereens was solidified by the guiding hand of producer Don Fleming, a newcomer to the Smithereens fold but a veteran studio man who has made fine rock records for the likes of Hole, the Posies, Screaming Trees, and Teenage Fanclub. Of Fleming, Diken says, “He certainly kept his nose to the grindstone and had good ideas. He knows what to do with two guitars, bass, and drums, and he got the feel of the band onto tape-the spirit of the four of us playing together.”
“One of our best albums, it came out after a five-year layoff. We recorded it with Don Fleming and there’s a sonic richness and depth to it that the other albums are lacking.” -Pat DiNizio