Song · Live covers
The Headmaster Ritual
Radiohead played the opener of the Smiths' Meat Is Murder once, and it went out over the internet from their Oxford studio.
1985
meat is murder
Johnny Marr wrote the music and Morrissey the words, and it opened Meat Is Murder. The song is an attack on English schools and on corporal punishment. Marr wrote it in open E.
I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote it, and I quite like that.
johnny marr · rolling stone, 17 april 2020
It is also the only Smiths song where Marr suggested a change to the words, a small one to the line about bruises and dinner plates. Morrissey took a day to think it over, told him he was impressed by the observation, and then left the line as it was.
9 nov 2007
thumbs down
Radiohead have played it once, on Thumbs Down, the webcast they put out from their Oxford studio on 9 November 2007. Thom Yorke introduced the show as the band's way of celebrating the fact that they had finished a record. “The Headmaster Ritual” came second, after “Bodysnatchers” and before the band's first live performance of the In Rainbows “Reckoner”, and New Order's “Ceremony” followed.
The debt to Marr was an old one. Before “Knives Out” came out in 2001, Ed O'Brien had played that song to him and told him the band had tried to catch the way he played in the Smiths.
In March 2010 Magnet's Take Cover! column set the webcast version beside the original and left its readers to pick.
the video
Their Smiths cover.· Janiswatch on youtube →
the record(1)
on stage(2)
Live history
| Times played | 1 show |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Friday 9 November 2007 · Oxford |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
sources6
- Rob Sheffield, “Rob Sheffield ranks all 73 Smiths songs”, Rolling Stone, 1 August 2017, for the lyric change.
- “Johnny Marr teaches viewers how to play ‘The Headmaster Ritual’”, Rolling Stone, 17 April 2020, for open E.
- “Radiohead parody Brad Pitt movie in ‘Thumbs Down’ webcast”, NME, 9 November 2007, and “Radiohead cover The Smiths and New Order”, Uncut, 12 November 2007, for the webcast, Yorke's introduction and the running order.
- The site's song story for “Knives Out”, after Johnny Marr's May 2003 interview, for O'Brien and Marr.
- “Take Cover!”, Magnet, 3 March 2010.
- Performance date from this site's own setlist archive, via setlist.fm.