THE SMITHS The Boy with the Thorn in His Side PROOF ART

	£		42
	$		56

The Smiths. "  The Boy with the Thorn in His Side  "
Cardboard "Proof" Sleeve. U.K Issue RT 196
Sleeves were issued by condor litho printers whom were Rough Trades Official printers of these proof sleeves.


Printed on card stock i.e. what a normal 7" from the 80's would have been printed on and the card measures 15" by 8" and shows the front and back of this iconic sleeve which features American author Truman Capote. The photograph was taken by Cecil Beaton in 1949. Morrissey has said about Capote: "I'm not even sure if Truman was a writer at all, or just someone who sneaked around and watched. But he was funny!"
The sleeve looks (well to me anyway) like its the version that was finally passed for the released cover sleeve the only difference being  the image of Truman Capote is sharper and the colours brighter in contrast to the released sleeve. 
I suppose you could look at the copies on ebay to see the differences. 
Only 3 of these were printed.
A rare chance to own an un released/un issued piece of Smiths   memorabilia
The condition of the sleeve is excellent  as i have kept them in professional storage boxes in a cool,dark and damp free environment. Also an added bonus is all my items come from a smoke and pet free home. 
Up for auction is a proof sleeve for the above release.These were for the sole purpose of seeing what the sleeve would look like aesthetically before they went to print and or to make changes to the design. These work in progress sleeves were printed up for Joe Slee who was the art co-ordinator for Rough Trade Records. I came across these pieces of historic art around 1998 and was just bold over by the history of it all its not everyday you come across items like these and there so stunning to look at and hopefully my pictures will try to allay this to you. I purchased these items from a person who i cannot name but they did work at Rough trade up and till they closed in the 1990's. These pieces of art pop history are genuine, not re-worked prints i can and will 100% guarantee this and anything else i will be selling.
Hopefully these items will appeal to you as much as they did to me over a decade ago and i think there's something here for every kind of enthusiast and every type of collector from the completest to the occasional collector but i must stress that these individual proofs are very rare and were not made in the 100's they were very limited mostly to only 6 or 7 of each and others that i own are less than that number as they were only made so that Caryn Gough,Joe slee and Morrissey could view them to see if they had the finished product they all liked or to view alternate versions of sleeve. These are very rare items indeed and it's unusual to find any bands proof sleeves never mind The Smiths proof sleeves. Here's a chance to be the envy of the Smiths collecting world.
I have been an avid Smiths and Morrissey collector for over 20 years and enjoyed every minute of collecting you know that searching for an item, the smell the feel and the satisfaction you feel when you find the one or see and hear new things its a great buzz.  I hadn't planned to sell any of my collection until my world was turned upside down as my wife was diagnosed with "cancer" and now i want to start selling my collection to raise some money so i can take her away to New York a place she has always wanted to go. I will be posting items up over several weeks until its gone. So if you like the items I'm posting up on here make sure you keep coming back weekly.

"The Boy with the Thorn in His Side" is a song by The Smiths. It appears on their third album The Queen Is Dead but was released as a single (albeit in a different mix) several months before the album, reaching #23 in the UK Singles Chart in Autumn 1985. This was the first single by The Smiths to be accompanied by a promotional video, something the band had previously resisted. Some of the Smiths' more purist fans at the time derided this as a sell-out. The following year, the New Musical Express greeted the news that the band had signed a contract with EMI with the headline "The Boy With The Thorn-EMI On His Side". The jumping man on the cover of the single release is a young Truman Capote. The song was covered by Scottish band Bis on the tribute album The Smiths Is Dead. Music reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine trashed the cover, stating: "In particular, the Bis utterly disembowel 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side' with a single-minded stupidity that is just bewildering. The song has also been covered by The Crusifixtion, Belle & Sebastian, Scott Matthews, Emilie Autumn and Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis in live performances. The song's title was also adopted for the name of a book written by Pete Wentz, bassist of the band Fall Out Boy. The song was featured in the third episode of the British drama musical series Blackpool. The Smiths performed this song on an episode of the popular British television program Top of the Pops. Margi Clarke asked Morrissey if this song was inspired by Oscar Wilde and Morrissey replied: "No that's not true. The thorn is the music industry and all those people who never believed anything I said, tried to get rid of me and wouldn't play the records. So I think we've reached a stage where we feel: if they don't believe me now, will they ever believe me? What more can a poor boy do?" The chief difference between the single version and the one appearing on the album The Queen Is Dead is in the use of synthesized strings. They are largely absent from the single version, only appearing in the song's coda. Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis covered the song on his 1996 solo album, Martin + Me.

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