“Sweet And Tender Hooligan” by The Smiths

Morrissey wrote the words and Johnny Marr the music for "Sweet and Tender Hooligan", and the Smiths recorded it in 1986, but for years it lived in the margins: a recording for the BBC, a slot on Louder Than Bombs, a place on the 12-inch of "Sheila Take a Bow". The lyric is Morrissey at his most mischievous, a narrator sarcastically pleading the case of a hooligan who gets off with a soft sentence, all sympathy on the surface and pure acid underneath.

It finally became a single in May 1995, to promote the Singles compilation in America. Europe got a reissue of "Ask" instead; the American single went for rarities, backing the song with "I Keep Mine Hidden", "Work Is a Four-Letter Word" and "What's the World?", scarce B-sides from 1987, none of which appeared on the compilation itself.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.