The Smithereens Blown To Smithereens Best Of The Smithereens

[Torie Crivello]

Thismassive 21-disc box set was available exclusively on patdinizio.com back in 2005 in a limited edition of 500 copies. (One lucky buyer got a special bonus: a free living room show from Pat himself.) It's long been sold out, so here it is in all its glory - nearly 27 hours of demos, rehearsals, outtakes and live performances. Obviously, this is meant for completists, so if you have any interest in this torrent, I urge you to buy the new Smithereens album, "Smithereens 2011" which is a fantastic return to form.

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'especially for you' is one of my favourite 80s records ever. yes, the lyrics are trite and scrape tiresomely from the bottom of the cliche-barrel ....

Don't agree. The lyrics are straightforward and direct, lacking in wordplay or unusual rhymes, but not at all cliched.

Especially For You one of the best of the '80s - "Strangers When We Meet", "Behind the Wall of Sleep", and "In a Lonely Place" would be worth the cost of the CD, or even twice the cost of the CD i bought when it was new. Green Thoughts was a decent follow-up, although it felt like a sequel - a bit of a retread of the earlier album but still nearly as good. I still don't know why the song "Especially For You" is on the latter album rather than the album of the same name.

Boo. That last-U2-album-you-bought thread reminded me that a girl I liked in high school gave me a taped copy of Joshua Tree which I didn't like much but I REALLY liked what she had on the b-side: Especially For You. That album is wall to wall hooks.

I heard "Only a Memory" on the radio and made my mom buy the tape (in a mall record store), which she liked better than I did (though I still really like that song). At some point 10+ years ago or so, I sat next to him on an airplane and 1) he recognized the book I was reading and we chatted about it. He was a really nice guy who treated me like a human being. He was with a child I believe was his daughter. RIP, too soon!!

my first bass teacher was an older college kids who was into "college rock" when I was a little 13/14 rat who wanted to learn Whitesnake and Maiden stuff, anyway he introduced me to REM and also really insisted I learn "Blood and Roses" (which really has a very nice, simple and very melodic bassline) so I always had a certain place in my heart for this band. RIP.

it was a really nice memory! we were stuck by the bathrooms and utterly crammed into a much-too-small spot for three people. the potential for bad things happening was huge, and nothing bad happened at all. he seemed like a standup guy. plus he knew harvest home and we talked about the widow fortune, and how bette davis played her in the tv miniseries (which is now available on dvd, i learned recently!)

Saw the smithereens outside Detroit with a cousin back in '95, and we were both impressed with how friendly and approachable DiNizio was after the show, the three of us chatting about Rickenbackers and other stuff for maybe ten minutes. Nice guy.

11 was big in my dad's cd rotation for a few years when i was growing up. i doubt i've heard it since '92 or so but damned if i couldn't summon the "girl like you" riff instantly. i'll give it a listen tomorrow. r.i.p.

I first heard/saw them on IRS' The Cutting Edge, must've been late summer or early fall of 1986. They scratched a number of itches: loose, propulsive drumming; hooks; easy-to-play songs (I started playing guitar that year, and quickly learned "Blood & Roses," "Behind The Wall Of Sleep," and a few others); and Rickenbackers! Coming off a Jam obsession, whenever I saw a band with Rickenbackers I figured they must have something decent happening. I really dug Especially and Green Thoughts, but never kept up with them after that (and I desperately wanted to see them live in '86-'87, but going to a show alone on a school night was always a non-starter with my parents). I should probably listen to their version of Tommy.

Saw them a few times in the Green Thoughts/11 era whenever they came through LA. Never met Pat, but did talk to a super-boisterious Jim Babjak who gave me a guitar pick, revealed that the secrets to their songs was to tune the guitars down a step and play the Kinks ("tune down twice and you'll get Sabbath!") and said that playing on stage with Dave Davies was like playing baseball with Mickey Mantle.

Here is my submission to FORM's All Nighter Volume 8, unchanged from when I submitted it. This will also be my last solo song for the foreseeable future as I plan to take a step back from this alias and figure out what the next step in my music journey will be.I hope you enjoy.Lyrics:You know it's never not enoughThe gap between your heart and mineNo they can't combineBut when we're atomised to dustMaybe then we'll truly intertwineTil the end of timeYeah you always saw the quiet in the loudAlways got the smile out of the frownFound the silver linings in every mushroom cloudSo when we're atomised to dustForever changing His designI think we'll be just fineI'm not giving upCoz what we gotIs more than enoughSo when we're blown to smithereens I'll shed a tearCoz I hope we left enough to show we were hereWe said a million words without a soundAs the bullets rain downAnd as we slip the surly bonds of earthLet our last breath be as pure as our firstYour hands are coldWarm them up with my failing breath(Yeah)Our tales been toldGod knows how much longer we've got left, yeahI'm not giving upCoz what we gotIs more than enoughAnd if it's you and meFor eternityThen it's worked out perfectlyAnd if we're blown to smithereens I'll shed a tearCoz I hope we left enough to show we were here, yeahWe said a million words without a soundAs the bullets rain downAnd as we slip the surly bonds of earthLet our last breath be as pure as ourLove for each otherOne anotherCan't believe I gottaFight for my right To survive this 'alternative life'Will you see me on the news?Showing off my black and blueI'm not giving upCause what we gotIs more than enoughAnd as we're blown to smithereens I'll shed a tearCoz I hope we left enough to show we were here(To show we were here)We said a million words without a soundAs the bullets rain downAnd as we slip the surly bonds of earthLet our last breath be as pure as our first

Despite its American sound and its common use by the fiery animated cartoon character Yosemite Sam, smithereens did not originate in American slang. Although no one is entirely positive about its precise origins, scholars think that smithereens likely developed from the Irish word smidirn, which means "little bits." That Irish word is the diminutive of smiodar, meaning "fragment." According to print evidence, the plural form smithereens first appears in English in the late 18th century; use of singular smithereen then follows.

Probably because the term has been associated to terms like blow or smash since its origin. Its usage can also be found outside military contexts as suggested in the extract from the MacMillan Dictionary below:

The notion of things being 'broken/smashed/blown to smithereens' dates from at least the turn of the 19th century. Francis Plowden, in The History of Ireland, 1801, records a threat made against a Mr. Pounden by a group of Orangemen:

means tiny bits, shattered fragments. The word smithereens is often seen in the phrases blow, blew, blowing or blown to smithereens, and smash, smashes, smashing or smashed to smithereens.

The word smithereens can be traced back to the Irish Gaelic word smidirin, which is a diminutive of the word smiodar, which means piece or fragment. The suffix -een was tacked on as an additional diminutive.

Although "smashing to smithereens" sounds like an inherently violent process, Green is correct that the expression may be used figuratively to refer to such things as emotional tumults that involve no real-world violence. One such early example is from "The Can-Can," in The Book of Comic Songs and Recitations (1874):

With regard to the Phrase Finder date of 1801 for smithereens in Francis Plowden, The History of Ireland, the quoted text actually appears in Plowden's The History of Ireland, From Its Union with Great Britain, in January 1801, to October 1810, volume 3 (1811), which reports that the word was used in a threatening anonymous note left near the hall door of a magistrate named Pounden in the summer of 1810:

It thus appears that the notice cited in The History of Ireland was written by night marauders in the summer of 1810 and reprinted in Plowden's history in 1811. The 1795 instance from Macready's play is 15 years older.

A much needed replacement bridge has been under construction since 2015 and is slated to open in April. Once it's fully functional, the 78-year old Kosciuszko Bridge will literally be blown to smithereens. The reason behind blowing up the bridge is that it will just save the work crew's time. Usually, it takes months to dismantle a bridge so blowing it up is actually much easier (not to mention, considerably more dramatic).

The opening of the new bridge will be the first phase of the ongoing initiative to clear up traffic between the two boroughs. Phase Two will see a second bridge built in order to accommodate traffic coming from the opposite direction.

So we steamed on towards our destination which was Bougie, a port on the north African coast, which the army had recently taken from the Germans. The high octane fuel was for the aircraft and for the tanks. We, on board the CLAN LAMONTE, were having a hairy time. At one time there were approximately forty planes attacking us. You could see the torpedoes coming towards the ship, but miraculously missed us. Those were the Torpedo Bombers. Then the dive bombers had a go.

These were very frightening. The noise when they dived was horrendous. Thank God we were not hit. At nighttime it was like an enormous firework display with the ack ack fire from the ships and the flares dropped by the bombers in the dark. I wondered how long the human mind and the body could stand up to all the nerve racking noise, the fear of being blown up, of drowning. Your mind plays funny tricks when it is under such stress.

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