The Smiths
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50 free The Smiths trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Smiths lasted barely five years, yet few British bands are argued over, quoted and covered as much. Morrissey's sharp, funny, lovelorn words and Johnny Marr's chiming guitar gave 1980s indie music its template, and the songs keep turning up in films, on television and in other people's hit records. This quiz covers the whole story: how the band formed and found its name, the studio albums and best-known singles, the film stars and oddities on the record sleeves, the controversies, the acrimonious split and the court case that followed, and what the members did afterwards. Most questions can be reasoned out by a casual listener, and a handful of deep cuts are there for the fans who know their B-sides. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you should finish knowing a few stories you had not heard before.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A cover of The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?" was the opening theme of which supernatural TV series?
Charmed
Charmed used the Love Spit Love cover as its theme for eight seasons, after the same recording had appeared in the 1996 film The Craft.
Q 02Morrissey of The Smiths wore which medical device on stage, reportedly in solidarity with a fan?
A hearing aid
A hearing aid joined thick-rimmed NHS-style glasses in Morrissey's stage look; the fake aid was worn to support a hearing-impaired fan who was ashamed of using one.
Q 03Which flowers did Morrissey often wave around on stage during performances by The Smiths?
Gladioli
Gladioli became a Morrissey trademark, a flamboyant touch against the jeans and plain shirts the band chose to wear.
Q 04Why did Morrissey say he chose to call his new band The Smiths?
It was the most ordinary name
It was the most ordinary name he could find, and Morrissey felt it was time the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces.
Q 05Which 1980s pop star joined the band Blossoms to play Smiths covers at Glastonbury in 2023?
Rick Astley
Rick Astley and Blossoms drew warm reviews for the shows, though Johnny Marr called the performances funny and horrible at the same time.
Q 06Which animated series parodied Morrissey as Quilloughby, a singer voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch?
The Simpsons
The Simpsons introduced Quilloughby in the episode Panic on the Streets of Springfield, where he is a romantic figment of Lisa's imagination.
Q 07Which rock and roll star is on the sleeve of The Smiths' single "Shoplifters of the World Unite"?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley fills the sleeve in an early photograph, and Morrissey wore a T-shirt of him when the band mimed the song on Top of the Pops.
Q 08Which 1980s teen comedy features an instrumental cover of "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want"?
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Ferris Bueller's Day Off uses the Dream Academy's wordless version while Ferris and his friends wander the Art Institute of Chicago.
Q 09Strangeways, in the title of The Smiths' final studio album, was the name of what kind of building?
A prison
A prison in the band's home city supplied the name, and Morrissey and Johnny Marr have both called the record the band's best album.
Q 10In The Smiths' "Bigmouth Strikes Again", the narrator compares himself to which historical figure?
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, the saint burned at the stake, is who the song's loose-tongued narrator measures himself against, a typically melodramatic Morrissey joke.
Q 11In which English city did The Smiths form in 1982 and play an early gig at the Haçienda?
Manchester
Manchester gave the band its first stage too: their debut public show was a support slot at the city's Ritz in October 1982.
Q 12Which first name did Morrissey of The Smiths forbid those around him from using?
Steven
Steven was a name he despised and banned from 1983, having already decided to be known to the public by his surname alone.
Q 13The parents of both Morrissey and Johnny Marr had emigrated to England from which country?
Ireland
Ireland was home to both families: Morrissey's parents came over from Dublin, and Marr's from County Kildare.
Q 21Which independent record label, founded by Geoff Travis in London, signed The Smiths in 1983?
Rough Trade
Rough Trade came on board after Johnny Marr travelled to London to hand Travis a cassette, and Travis agreed to cut one of the songs as a single.
Q 22The Smiths' Meat Is Murder knocked which Bruce Springsteen album off the top of the UK chart?
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A. was displaced by what proved the only Smiths studio album to top the UK chart, after gold-level shipments on its first day.
Q 23Morrissey and Johnny Marr first met in 1978 at a concert by which American singer?
Patti Smith
Patti Smith left a second mark on the pair: Marr based the tempo of one of the first songs they wrote together on her track Kimberly.
Q 14Which instrument did Mike Joyce play in The Smiths, having auditioned while on magic mushrooms?
Drums
Drums were Joyce's job for the band's whole gigging life, a seat he won only after Simon Wolstencroft, who played on the first demo, declined to join.
Q 15Which Smiths member played the funk bass solo on the Meat Is Murder track "Barbarism Begins at Home"?
Andy Rourke
Andy Rourke, an old school friend of Johnny Marr, replaced the band's first bassist after their debut gig and stayed to the end, bar a two-week sacking in 1986.
Q 16Johnny Marr played as a guest on Heathen Chemistry, a 2002 album by which Britpop band?
Oasis
Oasis owed Marr an older debt: he lent Noel Gallagher a guitar during the recording of the band's debut album, Definitely Maybe.
Q 17Johnny Marr worked with composer Hans Zimmer on the score for which Christopher Nolan film?
Inception
Inception began a long partnership: Marr later joined Zimmer again for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the James Bond film No Time to Die.
Q 18Morrissey wrote a book about which film star, later shown on the "Bigmouth Strikes Again" sleeve?
James Dean
James Dean was a Morrissey idol, and the book, James Dean Is Not Dead, came out in 1983, the year of the band's first single.
Q 19Which film has Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel bond in a lift over a Smiths song?
500 Days of Summer
500 Days of Summer uses There Is a Light That Never Goes Out to bring Tom and Summer together, and the song is on the film's soundtrack.
Q 20In "Cemetry Gates" by The Smiths, which playwright is pitted against Keats and Yeats?
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was the writer Morrissey idolised and often referenced, and the song answers critics who had sneered at his habit of quoting other authors.
Q 24Before The Smiths, Morrissey wrote a booklet about which American band that Johnny Marr also loved?
New York Dolls
New York Dolls fandom is what impressed Marr enough to turn up, with no phone call first, on Morrissey's doorstep and propose a band.
Q 25Johnny Marr respelled his surname from Maher to avoid confusion with a member of which punk band?
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks drummer John Maher shared his exact name, so the teenage guitarist switched to Marr at about 14, which also made it easier to pronounce.
Q 26Johnny Marr formed which supergroup with New Order's Bernard Sumner after The Smiths broke up?
Electronic
Electronic also drew in Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, and the group released three albums over the following decade.
Q 27Which American indie band did Johnny Marr of The Smiths join as a full member in 2006?
Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse had Marr writing with singer Isaac Brock for We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which the band released in 2007.
Q 28Which debut solo album by Morrissey topped the UK chart within months of The Smiths splitting?
Viva Hate
Viva Hate takes its title from the bitter end of the band, and Morrissey recorded it with Durutti Column guitarist Vini Reilly.
Q 29Which 1960s pop star had a 1984 hit covering a Smiths song, with three of the band backing her?
Sandie Shaw
Sandie Shaw's comeback led the three Smiths to play Top of the Pops barefoot, a tribute to the way she had often performed in the 1960s.
Q 30Which singer, later heard on "Fairytale of New York", sang backing vocals on The Smiths' "Ask"?
Kirsty MacColl
Kirsty MacColl sang on the track, and Morrissey then asked her husband, producer Steve Lillywhite, to mix it at his home studio.