Marr used a 12-string Gibson ES-335 most famously on “Sheila Take a Bow”, and on a few songs from The Smiths final album, Strangeways, Here We Come. He also used it on the song “(Nothing But) Flowers” which he recorded with The Pretenders in 1988.
I wanted the electric guitar parts a lot less layered and with a lot more weight, which you can hear on I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish. The stuff that wasn’t acoustic was mainly led by my 355 12-string; in fact, a lot of the songs—I Started Something…, Paint a Vulgar Picture, and Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before—were written on that guitar. It gave a really big sound.
Johnny Marr
Years later, in 1995, Johnny gave the guitar to Bernard Butler, who had just left Suede, where he was the lead guitarist. Butler had grown up listing Marr as one of his main influences, and the two eventually became friends, which led to Johnny passing the guitar on to him.
I went up to visit Johnny in 1995, and we played guitar together and watched Neil Young videos all night,” Butler recalled. “Just before I left, Johnny said, ‘I want to show you this,’ and got out this 12-string. I told him I recognised it from The Smiths on Top Of The Pops and Sheila Take A Bow and Shoplifters Of The World Unite on The Tube in 1986; specific songs. He just said, ‘I knew you’d know all that… so you take it’.
Bernard Butler – Guitarist magazine, March 2019
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