"[3] The original 12" and CD singles have "Rubber Ring" and "Asleep" segued into a continuous piece with the voice sample at the end of the former looped and faded into the wind noise preceding the latter.

Described by Simon Goddard (in Songs That Saved Your Life, 2nd edition, p. 154) as a "spectacular combination" — a suggestion with which Johnny Marr concurs — this carefully executed sequence could only be found on the original 12" single, before the 2017 release of the remaster/re-issue of The Queen Is Dead, which includes the same songs with the same segue as tracks 10 and 11 (respectively) of its "Additional Recordings" bonus disc.

[4] The Smiths The jumping man on the sleeve cover of the single release is a young Truman Capote.

"Is that clever" is an allusion to a piece of sampled dialogue in "Rubber Ring" taken from The Importance of Being Earnest, a play that was referenced in the etchings of "William, It Was Really Nothing" and Hatful of Hollow.

Reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine harshly criticised the cover, writing: "Bis utterly disembowel 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side' with a single-minded stupidity that is just bewildering.