God Save The Smithereens is the sixth studio album by The Smithereens, released on 19 October 1999 on Velvel/Koch Records. Produced by Don Fleming, it was originally intended to be a concept album based on the idea of the world ending as soon as the year 2000 started. It was the last studio album to feature bassist Mike Mesaros, who left the band in 2006, but returned ten years later for occasional live dates. "She's Got a Way" was released as a promo single.
A two-disc deluxe edition with rare demos and live recordings was released in February 2005 paired with frontman Pat DiNizio's debut solo album Songs and Sounds.
Background
After the commercial failure of The Smithereens' previous studio album, 1994's A Date with The Smithereens, the band were dropped by their label RCA, but continued to play live while looking for a new record deal. In the meantime, frontman Pat DiNizio was offered a solo deal with Velvel Records, which issued his album Songs and Sounds in 1997. "I guess they thought perhaps it would be the next logical move from the Smithereens, and then if that got any critical reaction or did anything at all, probably a Smithereens deal was in the offing, I guess is the word", DiNizio told Billboard magazine in 1999. "Sure enough, they offered us a deal".
When The Smithereens convened to record their sixth full-length studio album in February 1999, it was originally envisioned as a concept album about the millennium and the end of the world titled Apocalypse 2000. The band wrote more than 20 songs to fit the album's original theme before abandoning it late in the process. "There were quite a few tunes that came in at the 11th hour that weren't necessarily part of the concept," Pat DiNizio told MTV in 1999. He realized after a while that the millennium-influenced project "had already begun to feel a bit dated and more than a tad gimmicky", so by the time the band entered the recording studio "we quickly and intuitively shifted gears". He added, "When faced with deciding between making a concept album and making an album with good solid songs, we opted for the latter." The album was produced by Don Fleming, who was brought in at the suggestion of Velvel.
However, Velvel was in financial trouble, and in early 1999 the label was acquired by Koch Records. According to vice president of Koch, Steve Wilkison, the label was already in the hunt for The Smithereens, "When Velvel was going through some problems in the spring, I'd heard there was a finished Smithereens record and that Velvel looked like it might go out of business. So I had contacted the band and their management and said, 'Look, I want this record at Koch.' And we were actually fairly far along the way in negotiating for this record when, coincidentally and out of the blue, the whole deal went down where we bought Velvel."
Among those early songs that made it onto the album are "The Last Good Time" and "The Age of Innocence," which find DiNizio "reflecting on society's tendency to put riches ahead of human values", according to MTV. "Try" is about "dealing with the fact that we're all getting older, that life is so tenuous, you don't know what's going to happen one day to the next", DiNizio said. With an emphasis on "the classic mid-60's Beach Boys vocal style", "All Revved Up" is about "the notion of a couple living too greedily and burning out "'cause the end is coming and it's coming fast"...", DiNizio wrote in the album's liner notes. Among the late additions to God Save The Smithereens was "She's Got a Way", a song for DiNizio's 5-year-old daughter, and "House at the End of the World", originally intended for a part-time "Kraftwerk-influenced" electronic duo called The V.I.P.s, featuring DiNizio and Carrie Akre of the band Goodness. When bassist Mike Mesaros heard a demo of the song, he insisted that The Smithereens record a full band version for God Save The Smithereens. "While the title might suggest a lyric connection to the original Apocalypse 2000 concept, there is none", said DiNizio.