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"How Soon Is Now?" is a song by the English rock band the Smiths, written by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr. Originally a B-side of the 1984 single "William, It Was Really Nothing", "How Soon Is Now?" was subsequently featured on the compilation album Hatful of Hollow and on US, Canadian, Australian, and Warner UK editions of Meat Is Murder. Belatedly released as a single in the UK in 1985, it reached No. 24 on the UK Singles Chart. When re-released in 1992, it reached No. 16.
In 2007, Marr said "How Soon Is Now?" is "possibly most enduring record. It's most people's favourite, I think." Despite its prominent place in the Smiths' repertoire, it is not generally considered to be representative of the band's style. Although a club favourite, it did not chart as well as expected. Most commentators put this down to the fact that the song had been out on vinyl in a number of forms before being released as a single in its own right. The original track runs for nearly seven minutes; the 7" single edit cut the length down to under four minutes. The complete version is generally used on compilations.
A cover of the song by Love Spit Love was used in the soundtrack for the 1996 film The Craft and later appeared as the theme song of the television series Charmed for eight seasons.
The single's cover art was a still from the film Dunkirk (1958) featuring British actor Sean Barrett, praying but looking sufficiently as though he was holding his crotch to have the sleeve banned in the United States, where a photograph of the band backstage at the 1984 Glastonbury Festival, which had previously appeared on the gatefold inside the Hatful of Hollow compilation, was used instead. It is the only time a portrait of the band has appeared on the cover of one of their releases. Morrissey called it "an abhorrent sleeve – and the time and the dedication that we put into the sleeves and artwork, it was tearful when we finally saw the record…"
Sire Records made an unauthorised music video to promote the song. It intercut clips of the band playing live (including a shot of Johnny Marr showing Morrissey how to play the guitar), an industrial part of a city, and a girl dancing. The identity of the girl is unknown. The band were not pleased by the result. Morrissey told Creem in 1985, "We saw the video and we said to Sire, 'You can't possibly release this… this degrading video.' And they said, 'Well, maybe you shouldn't really be on our label.' It was quite disastrous".
Nonetheless, the video has been credited with helping make the song their most famous in the United States, along with heavy exposure on college radio.
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