Released 31 January 1989
Featured on the album Bona Drag (compilation album)


-Following blurb copied and pasted from Wiki-

"The Last of the Famous International Playboys" was the third single released by Morrissey. It reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was not featured on one of Morrissey's main studio albums, but can be found on the compilation album Bona Drag along with the B-side "Lucky Lisp". The artwork for the single features Morrissey, aged 7, up a tree in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester — literally a boy at play. "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" is notable for featuring three of Morrissey's former colleagues in The Smiths — Andy Rourke, Mike Joyce and one time former Smiths rhythm guitarist Craig Gannon — all of whom also appear on the B-side, "Lucky Lisp".


The song mythologizes the notorious pair of vicious London gangsters known as the Kray twins (Ronnie and Reggie Kray), who held a tight rein on the East End of London during the 1960s. A few years after its original release and Top Ten UK chart appearance in 1989, "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" was brought into the public limelight again when Morrissey was reported to have sent a wreath to Ronnie Kray's funeral in 1995.

The title and lyrics of "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" could also allude to John Millington Synge's 1907 play The Playboy of the Western World — a work which similarly deals with the popular glorification of violence and crime. The title also alluded to the Nancy Sinatra film The Last of the Secret Agents; Sinatra was an icon, and later friend, of Morrissey's since his youth.