Andrew Michael Rourke (17 January 1964 – 19 May 2023) was an English musician best known as the bassist of the 1980s indie rock band the Smiths. Regarded as one of the greatest bassists of his generation, he was known for his melodic and funk-inspired approach to bass playing.

Rourke joined the Smiths after their first gig, having known guitarist Johnny Marr since secondary school, and played on their entire discography. After the group broke up in 1987, he performed on some of lead vocalist Morrissey's early solo releases. Rourke recorded with Sinéad O'Connor and the Pretenders in the early 1990s, and was a member of the supergroup Freebass and the band D.A.R.K., and later Blitz Vega with Kav Sandhu. He organised the Versus Cancer concerts from 2006 to 2009.

Rourke was born in Manchester, Lancashire, in 1964, and grew up on the Racecourse Estate in Ashton upon Mersey. His Irish father, Michael, worked as an architect; his mother, Mary (née Stone), was English. He was raised by his father in Ashton-upon-Mersey, and later Sharston, after his mother separated from him and left the family home.

He received an acoustic guitar from his parents when he was seven years old. At the age of 11, he befriended a young John Maher (soon to be Johnny Marr) with whom he shared an interest in music: both attended St Augustine's Grammar School in Sharston. The pair spent lunch breaks in school jamming and playing on their guitars. When Marr and Rourke formed a band, Rourke switched to bass, which he fell in love with and continued to play for the rest of his career.

Rourke left school when he was 15 and passed through a series of menial jobs, playing guitar and bass in various rock bands, as well as in the short-lived funk band Freak Party, with Marr.

Marr later teamed up with Morrissey to form the Smiths. Rourke joined the band after its first gig in 1982, when Marr fired original bass player Dale Hibbert, and remained through the rest of its existence. The band's second studio album, Meat Is Murder, featured the track "Barbarism Begins at Home", a seven-minute funk-inspired track regarded by several critics as one of Rourke's greatest contributions. He was also praised for rockabilly-inspired basslines on the tracks "Rusholme Ruffians" and "Nowhere Fast". Some of Rourke's other noted performances include "This Charming Man" and "How Soon Is Now?".

Suffering from heroin addiction, Rourke was arrested for drug possession and sacked from the band in early 1986, via a handwritten note left on his car windscreen by Morrissey. Experienced session musician Guy Pratt was brought in as a replacement and found Rourke's compositions difficult to learn; he was relieved when Rourke was restored two weeks later, having been cleared to tour the United States. Just after Rourke's reinstatement, the Smiths released their third studio album, The Queen Is Dead. In his absence, second guitarist Craig Gannon joined the band. Marr described Rourke's contribution to that album as "something no other bass player could match", and the heavy bassline on the title track as one of the best he had heard. Rourke played cello on several Smiths tracks, including "Shakespeare's Sister", "Rubber Ring", "Oscillate Wildly" and the Troy Tate version of "Pretty Girls Make Graves". The Smiths released their fourth and final studio album Strangeways, Here We Come, in 1987 to critical acclaim, and broke up soon after.

Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce started legal proceedings against Morrissey and Marr over royalties. Rourke settled out of court for £83,000 and 10% of future royalties while relinquishing all further claims; Joyce pursued the claim until 1996 and was awarded substantially more in court.