Morrissey A-Z: "Dear God Please Help Me"

Absolutely gorgeous arrangement and vocals, and lyrics that are both somewhat silly and some of the most naked and raw he’s ever written.
All in all, I kind of get the feeling that this song might be a bit overrated. I think it’s great, but there’s something about it that stops it from really moving me. Maybe it’s too gorgeous?
 
I like the part where he says "Did this kind of thing happen to you?".
 
Absolutely gorgeous arrangement and vocals, and lyrics that are both somewhat silly and some of the most naked and raw he’s ever written.
All in all, I kind of get the feeling that this song might be a bit overrated. I think it’s great, but there’s something about it that stops it from really moving me. Maybe it’s too gorgeous?

I know what you mean. I feel like this song has every ingredient that should make me love a Morrissey song but for reasons I've never figured out it just doesn't make me feel very much of anything. So yes, maybe it is too lush/gorgeous. Or maybe I just have really tiny balls.
 
A quality song and the real strings help enormously. I can understand why Morrissey was so chuffed that Ennio Morricone agreed to contribute and, even though they only used some of his work, he adds a touch of class.

I liked the thematic shift in songs like this and At Last I Am Born away from the self-pity that Morrissey has sometimes rightly been known for (even at times on the same album).

In the poll on the Hoffman board it ranked 23rd from 264 solo songs.
 
remember reading on here when the album came out a music professor praised M for singing out of tune on this,the subject was autotune and he said it was refreshing to hear a singer record a song even if it wasnt in perfect tune.
good song,very good music,this is a song i like to hear now and again but its not a song i ask alexa to play.
 
On first listen, was immediately reminded of Kenneth Williams' observations of foreign holidays.
Explosive kegs certainly was an eyebrow raiser.
Regards,
FWD.

 
I really like this -- but still this provokes a nagging "not quite there" feeling like pretty much everything on Ringleader. After the jubilant comeback of Quarry and the for once great reviews preceding the album, ROTT sounded somehow half-written -- a feeling I've never quite managed to shake. It sounds lavish and the ideas are grand, but both Morrissey's lyrics and the compositions both seem like they need more work. The same goes for Morricone's contribution: why even ask him, if you're not intent on using his work to the full? This is a lovely song and perhaps the best on the album, but I still keep waiting for some kind of climax or a conlusion that never really arrives.
 
I know what you mean. I feel like this song has every ingredient that should make me love a Morrissey song but for reasons I've never figured out it just doesn't make me feel very much of anything. So yes, maybe it is too lush/gorgeous. Or maybe I just have really tiny balls.

Like Bookie and Eldritch mentioned, something is missing in the song that doesn't quite push it over the edge for me.

When it comes to Moz, my expectations are always high, and admittedly perhaps unfair. All the components are there but the sum of it all leaves some of us lacking...
 
The only interesting thing about it to me is that the "explosive kegs between my legs" line could be the obvious but could also be about a terrorist driving a fully loaded car bomb to deliver it to its destination.
I know it's not but it was more interesting that way, especially followed by the title line and coming after "I Will See You In Far Off Places," with it's sympathetic tone towards those who might be bombed by the US and it's sort of Middle Eastern melody.
It's not his worst song by far and at least he seemed to be trying to do something and seemed kind of inspired but I just don't care for it.
I'm going to listen to it after I take out the toters aka "wheelie bins" and see if I've changed my mind.
 
The only interesting thing about it to me is that the "explosive kegs between my legs" line could be the obvious but could also be about a terrorist driving a fully loaded car bomb to deliver it to its destination.
I know it's not but it was more interesting that way, especially followed by the title line and coming after "I Will See You In Far Off Places," with it's sympathetic tone towards those who might be bombed by the US and it's sort of Middle Eastern melody.
It's not his worst song by far and at least he seemed to be trying to do something and seemed kind of inspired but I just don't care for it.
I'm going to listen to it after I take out the toters aka "wheelie bins" and see if I've changed my mind.

Terrorism! Come on now!
 
Listening again just now the music is really nice but the vocal is "a little pitchy, dawg" and I don't care for most of the lyrics. "The heart feels free" is nice though.
 
The only interesting thing about it to me is that the "explosive kegs between my legs" line could be the obvious but could also be about a terrorist driving a fully loaded car bomb to deliver it to its destination.
I know it's not but it was more interesting that way, especially followed by the title line and coming after "I Will See You In Far Off Places," with it's sympathetic tone towards those who might be bombed by the US and it's sort of Middle Eastern melody.
It's not his worst song by far and at least he seemed to be trying to do something and seemed kind of inspired but I just don't care for it.
I'm going to listen to it after I take out the toters aka "wheelie bins" and see if I've changed my mind.
explosive wheelie bins between my legs,kegs wheelie bins,same thing.
 
You don't often get wistful love songs about having sex with random men in Italian streets, for that alone it's fabulous.
 
A gorgeously sincere, heartfelt song.
What I like most is that it grabs you quite unexpectedly and manages to maintain an authentic feel without drifting off into kitschiness.
All the ingredients - the high voice, the lyrics, the restrained arrangement, the church organ-y keyboards, Jesse's twanging guitar in the outro - form a heterogeneous composite but work in its favour and prevent it from becoming a vanilla ballad.

And the opening line, I think, is one of his best

I am walking through Rome
With my heart on a string


Last time I listened to it was last summer, sat in the dark on my balcony, where it hit me like a ten ton truck.
A true gem on an otherwise oddly anticlimactic album.
 
I like this song. The lyric is really good. The dead god if I could I’d help you line makes me think back to I have forgiven Jesus and it’s reversal. Seems to have been talking to god a lot during that period of his life or at least to have had god on the mind. The music while very good is just a touch to brash for the personal nature of the lyric imo. So I really dislike ringleaders production mastering or whatever but a couple of songs sounded good to me production wise with this song being one of them
 
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