no one in particular
clingy
^yeah, but it is possible that a judge's gavel could be partly be made out of alabaster, since alabaster is a stone. many gavels have a stone component on the front end.
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drunken goldfish
blah blah fishcakes
I agree some lines don't exactly match up, but the whole premise seems to point in that direction.
The protagonist has a secret that is
A. probably something that he is, as opposed to for instance something he did (based on the use of "prejudice" and "the truth about me").
B. is such a deep secret that the person spoken to didn't know it inspite of having been "through hell and high tide" with him, and being someone he "can rely on".
C. is such a potentially troubling secret that the person spoken to feels it's worth breaking up over. (I assume there's a concensus about this being a romantic relationship, but if not, I'm basing it on lines like "you won't see me anymore" and "your prejudice won't keep you warm tonight").
yep - that's exactly the message I get from that song too!
nightandday
New Member
The first time I heard that interpretation, I thought: well, this makes sense!... almost; what about the line "now you make me feel so ashamed because I've only got two hands"? That's definitely not what you would say if it was your sexuality someone was making you feel ashamed of.
I think that there are situations when people could feel prejudice over something you did, rather than something you just are, and when what you did can be considered shameful. I could think of interpretations that would make sense, but I couldn't say they were obvious, so never mind. Anyway, Morrissey purposefully wrote many of his early lyrics in the way that they would include different themes and could be open for interpretation, so that the largest possible number of people could identify with them.
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chica
v2.0
As every artist, he is empathising with other people, people who have all kinds of problems. This particular line sounds to me like a situation where the protagonist is expected to "bring home the bacon", and his partner gives him a hard time when he fails to do that.
drunken goldfish
blah blah fishcakes
No, please share, I'm curious now
.That line really is a mystery, but you can't disregard the most plausible explanation because it doesn't fit with a single line. For instance, the line "my only weakness is a listed crime, but last night the plans for a future war" etc. doesn't work if you consider the crime to really be shoplifting, however it's clear most of the song is also about shoplifting. As you say, he could be going for multiple interpretations here as well.
nightandday
New Member
I've just checked the lyrics on Passions... this addition won't make things clearer!
On stage, when he started being bored with the song, Morrissey changed this line to "but now you make feel so ashamed / because I've only got two heads".
Morrissey loves to change lyrics when singing live, sometimes it has a meaning, but sometimes he does it just to have fun - he also did it with This Charming Man: "Will nature make a mouse of me yet"
On the more serious note, I found it both interesting and a bit creepy to hear that in the first recorded version (as far as I know) of "What Difference Does It Make" - live from a bootleg, Hacienda, February 1983 - the last line ("oh my sacred one") was "oh, my sacred mother".
nightandday
New Member
Well, as I've said on the 'Suddenly identify with a song' thread it's just that this song and all the different interpretations of it have at some point suddenly started to remind me of a couple of close friends of mine and their relationship. And there you would have a combination of the sexuality theme and the 'no money/no job/only got two hands' theme. OK then (let's hope that nobody who knows me and my friends in real life reads this... but they probably won't): they've had a very complicated on-off, 'I can't live with or without you' relationship for many years, since high school (of the we-break-up-we-stay-friends-we-get-back-together-we-break-up-and-stay friends again kind). They were always very close and been through a lot together, but there was always a lot of problems between them, jealousy, frequent fights and so on. The darkest period was when they were both heroin addicts, but she fought the addiction and got clean long before he did. I wasn't close to either of them during that period, and I only found out later about everything that went on. They both had their problems with their parents, but his relationship with his parents was particularly bad, and he's always suffered from a lack of self-esteem. He was also always very insecure because of the fact that was never able to find a good job, didn't do well in school, never had any money and had a crappy flat, and sometimes didn't even have a place to stay in (on occasions when his mother would decide to kick him out of the flat unless he paid the rantNo, please share, I'm curious now
) I don't think it ever made a difference to her, although it did to her mother, who always spoke against him and told her she should find a boyfriend with 'a future'. But she did find another boyfriend, because, as she later explained to me, she just couldn't take it anymore and she needed 'just to have a normal boyfriend'. She said at some point that one of the problems between them was that he was "bisexual"; I found that a bit surprising, as I knew she'd always been jealous and annoyed because of his interest in other women, but as far as I know, he'd never shown any particular sexual interest in men. But a bit later I realized that she wasn't really talking about bisexuality per se, when she told me that, at the time when his heroin addiction was really serious, he worked as a prostitute.Now, I'm not saying that that is what the song was actually written about - just that it's one of the interpretations that would fit - although I wouldn't disregard the possibility that it was one of the things Morrissey might have had in mind while writing his songs, since he (according to "Severed Alliance") used to have friends who had done time for petty crimes including prostitution. Just like theft and crime in general, it's one of the possibilities always offerend to young men living in poverty. (And if you're one of the people who look for special meanings in the choice of The Smiths' cover stars, you could always bring up Joe Dalessandro and "Flesh". )
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drunken goldfish
blah blah fishcakes
^^Well, I stand by my original interpretation, but that was an interesting read (if one can say that about other people's misfortunes), hope they have better luck in life...
Anyway, I guess the real point of the song is not the nature of the secret but the fact that the lover couldn't accept him for who he was, and the hurt and resentment that followed.
Anyway, I guess the real point of the song is not the nature of the secret but the fact that the lover couldn't accept him for who he was, and the hurt and resentment that followed.
