Break Up the Family Meaning

[CrystalGeezer]

Read it. Without getting arcanely technical or symbollic here, what if it's about Morrissey reaching a state of completion in himself that he is finally able to comfortably spend time with all his favorite ghosts from his past lives who dwell within another person?

The strange logic of in your clumsiest line
(it stayed, it stayed)
it stayed emblazoned on my mind
(you say)
you say break up the family
and lets begin to live our lives
I want to see all my friends tonight
it wasn't Youth, it wasn't even Life
born Old, sadly wise
resigned (well, we were)
to ending our lives
I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those awful times
I want to see all my friends tonight
Yes you found love but you weren't
at peace with your life
home late, full of Hate
despise the ties that bind
oh I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those younger years
now I'm in love for the first time
and I don't feel bad
Let me see all my old friends
let me put my arms around them
because I really do love them
now, does that sound mad?
Captain of games, solid framed
I stood on the touchline
hailstones, driven home
in his a car - no brakes? I don't mind
I'm just so glad to grow older
to move away from those darker years
I'm in love for the first time
and I don't feel bad
so wish me luck my friends
goodbye
so wish me luck again
goodbye
(wish me luck again goodbye)
(wish me luck again goodbye)

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Really? No one? It's about GHOSTS. Or not.

 

[Uncleskinny]

Really? No one? It's about GHOSTS. Or not.

Well, I always understood it as someone finding peace in their life, perhaps with a new partner, and finding a purpose and future. As they do, they think about the ones they've left behind, their family, and think about how much happier they are in the current situation. Then wanting to go for a pint with their mates, to share the happiness.

P.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

Well, I always understood it as someone finding peace in their life, perhaps with a new partner, and finding a purpose and future. As they do, they think about the ones they've left behind, their family, and think about how much happier they are in the current situation. Then wanting to go for a pint with their mates, to share the happiness.

P.

So the "old friends" you see as pint sharers? That's who I saw as the ghosts, but the new situation is that the peace in their life is that their new partner is an amalgam of all the past loves of past lives. Hopelessly romantic interpretation.

 

[Jackie London]

It's very different from many of his songs since he often looks back at the past with a very romantic, nostalgic view but not in this song.

I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those awful times

 

[CrystalGeezer]

It's very different from many of his songs since he often looks back at the past with a very romantic, nostalgic view but not in this song.

I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those awful times

I know. So interesting. It's really an anomolie in his catelog.

 

[CrystalGeezer]

"It's about ghosts!" You realize they are going to be discussing these very interpretations on Mastermind 2030?

 

[Eraserhead]

Well, it's a song about reflection, so ghosts are always relevant in that sense. I see it as the narrator looking back over the inadequacies of the lives of himself and a group of friends from his past. It is not dissimilar to Maudlin street in it's stream of reminiscences. Maybe it is also about the 70s.

 

[not_me_not_I]

It's very different from many of his songs since he often looks back at the past with a very romantic, nostalgic view but not in this song.

I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those awful times

I've always found it to be quite consistent with his hatred of his high school days as expressed in interviews and songs like The Headmaster Ritual. He's often spoken of how happy he was to leave that behind.

The part I thought was odd is that he sounds a little bit content - no longer tortured as a teenager, may even have friends now...and in anticipation of our disbelief at his happiness, he challenges "now does that sound mad?"

 

[Raphael Lambach]

I guess it's simply about someone who would like to forget his childhood - or/and teenage:

oh I'm so glad to grow older
to move away from those younger years

And break up all the bounds with the family, 'cause it brings him down and makes this one feels bad.

you say break up the family
and lets begin to live our lives

Of course, his friends are the only thing he really has:

Let me see all my old friends
let me put my arms around them

And although this person had been in love (for the first time, by the way) he's not happy:

Yes you found love but you weren't
at peace with your life

 

[marred]

A with most Morrissey songs it's in the title. I don't know how much clearer Morrissey can be. I mean if you're after a Moz song that says it down the line with no BS this is the one. It's all there in the lyrics.
.
Remember the South bank Show where he's sitting in the arm chair saying "We weren't interested in veiled esoteric meanings. We just wanted to say (then starts to point with his fingers emphatically) as if to suggest what we say is what we mean. That's not an exact quote but you get the jist

 

[Jackie London]

I've always found it to be quite consistent with his hatred of his high school days as expressed in interviews and songs like The Headmaster Ritual. He's often spoken of how happy he was to leave that behind.

The part I thought was odd is that he sounds a little bit content - no longer tortured as a teenager, may even have friends now...and in anticipation of our disbelief at his happiness, he challenges "now does that sound mad?"

I've always thought his view of his teenage year is rather ambigious. In the interview where he talks about his childhood he talks about how miserable his schooldays were when he went to secondary school, so he does have this view of certain elements in childhood as being miserable. But he also seems to have a very romantic view of his childhood and teenage years and the England he experienced in his youth. He is, to some extent, influenced by the kitchen sink realism, Corrie etc. and this miserable life in Manchester he describes fits rather well into kitchen sink realism. I've always thought his view of it seems ambigious. Which ofcourse fits him very well, it's not the only question he seems ambigious in.

 

[Dave]

he's in love with a married man

 

[Jackie London]

he's in love with a married man

Aren't we all?

 

[Kewpie]

I've always thought his view of his teenage year is rather ambigious. In the interview where he talks about his childhood he talks about how miserable his schooldays were when he went to secondary school, so he does have this view of certain elements in childhood as being miserable. But he also seems to have a very romantic view of his childhood and teenage years and the England he experienced in his youth. He is, to some extent, influenced by the kitchen sink realism, Corrie etc. and this miserable life in Manchester he describes fits rather well into kitchen sink realism. I've always thought his view of it seems ambigious. Which ofcourse fits him very well, it's not the only question he seems ambigious in.

From my own experiences very few people have only happy memories of their teenage years.

It still gives me bad feelings remembering my secondary school days, I hated everything in my life.
Miraculously I didn't kill myself.

However, when I managed to pass the entrance exams of the high school where I wanted to study, suddenly everything went better.

All of us experience ups and downs in our lives, we have to hang on and make best effort to change things.

 

[Raphael Lambach]

From my own experiences very few people have only happy memories of their teenage years.

It still gives me bad feelings remembering my secondary school days, I hated everything in my life.
Miraculously I didn't kill myself.

However, when I managed to pass the entrance exams of the high school where I wanted to study, suddenly everything went better.

All of us experience ups and downs in our lives, we have to hang on and make best effort to change things.

I think when you're on your own your teenage will be very hard and harsh. Of course stuff like that happens to any one and it happened to me too, however there're some parts of my teenage I'd love to live again and that it never had ended up.

I've been torn apart of some friends who I'm not gonna forget.

 

[Orson Swells]

It's about the very recent (back in 1988) break up of a family called The Smiths.

 

[marred]

It's about the very recent (back in 1988) break up of a family called The Smiths.

That's another way of looking at it I guess. 1987

 

[I am a Ghost]

It's about Charles Manson.

 

[not_me_not_I]

It's about Charles Manson.

groan