Pasolini is me

sad veiled bride

can you please stop time?
When I listened to this line for the first time I started with emotion: my favorite singer and one of my fav writers/director/poet/intellectual...in the same line, wow! Then I've been seeking out in interviews if Morrissey himself explained something more about this identification, but I never found other than generical appreciations about Italian culture and movies etc. Does anybody know something more?
 
I dunno, but both are/were controversial figures, revered and despised at the same time, making people, through art, sit up and take notice, addressing controversial subjects as often as they can/could...

I think Mozzer must have pondered this at some point.
 
I dunno, but both are/were controversial figures, revered and despised at the same time, making people, through art, sit up and take notice, addressing controversial subjects as often as they can/could...

I think Mozzer must have pondered this at some point.

Yes, right. I was interested in this because Pasolini was controversial in many ways: politically, artistically, sexually and more. I was wondering if Moz was inspired by any particular aspect of PPP. I must confess that initially I thought about the struggle Pasolini lived in because of his homosexuality and the difficulty of accepting it, being also close to Catholic spirituality. But I don't know if this is the point. Maybe Morrissey just admires, apart from the art, the freedom and the will not to be "labelled" in PPP
 
The first thought I had when I first heard YHKM was that Morrissey had finally come out which may have been a slight exaggeration. But I definitely think that homosexuality has something to do with the identification considering he also sings "Visconti is me", Luchino Visconti also being gay. And then there is also the line about Accattone, which leads the thoughts in direction to Piccadilly Palare. Granted, Accattone is not a male prostitute, but he is a pimp so at least he moves in the same world. Also, I think that Pasolinis fascination and love for young proletarian males can have something to do with the fascination. Think of Christian Dior and the line about kissing mad street boys from Napoli, Christian Dior could have done it but Pasolini actually did it.

So I think the fascination stems from the homosexuality and the underworld of prostitution and all of the shady existences that resides there.

Edit: And I forgot. Anna Magnani. She played a prostitute in Pasolinis movie Mamma Roma. So out of the four people in the song two are homosexuals, one a pimp and the fourth (at least in one movie) a prostitute.
 
Last edited:
...Think I've mentioned this song before on here....but, when I first heard it, I had NO IDEA what the eff it was about ( and, admit it, I wasn't alone there....was I ???).
I am still not too clear on its meaning ( it took me ages to get my head around "your the one for me Fatty"...).
But, at least Morrissey can provoke a bit of Googling still....
 
Then there is the fact that Pasolini was murdered, and that Visconti is perhaps best known for his filmatisation of Death in Venice, while the song is called "You have killed me". :)

cheers
 
It may tie in to his general fascination with crime. Being famous, selling art for money, is in some way prostitution, and M is probably acutely aware of the gross irony of the fact that he bares his soul about his essential loneliness, has thousands of fans who are sure they would love to get closer to him, yet those social transactions are not authentic--despite their honesty. They're real, but they are real only in the context of fame and performance (defining this as the presentation of art)--which may be the only context in which M is himself (as he's said.) He makes money by selling the most intimate parts of himself, in a context in which the exchange of honesties will never be consummated in the same way that the same exchange would in normal social life. I can sit with a dear friend, tell him everything, he tells me what he needs me to know, we bond... in Morrissey's life, the completion of the interchange of intimacy is short circuited. This is crime, and a crime, on some philosophical level.
 
It wouldn't be surprising if Pasolini/Visconti appeal to Morrissey in more ways than one.

In YHKM though, the references are all cinematographic (Accattone, Magnani) and both PPP and Luchino Visconti were film directors - among other things.

It's not certain that "Piazza Cavour" necessarily refers to Rome's Piazza Cavour, as Piazza Cavour in Rimini figures quite prominently in Fellini's Amarcord, for example. For the rest, in P.zza Cavour in Rome there's the rear of the (hideous) Palazzo di Giustizia (Tribunal) ...

For me the "you" in the song simply refers to the city of Rome itself.
 
Thanks everybody, they're all interesting suggestions...in 2006 for a time I was obsessed by that song, it's extremely powerful to me. I wondered: who came with the key? And what kind of key is that? (I want that key too!!)Maybe it's Rome itself, right?
 
Thanks everybody, they're all interesting suggestions...in 2006 for a time I was obsessed by that song, it's extremely powerful to me. I wondered: who came with the key? And what kind of key is that? (I want that key too!!)Maybe it's Rome itself, right?

This is why keys are such lovely and mysterious symbols. I have a minor obsession with them.
 
It wouldn't be surprising if Pasolini/Visconti appeal to Morrissey in more ways than one.

In YHKM though, the references are all cinematographic (Accattone, Magnani) and both PPP and Luchino Visconti were film directors - among other things.

It's not certain that "Piazza Cavour" necessarily refers to Rome's Piazza Cavour, as Piazza Cavour in Rimini figures quite prominently in Fellini's Amarcord, for example. For the rest, in P.zza Cavour in Rome there's the rear of the (hideous) Palazzo di Giustizia (Tribunal) ...

For me the "you" in the song simply refers to the city of Rome itself.

Piazza Cavour in Rome is also famous for the "Cinema Adriano", a cinema and theatre very important in the 60ies. Maybe it's connected with the cinematographic references of the song.
 
Thanks everybody, they're all interesting suggestions...in 2006 for a time I was obsessed by that song, it's extremely powerful to me. I wondered: who came with the key? And what kind of key is that? (I want that key too!!)Maybe it's Rome itself, right?

I interpret the song as being about sexual intercourse. "Pasolini is me" and "Visconti is me" I interpret as Morrissey, or his protagonist, saying that he's gay. "I entered nothing/and nothing entered me/till you came/with the key" I interpret quite literally, i.e. nothing entered the protagonists rear and he penetrated no one else's. And then this unknown male came with the key and locked up as well his heart as his rear. "As I live and breathe/you have killed me/you have killed me/yes, I walk around - somehow/but you have killed me/you have killed me" I think can be interpret in two ways. The first, and vulgar one, in relation to the intercourse, it being a bit rough and exhausting, the protagonist feeling totally exhausted afterwards. The penetration has killed him so to say. The other way to interpret it is that the unknown male just used him and left him with a broken heart, as dead. And then the lines about forgiving him can mean, that even if he broke his heart and left him for dead at least he gave him something; pleasure, sexual liberation or whatever.

I don't know, maybe I read too much about Morrissey's sexuality into this song.
 
I interpret the song as being about sexual intercourse. "Pasolini is me" and "Visconti is me" I interpret as Morrissey, or his protagonist, saying that he's gay. "I entered nothing/and nothing entered me/till you came/with the key" I interpret quite literally, i.e. nothing entered the protagonists rear and he penetrated no one else's. And then this unknown male came with the key and locked up as well his heart as his rear. "As I live and breathe/you have killed me/you have killed me/yes, I walk around - somehow/but you have killed me/you have killed me" I think can be interpret in two ways. The first, and vulgar one, in relation to the intercourse, it being a bit rough and exhausting, the protagonist feeling totally exhausted afterwards. The penetration has killed him so to say. The other way to interpret it is that the unknown male just used him and left him with a broken heart, as dead. And then the lines about forgiving him can mean, that even if he broke his heart and left him for dead at least he gave him something; pleasure, sexual liberation or whatever.

I don't know, maybe I read too much about Morrissey's sexuality into this song.

Mmm...you interpretate quite literally. And you may be not wrong, but I think this is a little too rough and he's still more delicate :). I also think that the sexual thing is there, but I remember that in a live performance of YHKM, when he says the line about entering with the key, M points with his finger at his head, as if it was about his brain-mind...did anybody notice that?
 
Mmm...you interpretate quite literally. And you may be not wrong, but I think this is a little too rough and he's still more delicate :). I also think that the sexual thing is there, but I remember that in a live performance of YHKM, when he says the line about entering with the key, M points with his finger at his head, as if it was about his brain-mind...did anybody notice that?

Yes, my interpretation certainly is quite crude and literal. Perhaps a bit too crude and literal. But, I for one, don't know how else to interpret the first verse. If you have an idea, please share it with us.
 
There's structure to his prose. He's singing the part of the used women who empowered, play the role of the movie maker in order to tell their tale.

"I will be the movie maker."
"You will be the oppressor."
Then he sings as the oppessed woman who maintains that
she gave her soul, so to speak,
to no one and no one returned the favor but ultimately,
because of the oppressor her spirit was killed.

Then...
"I will be the theater producer."
"You will never understand the pathos of the 'the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema.'"
And so on and so forth again....

The key being that the winner writes history and in the case, Morrissey identifies with the loser and aspires to utilize her key to rewrite the history. Perhaps. I may be rushing this interpretation of "key" which could be as simple as a cock which technically makes love but doesn't transmit love, it just f*cks.
 
Accattone-Pasolini's first film as a director, has strong sexual themes
Magnani - Had an interesting relationship with Luchino Visconti
 
Accattone-Pasolini's first film as a director, has strong sexual themes
Magnani - Had an interesting relationship with Luchino Visconti

Pasolini and Visconti are directors. He says he'll be them. He says YOU be Accetone, the pimp. THen he says you TRY to be Magnani, I dare you, but you'll never be because you don't have the capacity to be. It's an aggresive command. He's singing from the stance of the directors he states he is, channeling these hardened women's roles of being wronged then forgiving their oppressor because in the end, that's the only place they find love, despite it not being ideal love. As I understand it, Magnani was a very tough actress, one of the best, her roles described as "firey" and strong-willed. The kind of lady who in a sort of spiritual life would ALSO be the director making the movie that tells her long, old story, sacred feminine stuff.
 
And Morrissey, as he so brilliantly does, sings as a man these roles (think: TGLLT, STAB, YTOFMF to name a few) of this self-actualized feminine spirit that dwells in him who has the balls or "huevos" to use the proper hispanic term, to assume the role of director who in her quest to tell her story writes the villified tale of people like Accetone who through the years has wronged and harmed her. Does this make sense? :squiffy:
 
Pasolini and Visconti are directors. He says he'll be them. He says YOU be Accetone, the pimp. THen he says you TRY to be Magnani, I dare you, but you'll never be because you don't have the capacity to be. It's an aggresive command. He's singing from the stance of the directors he states he is, channeling these hardened women's roles of being wronged then forgiving their oppressor because in the end, that's the only place they find love, despite it not being ideal love. As I understand it, Magnani was a very tough actress, one of the best, her roles described as "firey" and strong-willed. The kind of lady who in a sort of spiritual life would ALSO be the director making the movie that tells her long, old story, sacred feminine stuff.

CrystalGeezer, I think YOU have the key, excellent:clap:
 
Back
Top Bottom