Song/Lyric Meanings...

mozzer8633@mac.com · Jul 29, 2006

Yes, this may be a bit goofy but humor me.

We'd all like to think we know EXACTLY what Morrissey is saying in all of his songs. Hell,we've lived half our lives thinking he was singing directly to us. But maybe we dont, or maybe there are some songs we dont understand. I will name a song. If someone could explain the meaning, or their interpretaion of the song, that would help. And then after explaining it, they leave the title of a song they dont get, and someone explains that, and leaves another song maybe THEY dont get, and on, and on, and on.

Black-Eyed Susan. I dont get it, please fill me in, and then leave a song youre having trouble understanding.

veradicere · Jul 29, 2006

[email protected] said:
Yes, this may be a bit goofy but humor me.

We'd all like to think we know EXACTLY what Morrissey is saying in all of his songs. Hell,we've lived half our lives thinking he was singing directly to us. But maybe we dont, or maybe there are some songs we dont understand. I will name a song. If someone could explain the meaning, or their interpretaion of the song, that would help. And then after explaining it, they leave the title of a song they dont get, and someone explains that, and leaves another song maybe THEY dont get, and on, and on, and on.

Black-Eyed Susan. I dont get it, please fill me in, and then leave a song youre having trouble understanding.

I don't really know, but I always assumed Black-eyed susan was about a nihilistic trouble-maker who wears a lot of black eyeliner. One of those annoying goth chicks who doesn't believe in anything and always has an attitude. While Moz seems to be slagging her off the whole song, at the end he seems to be comparing himself with her "we were the first". I have no idea who it's about, but the LASID website suggest Siouxsie Sioux

so, there's my two cents, for what it's worth. I hope you weren't expecting an intelligent literary answer, b/c I'm too lazy for that on a saturday morning

As for a song I've never "got", I choose the endlessly vague, I Know Very Well How I Got My Name

dazzak · Jul 29, 2006

As far as I understand it, Morrissey essentially uses the flower the black eyed susan as a metaphor for the woman being sung about (wasn't it rumoured to be about Siouxsie Sioux?). She, like the flower, is a weed. Unwanted, yet beautiful in her own way.

I'd like to hear someone's take on "Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning".

wolve · Jul 29, 2006

Lifeguard sleeping, girl drowning:
quite simple. An outsider describes a situation of someone wanting to get the attention (as directly stated in his lyrics) of (here) a lifeguard. The outsider who sees all the efforts of that someone (the attention-whore), is furious (in a jealous way). The outsider kind of whispers in the ear of the sleeping lifeguard: Please don't worry/There'll be no fuss/She was/nobody's nothing (one of my favourite lyric pieces, along with the out-stretched arm). I love the way you can switch the roles of the characters. It doesn't necessary have to be a lifeguard and a girl drowning. (it's all methaphorically - well, isn't that always like that)

Somehow I get the idea you already found out about the above, dazzak?

Modcon · Jul 29, 2006

dazzak said:
As far as I understand it, Morrissey essentially uses the flower the black eyed susan as a metaphor for the woman being sung about (wasn't it rumoured to be about Siouxsie Sioux?). She, like the flower, is a weed. Unwanted, yet beautiful in her own way.

I'd like to hear someone's take on "Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning".

Lifeguard sleeping, girl drowning I always took very literally, as a story really.
I never related it to Morrissey personally. But then again it could be inetrpeted as Morrissey trying to get close to his heroes of yesteryear and failing because he's not interesting enough. More or less something that was touched on in "Paint a vugar picture"

But then again, maybe it’s about Johhny Marr….who knows?

wolve · Jul 29, 2006

As for "I know very well how I got my name": I think it's one of the most perosnal songs Morrissey has ever written. It's definitely about himself (how he was as a kid, and how this made him how he is know) and the lines of "you think you were my first love etc" don't need an explanation, do they? You guys just want to know who he's addressing it to?

dazzak · Jul 29, 2006

Well, that's why I chose it. You and Modcon had quite different interpretations. Its just one of those more ambiguous Morrissey songs that I love.

Modcon · Jul 29, 2006

I'd like to hear what you think about "alsation cousin"

wolve · Jul 29, 2006

and if anyone finds the will: please enlighten me about 'Ammunition'!

slurred_veneer · Jul 29, 2006

Modcon said:
I'd like to hear what you think about "alsation cousin"

Alsatian Cousin is all about sex and being envious of people in sexual relationship (if you're not getting any yourself). More specifically, it seems to be about a male teacher having an affair with one of his female students. Leather-elbowed tweed coats and jackets were the very epitome of intellectual scholars during the seventies and "is that the best you can do?" is a clever way of mocking that character, the supposedly intellectual and erudite professor who charms his female students with a kind of intellectual mannerism when all he's really after is sex (like everyone else).

The line "with your tent-flap open wide" is quite good. It's an obvious sexual metaphor but it could also be read quite literally, as a reference to the tent where the pair is having sex.

Uncleskinny · Jul 29, 2006

slurred_veneer said:
Alsatian Cousin is all about sex and being envious of people in sexual relationship (if you're not getting any yourself). More specifically, it seems to be about a male teacher having an affair with one of his female students. Leather-elbowed tweed coats and jackets were the very epitome of intellectual scholars during the seventies and "is that the best you can do?" is a clever way of mocking that character, the supposedly intellectual and erudite professor who charms his female students with a kind of intellectual mannerism when all he's really after is sex (like everyone else).

The line "with your tent-flap open wide" is quite good. It's an obvious sexual metaphor but it could also be read quite literally, as a reference to the tent where the pair is having sex.

I was going to wade in on both Lifeguard...and Alsatian Cousin, but what has been written already is what I would have said.

Peter

Mada · Jul 29, 2006

wolve said:
and if anyone finds the will: please enlighten me about 'Ammunition'!

My explaination couldn't be written better than someone who has already written it:

Alida said:
I think that it is about suicide. nothing to do with any revenge on anyone. Here's why:
Some references to suicide - "each ridge, and narrow bridge, each cheveron, enticing me on", "each warning sign" (warning signs are cliffs, etc.) "i know what's expected of me now, veering cliffwards". I think he is saying he doesn't need any ammunition against himself, he has enough.. "I've been crying. it comes back on these salient days" (salient meaning the feelings are especially prominent on those days) "and it stays, and it says: we've never really been away" I think this refers to the voices in his head telling him he's not good enough so just give it all up. these feelings are always in the back of his head, they've never really gone away. But he's saying, Look, I don't need more ammunition; He is just happy with the things he's found. He can take all of these warning signs in his stride now.

- LASID

How about... Dagenham Dave?

++++++ · Jul 29, 2006

Alsatian Cousin is genius. There's no explicit connection between the speaker and the person that is being confronted; they could be in a relationship, friends, or the speaker could simply be vexed that a person that he has loved from afar has chosen a different suitor. The gender of the person being questioned is also never revealed. Morrissey leaves that up to our imagination, focusing all of the song on the relationship between the person being questioned and the school teacher (as slurred_veneer pointed out). There's a heavy undercurrent of menace in the song, with the speaker obsessively seeking out the details of the lovers' relationship, going so far as to read the notes that the lovers leave one another, and revealing his knowledge of them to the person being confronted.

I hate to constantly bring up Bowie comparisons when I talk about this song, but I can't help it. The almost-dancy beat of the song and Vini Reilly's searing Fripp-esque guitar work definitely remind me of tracks from Scary Monsters. And just like some of Bowie's best songs, Morrissey strips away every needless element from the lyrics, compacting it down into pure meaning. Not a line is wasted.

Definitely one of my favorite Moz songs.

wolve · Jul 29, 2006

Dagenham Dave is hard as hell 'cause it's one of the most simple songs he ever made

I pass the torch!

just like: some girls are bigger than others.
Is he serious? Is he joking? etc.

Godlovesugly · Jul 29, 2006

Swallow on my neck...and why he left out some of the lyrics in the lyric book to it? morrissey's relationship with someone here i'm guessing

Sir Alec · Jul 29, 2006

wolve said:
Dagenham Dave is hard as hell 'cause it's one of the most simple songs he ever made I pass the torch!

That entire song is easy! Guitar, rythme guitar, drums, lyircs... but not the Bass. The Bass is f***ing hard.

veradicere · Jul 29, 2006

wolve said:
You guys just want to know who he's addressing it to?

well, yes of course

It's very simple, but not necessarily straightforward, and I think that adds to the mystery for me.

And I don't really see how that stanzas that start, "you think you were my first love" relate to the rest of it.

So tell me, how did he get his name?

JeanneDarc · Jul 29, 2006

Girlfriend In A Coma is another one I can't get hold of.

Coma is obviously not literary about a girl in a coma, so it must be a metaphor.

mozzer8633@mac.com · Jul 30, 2006

Mada said:
My explaination couldn't be written better than someone who has already written it:

I disagree. Wasnt this the first album after the hearings. Seems alot of Maladjusted was directed at 2 of his former band mates.

I don't need more ammunition
I've got more than I can spend
I don't think of who I'm missing
I've got no space and no time
In my life, anymore
No space or time
In my life, anymore
For Revenge

Those lines scream "I'm a bigger man, youre a session musician, its time for me to move on and forget you, why try to trade shots with you when you are nothing. Its time to move on"

veradicere · Jul 30, 2006

JeanneDarc said:
Girlfriend In A Coma is another one I can't get hold of.

Coma is obviously not literary about a girl in a coma, so it must be a metaphor.

Or just a joke....that's how I always took it.

Song/Lyric Meanings...

Sugar Booger

Senior Member

New Member

the sad punk

Member

the sad punk

New Member

Member

the sad punk

Member

It's all good

Reader Meet Member

It's a god-eat-god world

the sad punk

Vintage Member

Anorak

Senior Member

Senior Member

Sugar Booger

Senior Member

Similar threads