| The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Certainly you can interpret this song loosely and just look at it on its face, but Morrissey does a great job of leaving it totally open ended and ambiguous in the way he writes it. There are countless possible interpretations. The thing I don't think anyone has mentioned is, the girlfriend is not necessarily Morrissey's. He deliberately leaves that open ended, yet leaves the casual listener to assume that it is indeed his own girlfriend he is referring to, but he could be singing about some other guy's girlfriend just as easily. I'll hold that Morrissey is singing from the perspective of a man who is having an affair with another guy who has a girlfriend and Morrissey's tried to get him to leave his girlfriend but he just isn't willing. So Morrissey, in love with this man, finally loses it and confronts the girlfriend. One thing leads to another, they argue, Morrissey loses it and strangles her, as indicated in the line "there are times when I could have strangled her." She falls into a coma as a result. At this point, Morrissey realises what he's done and quickly flees and of course later doesn't let on that he has any involvement. The boyfriend finds his girlfriend, and later Morrissey visits them at the hospital and pretends to care, saying "I know, I know, it's serious," and asking brightly, "do you really think she'll pull through?" as if he has his doubts and expects she'll die, but is humouring the boyfriend nonetheless. Then he's sarcastically thinking to himself how, of course, he "would hate anything to happen to her" when in reality he wants her to succumb to her injuries. To cover his own rear end, he even jokingly says to the boyfriend "there are times when I could have murdered/strangled her" and little does the boyfriend know it's Morrissey's guilty conscience almost needing to confess what he's done by hinting at it. At first, Morrissey doesn't want to see her because he feels guilty and he assumes she'll die soon, and doesn't want to risk her waking up at the sound of his murderous voice, because then he'd be done for. But then as time passes and she hasn't died yet, Morrissey starts to worry that she might survive after all. He asks again if it's expected that she'll pull through, and after a while he realises it's a "serious" problem if she does indeed wake up, because A) he'll go to prison and B) he won't be able to have the guy to himself. As a result, he now realises that he MUST see her -- he demands to see her so he can finish the job so there is no chance she wakes up, and also no chance that her boyfriend clings to her since she remains alive in a coma, in hopes that she'll one day wake up. He plans to pull the plug himself -- "whisper his last goodbyes," as he tells the boyfriend -- a metaphor for putting an end to her and sending her off to her death. At this point the guilt has pretty much driven Morrissey mad, and he sobs by her bed remorsefully, singing good bye after having now unconditionally ended her life. |
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| Morrissey – Wide To Receive Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This song is pure brilliance in my opinion. There are really two meanings to this song that are intertwined, but depending how you look at it, you can see it a bit differently. The person in the song is obviously lonely and is hopelessly looking for love. "I don't get along with myself, and I'm not too keen on anyone else" pretty much illustrates their current mental state. This person is feeling absolutely hopeless and miserable because he can't find anyone who will truly love him, so he just feels disgusted with himself and doesn't have the will or energy to spend time with friends and family either. He's pushing those around him away, which is kind of ironic considering how lonely he feels. "Download something useful or useless" is pretty much his grasping at straws, trying to look online for anyone who might be of interest. He's looking to meet someone over the Internet. The "I'm lying here wide to receive" line is the part that initiates the double meaning. Firstly, he's lying down, on the computer, waiting for any kind of response from a person who might be interested in him (could be an online dating site) like a response to a message. But it could also mean that he's lying there ready to "receive" sexually whatever the person is willing to give him. "Turn on, plug in" refers to the computer, but also refers to the sexual encounter. Turn on the computer, versus turning on the person, plugging in the computer versus inserting the penis. "Then just walk away" refers to walking away from the computer because he is hopeless in finding anyone that will actually love him, and it also refers to the person he's meeting for a sexual encounter. They just have sex and then the person just quickly leaves. "Unlock, process and then just go" reiterates the same thing. Opening up the computer, looking through the websites to try to find someone worthwhile, and eventually giving up, as well as undoing a belt, going through the "process" -- sexual intercourse, and then the person just going away to leave him alone again straight after. "And I've never felt quite so alone as I do right now" is the reaction to having no success finding someone online, as well as the reaction to the guy leaving straight after having sex with him. He just wants someone to love him, stay with him, and care about him, but this person cannot be found, and he is lonelier than ever because finding someone who will really love him seems hopeless. |
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| Morrissey – Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I personally interpret the whole girl and lifeguard scenario as purely metaphorical. I will explain this in detail below, but in short, this song is about a suppressed or abused wife being killed by her abusive or controlling husband. The abused wife would be the girl drowning, while the lifeguard would be those around her -- friends, family etc. that simply fail to recognise the danger she is facing in the relationship with her husband, and therefore fail to help her out of the situation and essentially save her life. In the first verse, the wife decides on this particular evening to confront her husband about something, likely his recent erratic or abnormal behaviour (partially as a result of him deteriorating mentally), which to him, of course, is entirely inappropriate and out of line. This is shown with the first two lines, and the "who does she think she should be?" line, as if he is superior to her, and providing a life and a home for this ungrateful wife is already more than she deserves. Now she dares to question his actions, as if she has any right to do so. The husband has probably always been very controlling, but by this point in the relationship, the wife has noticed something has been changing with him and he is not acting like his usual self -- ie. more controlling, distressed, erratic, etc. This speaking out angers the husband. The "shrill cry" is the wife being grabbed by the husband and then likely strangled. This is the result of the husband snapping and finally totally losing it mentally. "Doesn't she know he's had such a busy day?" is a justification for his reaction -- how dare she speak out against him, he's been busy working and comes home exhausted to face an unruly housewife, as if to say she brought her being strangled upon herself. "Somebody tell her... shh" is a warning telling the wife to reconsider what she's doing, and for her to shut up, but it's too late. She's already dead; he's killed her, evidenced by the "there's no movement." He's strangled the life out of her. "It was only a test, but she swam too far against the tide, she deserves all she gets" illustrates the metaphor -- she decided to, for once, test her husband and see what would happen if she stood up for herself instead of obeying his every command, but she's gone too far. He's unwilling to listen to her rational suggestion that something might be wrong with the way he's been acting. She angers him, and therefore, after being a disobedient housewife to her husband, "she deserves all she gets" -- that being a brutal death. The second three lines of this verse describe the husband burying the wife's body outside under a starry sky; as her body is being buried, her arm sticks out, only to be gradually buried by the husband. The arm sticking out symbolises her final plea -- save me, please save me -- but the metaphorical lifeguard is of course far too late to save the girl now drowning in her makeshift grave. Her arm disappears under the dirt her husband is burying her with, and she is gone forever. The "there's no movement" following is essentially the husband observing his handiwork, as if to say, she's buried and not moving, job well done -- "hooray." "Please don't worry..." describes really what her life under the husband had become. He knows he'd kept her essentially confined to the house under his rules as a housewife, and he's reassuring himself that all will be fine, no one will even miss her or notice she's gone because she meant nothing to any living soul. The lifeguard is sleeping and no one will ever "wake up" and find her and discover what her husband did to her. The "what's your name" I think is the reaction. People don't even remember the wife by name when they ask the husband about her, and it's also the husband willing himself to forget about her and what he did to her. "When he awoke, the sea was calm..." illustrates the husband's mental state the next morning. After going into a mad rage the night before, he's once again feeling serene, and he's convincing himself that it didn't even happen. It's almost like it was a different person who murdered his wife, and not him. He was so enraged the previous night that it's almost like his memory is of someone else murdering his wife, and not him. He's inclined to deny she even existed and that the murder ever happened. "Another day passes like a dream, there's no way..." illustrates the husband's obscure mental state. He's probably been declining mentally for some time, and was once sane when he married his wife, but things have since deteriorated and continue to do so. Every day passes with a haze surrounding it, and he really is never aware and alert to things around him. e continues to tell himself that "there's no way" he actually murdered his wife. It's possible that he has a brain tumour or something else that is slowly but surely causing his mind to decay. |
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| The Smiths – I Know It's Over Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| He's had lovers. He's not a virgin. | |
| Morrissey – Piccadilly Palare Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| What do people think the low talking at the end of the song could possibly mean? It sounds like a young guy saying "No, dad" to me -- listen to the last 30 seconds of the song. | |
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