I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Oh hello
I am the ghost of Troubled Joe
Hung by his pretty white neck
Some eighteen months ago
I travelled to a mystical time zone
And I missed my bed
And I soon came home
They said :
"There's too much caffeine
In your bloodstream
And a lack of real spice
In your life"
I said :
"Leave me alone
Because I'm alright, dad
Surprised to still
Be on my own..."
Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the strain of the pain again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before
So it shall be again
And people who are uglier than you and I
They take what they need, and just leave
Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the pain of the strain all over again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before
So why can't it be now?
And people who are weaker than you or I
They take what they want from life
Oh, but don't mention love
No - no, don't mention love!
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
Your youth may be gone
But you're still a young man
So phone me, phone me, phone me
So fuck me, fuck me, phone me
Oh, I think I'm in love
Oh, I think I'm in love
Oh, I think I'm in love (think I'm in love)
Urrgh, I think I'm in lerv
Oh...
I am the ghost of Troubled Joe
Hung by his pretty white neck
Some eighteen months ago
I travelled to a mystical time zone
And I missed my bed
And I soon came home
They said :
"There's too much caffeine
In your bloodstream
And a lack of real spice
In your life"
I said :
"Leave me alone
Because I'm alright, dad
Surprised to still
Be on my own..."
Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the strain of the pain again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before
So it shall be again
And people who are uglier than you and I
They take what they need, and just leave
Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the pain of the strain all over again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before
So why can't it be now?
And people who are weaker than you or I
They take what they want from life
Oh, but don't mention love
No - no, don't mention love!
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
Your youth may be gone
But you're still a young man
So phone me, phone me, phone me
So fuck me, fuck me, phone me
Oh, I think I'm in love
Oh, I think I'm in love
Oh, I think I'm in love (think I'm in love)
Urrgh, I think I'm in lerv
Oh...
Lyrics submitted by Idan, edited by Mellow_Harsher, richardgmp
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This song is obviously about colonisiation
Troubled Joe is hung by his "pretty white neck." The narrator travels to a mystical timezone. The title of the song is a reference to a quote from Sperenza Wilde.
Too much caffeine in the blood stream = Tea, China Lack of real spice in your life = Spice trade, India People who are uglier than you and I = the colonised people, the "other"
He's using colonisation as a metaphor for the power struggle of an unequal romantic relationship. He's taking "love is a battlefield" and turning it into "love is a colonial occupation."
Not sure if it is about colonisation but you are right about the song title. Lady Wilde/ Speranza was an Irish freedom fighter and she wrote: "One instant to take breath, and then a rising; a rush, a charge from north, south, east and west upon the English garrison, and the land is ours”.<br /> <br /> There's another reference to Oscar Wilde in the line 'some eighteen months ago'. Wilde was inside Reading Goal for eighteen months. It's also in 'I started something I couldn't finish' where Morrissey sings "And now eighteen months hard labour seems fair enough".<br /> <br /> I think it is metaphorical. It's more about the imagery than the literal lines of the song. Being in love can make someone feel quite 'colonised' in a way. Taken over and without freedom or will left.
Agree about the colonial metaphor for love....but I think the "people who are uglier" part is about those doing the colonizing, because "they take what they need & just leave", the way the colonists take natural resources, etc, then leave problems. This is about someone feeling that whoever had "occupied" them (in love) was lesser, but because they pushed for it, then got what they wanted out of the relationship.
@OscarWildin a lack of real spice in life has nothing to do with India or China or anywhere else, it's just a contrast of caffeine being in bloodstream yet his life having no spice, but yes you can say song is about conquest
@OscarWildin I think it's an astronomical leap to read "caffeine" and "spice" as code for China and India, respectively. I think you're reading way too much into that bit, it's like you decided it was about colonialism and then worked backwards to force the words to fit your conclusion. I really don't like Strangeways as an album, and yet this opening track has somehow become one of my Top Ten Smiths songs... I absolutely adore it. But it has one of the most cryptic meanings of any of Morrissey's Smiths-era material. It really does my head in and I've never found an explanation that satisfies me, I think yours is interesting though.
In my opinion this song is about a time he left home, couldn't cope, and then came back. His parents are concerned that he's not happy, and he tells them 'no, I'm fine really', although inside he's particularly cut up about the fact he can't find love, although there is someone he's in love with from a far who he's too nervous to tell (phone me, phone me, phone me). If he was a bit stronger (like those people who take what they want from life), then he would be able to do it himself. The rush and a push are a nod to his Irish heritage, and represent him being stronger, and 'taking the land', which unfortunately, he's not able to do because of weakness or insecurity.
@mjbarks This is sort of approaching my take on this song. I think it's more or less about a young adult who left home but then something happened and he had to return home to live with his parents for a time. I've been in that situation myself a couple times so it may very well be projection, but I think even if the narrative is off, we are thematically in the ballpark.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rush and a push and the land That we stand on Is ours
Love Moz's phrasing on that one. :-)
I think the meaning is that he was in a relationship but he mess up ‘’I am the ghost of Troubled Joe hung by his pretty white neck’’ and couldn’t’t hack living away from home ‘’but I missed my bed so I soon came home’’ and the mystical land is the feeling of love ,’’they said’’ refers to the partner "there's too much caffeine in your blood stream and a lack of real spice in your life" meaning your to busy & stressed and have lost the real spice in his life he’s down and depressed… He’s dad question him of a relationship he still likes the person he ended his relationship with but he doesn’t want the stress of it all again… Rush and the push I think means try again and push our self in a relationship ,give it an over go and the land we stand on is ours (live together in the same grounds house ect..) ‘’it has been before, so it shall be again’’. which I think refers to the 1st bit ‘’but I missed my bed ,so I soon came home’’ he’s in two minds. The bit where he said people who are uglier than you and I , think he does mean people who aren’t as attractive but have all the confidents in the world and succeed and take what they want from life, (He’s jealous).. He doesn’t like it when people mention love because it reminds him of what he had before the split. And the phone me phone me bit is hoping the separated partner is feeling the same way, wants to try again and is waiting for the call!!!
"a rush and a charge and the land is ours" is an irish battle motto... Definitely not about vietnam. Maybe about irish/english unpleasantness...
vietnam? go to england, go to any crappy seaside town during the off-season - that's what the song's about
Yeah, it's about a vacation in Slough or something like that :-)<br /> And you actually try to make the best of it and do some bathing. And then some idiots<br /> steal your clothes while you're swimming lol. Reason enough to damn the godforsaken shithole to hell...<br /> <br /> Just imagine the hilarious image of Morrissey slowly walking back to the bench and bit by bit realizing that it's empty and that he's going to have to walk back to his room like that with everyone seeing him in his swimming shorts :-) He can be quite violent in situations like that ^^
"everyday is like sunday" has absolutely NOTHING to do with war! it is about one of those seaside towns (very much like the one i live in) that is now pretty empty.
"a rush an a push..." also has nothing to do with Vietnam, and actually comes from something once said by Oscar Wilde's mum.
hello... hope some people keep going by this one:P
well for me this song is pretty simply about something that is inside ourselves, not really meant to be about this particular thing or that particular thing. It has a general concensus of every loss we may run at in our lives and the ever going stride to try and conquer back what was taken from us. if you ask me it's not only about irish blokes going to battle for what they lost, or about homosexuality where you might need to untie some bonds to some parts of the family to have the relationship, or about some poor guy loosing his one true love. It still is just a concensus of every loss to me (hope i spell concensus right, i hate that word). But if you take a look at the part with "too much caffeine in your bloodstream, and a lack of real spice in your life..." it could be interprettet towards an addicted persons life where his wonderdrug has taken over, what then has happened is that he lives through the drug instead of the "spice" (social relationships, normal social behavior, basic peculiarities of what we find essential for a living) and is stuck in the drug routine with no possibilities of escape, but that is just if you look at it through a great stack of weed and pills ehhe. but a really great song, and i can't stop listening and to and playing it.
i do think it's about a string of failed relationships and how they just always go wrong and he keeps trying to justify & explain to himself why (being stressed, becoming a bit of a recluse, denial, etc). always thought the "and people who are uglier than you and I they take what they need, and leave" and "and people who are weaker than you and I they take what they want from life" was like... almost a line, if you see, i mean like saying - everyone else is doing it, even people who aren't as good as us, so why isn't it working for us? i hate to link Morrissey songs to gayness as well, but i do think this is one of the more obvious ones. that said, it could be about anyone unhappy in love. i think the whole Irish independence thing is both Morrissey's way of making the story autobiographical and one of his cunning smoke-and-mirrors tricks which he revels in playing on us. legendary song, i love the pained growl just before the chorus
I always thought this song was about some kind of a revolution... silly, I know. It's my 2nd favourite song of The Smiths
I thought it was about revolution too. I thought it was about a young man who believed he could change the world, and there were others who felt the same, but he says, 'don't mention love,' perhaps to himself, because in the past he's fallen in love with people who share his opinions too easily.<br />
Sorry about the double post, but I tried to press enter to start a new paragraph, and it posted it. I think the, 'mystical time zone,' bit is about trying to leave hom but being to scared to. And then, despite not mentioning love, he ends by falling in love after all, and irratated by it, judging by the way it's sung.