Unloveable

to tps12, maybe for you this is amusing, but i think it describes a feeling everyone has at one point. i know its very exagerated, but thats how we all feel sometimes. i dont think morrissey meant to make fun of those who take his lyrics literally... mabye your just a douchebag.

a lot of you simply just DON'T get the smiths. its pretty spurious of you too, to base your assumptions on today's smiths fan who was vastly different to the smiths fan who was prevalant back when this was written.

morrissey wouldn't ridicule his audience, although he's always tongue in cheek and brash and it would be foolish to take his lyics at face value, i would say this song is an ode to the emotion of loneliness.

I love how this song paints a picture of a man: desperate and alone, depressed and strange, needing something more than his emptiness.

To say that Morrissey would ridicule his fans is pretty ridiculous. Morrissey loves his fans. Do you really think How Soon Is Now was ridiculing his fans? What about That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore or Miserable Lie? Seasick, Yet Still Docked? Ofcourse his lyrics are genuine! You wouldnt be able to write songs about what hes written without having experienced those type of emotions. His lyrics are witty and sometimes exaggerated but his fans understand this and embrace it. This song is light-hearted but there is a deep sense of loneliness and despair behind it. And it has one of my favourite lyrics: 'And if I seem a little strange, well thats because I am'. Brilliant!

ALRIGHT my dears, I have no idea if this is true but I read and have heard from multiple places that this song was written to mock Robert Smith.

If anybody knows anything, your knowledge would be much appreciated! =)

I agree with Enolf. He's half-joking, but there is a real feeling behind it at the same time. Mocking that kind of depression is a way to deal with it. If you can't laugh at yourself... Morrissey's lyrics are often humorous & partly tongue-in-cheek. That is why he is great! If he wasn't clever like that it would just be some standard whiny drone. Smith fans know that's not true of his lyrics, however much others assume that about Morrissey.

A man returns home after a conversation with a girl that went just like all the previous ones: he confessed his feelings, and she told him she absolutely didn't feel the same and that there was nothing and never had been anything between them. Battling with his thoughts and reflecting on his past, he ponders his failures. He concludes that he is unloveable because, from a woman's perspective, there is nothing about him that is attractive. "I don't have much in my life" suggests he has little joy in his life, and "message received - loud and clear" means that once again, he received a blunt and clear message from a girl to back off because surely nothing will come of it. He realizes that he probably seems somewhat strange to people because he's not "like everyone else" (for various reasons), but he hopelessly believes that maybe if someone really wanted to get to know him, they would also see some positive features in him and maybe even grow to like him somehow if there was a chance.

[Edit: corrected]

Such an underrated song. I love 'I wear black on the outside, cause black is how I feel on the inside'. Fantastically depressing is how I like to call these types of Smiths songs :)

I love this song...over-the-top depressing...kind of making fun of himself and his fans...but also not entirely joking. Only Morrissey/The Smiths can get away with lyrics like that ...

To truly understand the songs and meanings you can't just listen once and look at the lyrics. The Smiths, and Morrissey, have something that no other band, in my opinion, has been able to recreate. Morrissey sings what so many of us feel. He is raw and the lyrics are pure. I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside... His words in this song verbalized what I felt in my teen years, before all this emo stuff came out. You either Love The Smiths and Morrissey or you don't I have never met anyone in between.