We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful

I love this song because it's so.damn.true :)

I could be wrong, but i think it's about how we hate it when our friends become successful.

"And if they're Northern, that makes it even worse"

is one of Morrissey's funniest ever lines. It still makes me laugh every time I hear it.

A simple fact, we do hate it when our friends become successful. " And if theyre nothern that makes it even worse" i love that line!

I heard that this song was about the band James.

James indeed. Tim Booth, the lead singer of James to be more specific. Once upon a time, they were mates, and Morrissey even covered a James song for some of his live dates. Ahhh wellll...

I think this song starts off from the point of view of the past friend saying how much they hate their old friend who has now become famous and then the envy is shown as the reason for the hate they have, "You see, it should've been me It could've been me Everybody knows Everybody says so"

I think straight after that line the point of view changes to Morrissey, explaining that he knows that his old friends hate him and he knows they can't stand to listen to his songs but he doesn't really care and starts to tease them with him singing "La, la-la, la-la..." almost in a very immature and childish way. Maybe teasing in this way because he knows about thier old friend's jealousy towards him.

It describes rivalry between friends, back-stabbing, and basically everything Morrissey is so famed for by his ex-friends. Of course, Morrissey is referring to his critics in this song: he is saying he is only being criticised by them because they are jealous of his success. Despite this, there is another aspect to the song revealed by the mention of his Northern-ness, which seems indicate that the song is partly aimed at the London music critics.

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this is my interpretation probably aload of crap but i think its about a dig at the cure it sounds abit like one of their tunes and morrisey mocking them becuase they hate him or vice versa he's being sarcastic by using the word friend

I love it when he laughs in his singing, there's no-one like him - "la la la ha ha harr la la la la laa har ha ha ha"

I don't know who it's about specifically, but I like to think of it as a general diatribe against humanity and jealousy, people who hate it when they're friends are doing better than them! It is of course, very true, and lots of people must have felt that way at some point (myself included).

I like his dissection of the song format, which shows him poking fun at himself too:

Verse Chorus Middle eight Break, fade