Is 'Hand In Glove' really about homosexuality?
-
MissIlsaLund — 17 years ago(July 19, 2008 06:34 PM)
It can be interpreted as either being about homosexuality or heterosexual puppy love (and the way they think they invented it, etc.) Or both. The Smiths were pretty damn brilliant. I think this line is the give-away:
We can go wherever we please
And everything depends upon
How near you stand to me.
And it gives new meaning to the line "the sun shines out of our behinds."
A lot, lot, LOT of Smiths songs alluded to homosexuality. Just look at "Pretty Girls Make Graves:
End of the pier, end of the bay
You tug my arm, and say : "Give in to lust,
Give up to lust, oh heaven knows we'll
Soon be dust "
Oh, I'm not the man you think I am
I'm not the man you think I am
And Sorrow's native son
He will not rise for anyone
I could have been wild and I could have
Been free
But nature played this trick on me
She wants it now
And she will not wait
But she's too rough
And I'm too delicate
It's as red as the Daily Worker and just as sore! -
phantom1988 — 17 years ago(January 29, 2009 06:21 AM)
Pretty girls make graves could be about homosexuality , although it could just as easily be about fear of sex.
A womans just trying to have sex with him telling him to give into lust. but hes not the sort of person who does that ' im not the man u think I am'. She gets bored of trying with him and goes with another man and so hes lost his faith of womanhood. Because he beleives himself to be deep and woman shallow.
I always thought the bit about 'I could have been wild and I could have been free', was about the fact that he was born prudish and shy, which he cant help so its a trick played on him by nature.
lol could be , I duno thats how I always saw it but who knows. -
Reilly_4 — 17 years ago(January 29, 2009 02:15 PM)
That's certainly the way I interpreted Pretty Girls Make Graves. Sorry I've not brought anything else to the party as it were, I just wanted to voice my agreement.
What's that? You just called me a bastard didn't you! -
Potzdorf — 17 years ago(February 03, 2009 08:14 AM)
I've always interpreted the songs as being about love-shyness than anything overtly homosexual. That's the beauty of Mo1c84rrissey's lyrics: they are vague enough to be open to interpretation, even This Charming Man, which I see as a song about a "man crush" instead of homosexual infatuation.
-
Brennan-8 — 16 years ago(May 14, 2009 12:11 PM)
Well, the cover of the HIG single in Britain was a man's bare behind, so draw your own conclusions.
Instead of the "is he or isn't he" debate, it would be great if people acknowledged the extremely high, even literary quality of the writing in Pretty Girls Make Graves. I love that line, "Give in to lust, heaven knows we'll soon be dust" Brilliant.