Morrissey A-Z: "I Know Very Well How I Got My Name"

I'll go out on a limb here and say that while this whole song is perfect, the way that Morrissey sings "You think you were my first love / You think you were my first love, but you're wrong / You were the only one / Who's come and gone" is one of the saddest and most beautiful things in popular music.

I agree - it's so aching.
 
A lovely little song and it certainly wouldn't have been out of place had it appeared on Bona Drag. That said, songs like this and Sister, I'm a Poet seemed even more special because you had to search a bit harder to find them.

In the poll on the Hoffman board this ranked 56th from 264 solo songs.
This. That’s what a lot of people don’t get about b-sides. Some of them might be even better than some album tracks, but the fact they’re kind of hidden away, and that the ones who find them are mostly hardcore fans, make them even more special.
 
Two more to complete your aching hearts...





 
What can anyone say about this beautiful, beautiful little song? I Know Very Well How I Got My Name, quite literally, creates a strange tugging feeling in my chest whenever I hear it, while simultaneously sending a strange tingling wave of emotion up my back and into my upper arms. Not just one of the best songs by Morrissey, but one of the best songs by anybody, ever.

Relegating this song to a relatively obscure B-Side was an act of criminality - somebody should be dragged to The Hague and hauled before the International Criminal Court to defend their decision for hiding this song away. And what defence could they possibly have? Insanity?
 
Two more to complete your aching hearts...







that second one slipped my radar. What a bizarre idea for an ending. Morrissey’s ?

Relegating this song to a relatively obscure B-Side was an act of criminality - somebody should be dragged to The Hague and hauled before the International Criminal Court to defend their decision for hiding this song away. And what defence could they possibly have? Insanity?

Love those hidden crimes, only for thieves like us to find.


Anyway, in hindsight, I don’t feel it belongs on Viva or Bona. It and Never Learn, for me, belong together. The Suedehead and Everyday singles are more like little albums, worlds unto themselves.

And the line ‘dyed his hair gold’ and the gold sleeve, I wonder if that was intentional? probably not. But for me those songs sound like the color gold. I can’t explain.


On that wrong note ...

“In a brave but outrageously premature display of solidarity [with David Bowie] Morrissey arrived in school (St Marys) one morning with his hair streaked blond. According to Morrissey, he was summarily sent home, though his clas-mates have no recollection of this. However, Chris Power does recall Morrissey's amusing attempt to disguise the controversial gold streak by re-dyeing the offending locks black. The hair-colouring episode (which is recalled in this song) may have had a secondary cause, as Mike Ellis speculates: The day of the blond flash was also the first time I ever saw him wear spectacles. He was quite self-conscious about glasses then."

from songmeanings.com, but is the above quote from Mozipedia?


I also remember some interview where he mentions trying to dye his hair gold and it coming out green instead.


Also I don’t think he’s singing about the breakup of a relationship, not entirely. He sings a lot about his youth on Viva Hate and this song, he could very well be singing about the loss of his younger self.

And I can’t imagine this song without Vini and his golden touch.
 
@Dale Wharfe

Sad because you don’t understand?

Or are you just trolling by rating everyone’s post with a sad face?
 
I found myself at a loss with yesterday's entry ("I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday") and this one, as there's just less to say about perfection than there is about flawed work. This beautiful song has never waned in its power to move me. I agree wholeheartedly with @Ketamine Sun that those first couple singles are worlds unto themselves. This one also sounds golden to me, perhaps simply because he sings the word, but also because the entire piece captures for me the profound melancholy of a late afternoon with its deep yellows and oranges as the shadows stretch out across an empty room.
 
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What is trolling? If people know who you are. How can you be a troll if everyone knows everything about you? I must be a particularly transparent troll. If I want to rate this song as sad, I will do. That's not trolling. And f*** off Radis.

Fine. But you’re rating everyone’s posts as sad, not the song. Can’t you see this? And without any explanation from you, no one can tell what you really mean by rating people’s posts with that rating.
 
Dale strikes me as one of the least trollish people on here.
 
Dale strikes me as one of the least trollish people on here.

Yes exactly. That’s why I was wondering why he was trolling by repeatedly rating most of the posts with a sad rating without explanation, even a post that had nothing to do with the song. Sorry
but I find that kind of behavior trollish.

One two or even three posts rated that way is understandable, but he went on. And it’s a rating that could have different meanings.

He repeatedly rated posts that expressed how wonderful the song is as sad.
 
What is trolling? If people know who you are. How can you be a troll if everyone knows everything about you? I must be a particularly transparent troll. If I want to rate this song as sad, I will do. That's not trolling. And f*** off Radis.
f*** off yourself, you needy little twat.
 
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