The Smiths A-Z: "Nowhere Fast"

BookishBoy

Well-Known Member









Next up in our Smiths A-Z project is this song from the Meat is Murder album, released in 1985.

The song was performed live 71 times by the Smiths, while it has been played live four times by Morrissey, all in 2009.

What do we think?
 
The music on the "and when a train goes by it's such a sad sound" part is a great moment.
 
The past few songs haven't really been among the group's best, but this is a classic imo.

Amusing lyrics from Morrissey and a cracking tune from Johnny, even if the latter wasn't entirely happy with the finished recording.

I think it was one of the most important songs on Meat is Murder with the Peel Session given plenty of repeat airings over the years.


Just to show other viewpoints and not because they should be considered in any way definitive...

In the poll on this board this song ranked 26th from 73 of the group's songs.
In the poll on the Hoffman board this song ranked 38th from 73 of the group's songs.
 
I love this song so much, but have never quite got my head around this aspect of it:

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock
I'd probably jump in the ocean

What is Morrissey singing about here? What does he mean by feeling "natural emotions"? (I'm asking this as someone who feels too emotions, all the time, about too many things...)
 
Would have been interesting to see how it may have done as the planned followup to William...
Shame Marr didn't get behind it.
According to my diary, I found the performance of this at Goldiggers to be a highpoint (the gig as a whole with its surprises was pretty amazing).
Regards,
FWD.
 
this song ?


simply genius.
 
I love this song so much, but have never quite got my head around this aspect of it:

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock
I'd probably jump in the ocean

What is Morrissey singing about here? What does he mean by feeling "natural emotions"? (I'm asking this as someone who feels too emotions, all the time, about too many things...)
I think there might be a bit of laziness here and that maybe it just sounds good. But it does kind of relate to this verse:

And when I'm lying in my bed
I think about life and I think about death
And neither one particularly appeals to me


If we look at the songs as being about different characters instead of being all his real and consistent feelings then this is a person who is withdrawn? The lyrics are kind of sparse and all over the place.

Just as a single line he's saying that the emotions he feels are "unnatural" and that goes along with the message of lots of his work in The Smiths.
 
The lines “ and when train goes by it’s such a sad sound”
Some how feels that Moz is stuck in some shit hole, and the people on the train are heading for some where better.
Lyrically, this is a gem and probably a wise choice not to be a single as this song gives the album plenty of depth.
 
Do we really believe the BBC would play a song that features the sentence
I would Like to drop my trousers to the queen, every sensible child would know what it means.

Anyway, I also love the sad sound of the train passing by, and Johnny’s music is just gorgeous. At first I thought the music was too fat for Morrissey’s singing voice, nut I got used to it and now find it very endearing.
 
I love this song so much, but have never quite got my head around this aspect of it:

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock
I'd probably jump in the ocean

What is Morrissey singing about here? What does he mean by feeling "natural emotions"? (I'm asking this as someone who feels too emotions, all the time, about too many things...)
Could natural emotion be a veiled reference to human / sexual attraction?
I interpret the chorus as a reflection on his bedroom days on his earlier years, where he bécane almost numb to the outside worl.
 
I love this song so much, but have never quite got my head around this aspect of it:

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock
I'd probably jump in the ocean

What is Morrissey singing about here? What does he mean by feeling "natural emotions"? (I'm asking this as someone who feels too emotions, all the time, about too many things...)

To me this is the sort of gallows humour about mental illness that Morrissey is so good at. Also reminds me of the humour of Withnail & I.

Marwood: You know what we should do? I say, you know what we should do?
Withnail: How should I possibly know what we should do? What should we do?
Marwood: Get out of it for a while. Get into the countryside. Rejuvenate.
Withnail: Rejuvenate! What good's the countryside? I'm in a park and I'm practically dead.
 
I love this song so much, but have never quite got my head around this aspect of it:

And if the day came
When I felt a natural emotion
I'd get such a shock
I'd probably jump in the ocean

What is Morrissey singing about here? What does he mean by feeling "natural emotions"? (I'm asking this as someone who feels too emotions, all the time, about too many things...)
For me this was him saying he'd never felt 'normal' having no idea what it was like to love or to be loved. Everything was stunted for him emotionally, he was shut down, unavailable etc
 
To me this is the sort of gallows humour about mental illness that Morrissey is so good at. Also reminds me of the humour of Withnail & I.

Marwood: You know what we should do? I say, you know what we should do?
Withnail: How should I possibly know what we should do? What should we do?
Marwood: Get out of it for a while. Get into the countryside. Rejuvenate.
Withnail: Rejuvenate! What good's the countryside? I'm in a park and I'm practically dead.
I believe they ended up in
Penrith.

“ are you the farmer”

“ of course he’s the f***ing farmer”
Classic .
 
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