Stranraer
New Member
Re: These Things Take Time In-Depth Discussion That'll Piss Some People Off
Excellent analysis and it's one of my favourite Smiths songs as well although Asleep remains my favourite because of the suicidal ideations throughout the song.
I just wanted to discuss the Pablo Cuckoo version of These Things Take Time and the language used in it, because it is one of my fave Smiths songs.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the sacred wunderkind
Morrissey’s paraphrasing The Battle Hymn of the Republic here, which has the line in the original: ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’ It’s clearly a submerged sexual reference here, as Morrissey has seen the glorious sight of his ‘wunderkind’ (i.e. young lusted-after companion) naked and ejaculating/coming. It’s the first of two recontextualized song titles in the lyrics, as befitting a singer who obviously loves playing with and subverting words. ‘The coming of the Lord’ suggests a religious interpretation of the line, as does the word ‘sacred,’ and a glimpse into the esteem with which Morrissey holds this young man.
You took me behind
A disused railway line
Once again, the first line is a pretty obvious disguised sexual reference (you could, eh, cheekily suggest that Morrissey’s rear is a ‘disused railway line,’ as one friend of mine put it!). Morrissey has been anally penetrated in an outdoor location. He is the one on the receiving end of the f***ing, the literal and figurative bottom in the equation, as befits the later lines about his self-confidence and self-esteem. His sexual companion has instigated the sexual experience, not the singer himself, who sees himself as not being worthy of his lover’s attention, sexual and otherwise. This next bit I find very interesting. In the released version, he sings:
And said I know a place where we can go
Where we are not known
And then you gave me something
That I won’t forget too soon
Notice once again how he is ‘given’ a f***ing, not taking/instigating it, the passive partner in the whole outdoor event, with his partner even choosing the location ‘Where we are not known.’ So they can go someplace outdoors and f*** in peace, far away from prying voyeur eyes or ears…except when Morrissey chooses to write a song about it. But in the Pablo Cuckoo version, he sings:
Flipped into blinding fire
And wrestled with surf and sand
Oh I’m saved! I’m saved! You took my hand
The first line is clearly a reference to the blinding pain of anal sex (or ‘painal’ as some of the dodgier porn sites would put it in an inelegant, but good, portmanteau). Guess no lube was involved! If you put the lines together the context becomes clearer:
You took me behind
A disused railway line
Flipped into blinding fire
The word ‘flipped’ is a kinetic one, suggesting that Morrissey has had his world flipped upside down, or potentially has been flipped on his back, where he ‘wrestled with surf and sand.’ This too suggests vigorous physical movement, wrestling with each other as they f***, him in pain. ‘Surf and sand’ is an odd phrase to use. Two four-letter words, both starting with the letter ‘s.’ It suggests both liquid and solid physical reality, waves of pain, a meeting of dirt and water, potentially an ejaculation metaphor. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just trying to do something using alliteration that sounded poetic and it didn’t quite suit him, which was why he changed it to the later, less poetic, more shy version. Maybe there was some a river nearby or something! The lines ‘I’m saved! I’m saved! You took my hand’ suggest that the experience was traumatic for Morrissey, something he was glad was over (‘saved’ after the ‘blinding fire’ and ‘wrestling’ of the experience) when it was. No real pleasure is derived. Then his lover takes his hand (a line which corresponds to ‘you took me behind’ earlier in the song, using a similar word scheme; ‘behind’ and ‘hand’ have a lot of the same letters, which makes the unreleased version scan much better than the uninteresting corresponding lines in the released version) after taking him behind, a small gesture of tender intimacy. The worst is over. This experience seems to have been something to be endured rather than enjoyed, and Morrissey has ambivalent feelings about it, because his ‘wunderkind’ has shocked and awed him by being naked in front of him, but also inflicted sexual pain on him. The infliction of that sexual pain, with the singer being maybe virginal, suggests that his partner wasn’t that experienced either (discounting the fact he may have been a bit sadistic), or he would have made it an easier and better experience for Morrissey; he is young and fumbling, but still clearly in a better place physically and mentally and emotionally than Morrissey.
But I can’t believe that you’d ever care
And this is why you will never care
These things take time
And I know that I’m
The most inept that ever stepped
So Morrissey has submitted himself to an outdoor sexual experience with somebody whom he clearly adores (‘wunderkind’), but he suspects it will come to nothing relationship-wise as he is not worth loving as he is, hyperbolically, ‘the most inept that ever stepped.’ I never ever liked the rhyming of ‘inept’ with ‘stepped’; seems clumsy to me.
I’m spellbound
But a woman divides
And the hills are alive with celibate cries
Morrissey is writing as the ‘woman’ dividing as he is penetrated in this encounter, writing in homosexual code to cover things up and make it seem like more of a heterosexual encounter. The hilarious bastardization of the line ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’ from the musical The Sound of Music almost seems to suggest that Morrissey is singing as he gets f***ed! Or, much more likely, it was just another one of his clever and hilarious pun-ploy-plays on other words, like the previous Battle Hymn reference. Morrissey is ‘celibate,’ which could potentially be another word for a virgin. In both versions, the song suggests that the experience was an overwhelming one for the singer, with him seeing the ‘glory’ of the ‘sacred wunderkind’ (he likes the religious word sacred, and uses it more than once in his songs, most interestingly in the unreleased version of What Difference Does It Make, where he sings ‘Oh my sacred mother!’ Guess that one was too revealing, and didn’t fit the subject matter entirely, so he took it out) and getting ‘something that I won’t forget too soon’ and being ‘spellbound’ and crying/singing out in an ecstatic/painful coitus chorus.
But you know where you came from
You know where you’re going
And you know where you belong
You said I was ill and you were not wrong
Excellent analysis and it's one of my favourite Smiths songs as well although Asleep remains my favourite because of the suicidal ideations throughout the song.
