I sense a very personal connection to this song as well, so much I don't break it down symbolically word for word, it's as though the entire sentiment expressed is quite literal. I ask that you don't go all "she so crazy" on my explanation because this song kind of means a lot to me, these connections. They're sort of painful.
So just looking at these lines:
Your gran died
and your mother died
on Maudlin Street
in pain and ashamed
with never time to say
those special things
So earlier in the song Morrissey sings about a moving house. I like to think of this house as a spirit moving from body to body trying to be released into the world but never quite having the house that she lives in make the right connections.
In this photo somewhere is my grandmother participating in a May Queen Festival, but not the queen from what I gather.
Here she poses with friends in the late 20's. She's the one standing on the right of the mailbox where you can only see "CAL" written, it was taken in Nebraska. One hand points up, one hand points down in her pocket. She was a pointer. Her friend kneeling is doing the Isis thing. She probably saw signs too. She was very dark and reserved. Though she had actual reason to be bitter about life (her husband Bill left her for a woman named Mary and up and moved to Texas, deserting her) I suspect her darkness might have stemmed from being a bit
different. She was familiar for some reason with being institutionalized, warned my mother about it who eventually was for a short time.
Here she is singing in a club, perhaps misguided by signs to be a club bunny. My mom is a very complicated thing, but she had this idea that someday everything was going to be okay, she saw the signs that said it would. But two failed marriages, three daughters, one given up for adoption because the timing and circumstances were wrong, no higher education, her life did not bloom in such a way that she had time to "say those special things." But that's my job I guess.
I want to stress that these women lived very normal lives despite being different. Some may say mentally ill but they weren't. It's difficult to describe.
Linda, Amie & Grace. And my teddy bear.
Other parts of the song go into great detail about other parts of this story, I could talk about it for hours but I don't want to. It's actually a beautifully happy song in a way, it just takes a long road of sadness to get there.