“It is about me. It’s about the moment of singing, singing to an audience.”Morrissey (308)

“It was a very easy lyric to write because immobilisation, which is something I see everywhere (people are immobilised)…I see people as being very lonely and immobilised. As life speeds up and people surround themselves with electronic gadgets, they become more lonely and more isolated. I think there’ll be a reaction against that.”Morrissey (309)

“Yes, that’s me [the lyric ‘When 13 years old/Who dyed his hair gold’ – Ed]. That’s true. When I was 13 I did experiment with bottles of bleach and so forth. I tried to dye it yellow and it came out gold, then I tried to get rid of it and it came out purple. I was sent home from school.”Morrissey (720)

“The pleasure is getting it out of your system, saying ‘never again’ instead of ‘same time next year’. And the British holiday resort is just like a symbol of Britain’s absurdity really. The idea of a resort in Britain doesn’t seem natural.”Morrissey (721)

“Yeeeees… I do think it could be taken that way [as condescending – Ed], and another journalist has said that it probably will. But it’s not being deliberately provocative. It’s just about people who, in order to be embraced or feel at home, buy the most absurd English clothes.”Morrissey (721)

“It is a trick of memory, looking back and thinking maybe things weren’t that bad, but of course, if you concentrate, you realise they were. But I don’t want to sing about football results or importune people to dance. There are too many other people doing that, and I feel sad there aren’t people making serious statements. I feel slightly let down. If feel I should look about and see streams of groups being angry and extremely hateful – but it’s just not happening at all. [For me, the song is the centrepiece of the album. But you seem not so much angry, as succumbing to memories, drowning in them, leaving this world behind – Ed]. But, I think, finally exorcising the ghost of that past and those small times.”Morrissey (721)

“There’s a song on this album that has the Rolling Stones in mind because I’ve been so disgusted by their most recent comeback that I no longer find it sad or pitiful, I just feel immense anger that they don’t just get out of the way. You open papers in this country, and every day there’s the obligatory picture of, y’know, Mick-with-bags-at-the-airport, or Keith saying he’s completely normal now. They just won’t move away! The song is called ‘Get Off The Stage’.”Morrissey (722)

“There’s a song called ‘Striptease With A Difference’ which is about playing a game of cards wherein the loser of each game has to take off an item of clothing. And it’s about secretly hoping one loses and in fact manipulating the game towards that end.”Morrissey (722)

“It’s about a person who’s confined to a wheelchair, who can’t make much sense of her life and whose only ambition is to walk down the road in clothes she personally went out and chose and bought herself. And that is as far as her ambitions can stretch.”Morrissey (722)

“‘Palare’ is gypsy slang that was adopted by the theatre and in the Seventies I heard it being used by male prostitutes. They have their own code words for sizing people up and talking among themselves. The song is about male prostitution in Piccadilly. It became a very big thing during the Seventies. Were you ever aware of documentaries like Johnny Go Home? In the North, among most people I know, there was something oddly romantic about the whole thing. It spelt ‘freedom’. Catching a coach and spending a day in Piccadilly was extraordinary. It’s very glitzy now because Soho’s been cleaned up, but then it was quite… powerful.”Morrissey (722)

“It’s not necessarily sexual. I don’t think I mention sexuality in the song at all. But even in the limited capacity of finding a real friend and realizing that it actually does take a lifetime to find one, I’m always slightly exalted by coming across someone with whom one has an instant rapport, an instant harmony. Michael [R.E.M.’s Stipe – Ed] had written to me for a while and I was not quite sure what to think of his letter. Then we met several times in London and went on these extensive walks in which we would just keep walking in huge circles around London and through Hyde Park. We just walked and talked and, that’s always been very difficult for me. Michael is a very generous, very kind person.”Morrissey (723)

“[The song seems to sympathise with football hooligans. Is this the case? – Ed] Well they have such great taste in footwear. I understand the level of patriotism, the level of frustration and the level of jubilance. I understand the overall character. I understand their aggression and I understand why it must be released.”Morrissey (724)