What a gem. A brutal accounting of loneliness and depression and then these lovely lines: "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate / It takes strength to be gentle and kind." and Marr comes in with his gorgeous guitar arpeggios. This band saved my life again and again.

This is THE song that made me a hardcore Smiths fan as well as propelling this album in my personal top 10 albums of all-time…. Love how brutally honest and pained Morrissey’s songwriting is here

Probably the saddest song on the album and one of Morrisseys most haunting vocals. Melodic bass and guitar and smooth drums. This is a Great album.

Morrissey sounds like butter in this one. Such a timeless song.

I never imagined the lyrics as a literal conversation between Morrissey and his mother. In my mind, he was talking to himself. However, your interpretation is equally as valid as mine. This song and "Never had no-one ever" provide the emotional heft at the heart of the album and, unfortunately, provided those that accused the band of miserabilism with unjustified ammunition.

Not a good song to be listening to on a Friday or Saturday night alone and single with no plans. Especially in your younger years. Man, this song will hit you in the feels.

You may catch me at night speeding on some highway with my windows down feverishly singing along, “mother I can feel the soil falling over my head”!

My mother hated it when I played this song...she thought the lyrics were just so dark. I loved it, sang it out loud with my Walkman on...for sure love Johnny Marr.

The saddest, best song ever. Love the emotional build, always gets me. Best line. Its so easy to laugh its so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind

Huge fan of Morrissey and The Smiths!!! Love, love, love them. ❤️❤️❤️

This song is basically how I have felt for the past 50 years.

Here I am, getting chills from the outro like I have for decades now, it is just as amazing as it always has been, and now since my mother has passed, it hits even that extra bit harder.

I vividly remember the day that this album was released because I bought two copies (one of them for a friend) on the way to work. I couldn't wait to get home so that I could listen to it and pore over the lyrics. IMHO, it's by far the band's best studio album and greatly superior to "Strangeways here we come", which both Morrissey and Marr cite as their favourite Smiths album.

It's a Smiths song you can sway your whole body along to....... maybe just me then. 😆 What a top album , and the track sequencing for the LP format is just perfect. Thanks again Justin. 😍

I had everything The Smiths released in the US and in the UK. The one thing I have always said about them is that whatever mood you are in when The Smiths start playing, their music just intensifies your emotions even more. This is quite the maudlin song, but I love the lyrics. Thank you for playing it and giving your reaction.

Wonderful reaction, would love to see more of The Smiths!

The Smiths, one of the most idiosyncratic bands ever. Love 'em..

Wow, i really like this. I have not given The Smiths much of a listen, but now I think I will. Thanks JP!

I love the Smiths and I've heard a LOT of their songs, but I've never heard this one. And, yes Justin - you're correct....This is great!! :) I sometimes get offered to play open mics (just me and my acoustic) and I NEED to learn this and add it to my collection!

My fave Smiths song. A true classic.

This is one of my favorites by them. I love to sing along with this one though truthfully I tend to love singing along with basically all Smiths songs.

Some people don't GET The Smiths but you do and I'm glad. You nailed with your description, a slow dance ballad like a '50s crooner would sing... until you listen to the lyrics. Morrissey is the only one that can make me laugh and cry in the same song. The partnership of Marr and Morrissey is the opposite of Elton John and Bernie Taupin. With the latter Bernie comes up with the lyrics and Elton sets them to music. In the Smiths the music comes first then Morrissey puts pen to paper. I hope you'll dig deeper into this band's catalog, they only made 4 studio albums but had tons of non-album singles and b-sides. I recommend 'Asleep', 'Ask', 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out'.

Love this song. And Morrissey has the perfect voice for a song about death/suicide/breakups/giving up. Plus the instrumentation is so subtle and controlled. Wonderful!

Everybody already said it - bass, voice, mood, arrangement I love it

My favorite song by my favorite band. I've been listening to it for over thirty-six years and it still gives me goosebumps as if I were hearing it for the first time.

Your Right. Andy’s bass is amazing on this.

Bought this album at release. Never heard this song broken down the way you just did. I think you got a good grasp of the lyrics and their meaning. Made me really listen to this song again after many years. Thanks for re-igniting my passion for this song. Nice job.!

Nice little groovy waltz. There was a recent movie called The (500) Days of Summer, which has some Smiths in it - Gordon-Levitt and Zooey have a shared Smiths fandom in it. It's a depressing film, in a good way, so the soundtrack could have had this song if it did. Zooey (She & Him) does a nice job of singing the Smiths' "Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" for the soundtrack.

This definitely made my day a lot better Justin. Fantastic song and fantastic reaction.

A real timeless classic. Beautifully poetic and covered famously by the late, great Jeff Buckley which is a shockingly good cover.

Well done - great analysis!

Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head And as I climb into an empty bed Oh well. Enough said. I know it's over - still I cling I don't know where else I can go Oh... … Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head See, the sea wants to take me The knife wants to slit me Do you think you can help me? … Sad veiled bride, please be happy Handsome groom, give her room Loud, loutish lover, treat her kindly (Though she needs you More than she loves you) And I know it's over - still I cling I don't know where else I can go Over and over and over and over Over and over, la... … I know it's over And it never really began But in my heart it was so real And you even spoke to me, and said : "If you're so funny Then why are you on your own tonight ? And if you're so clever Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very entertaining Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very good-looking Why do you sleep alone tonight ? I know... … 'Cause tonight is just like any other night That's why you're on your own tonight With your triumphs and your charms While they're in each other's arms..." It's so easy to laugh It's so easy to hate It takes strength to be gentle and kind Over, over, over, over … It's so easy to laugh It's so easy to hate It takes guts to be gentle and kind Over, over Love is natural and real But not for you, my love Not tonight, my love Love is natural and real But not for such as you and I, my love … Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my ... Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can even feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my...

Well I found this one early! Can I wait to watch. Interesting selection love you

One of the most haunting song ever

Great analysis JP.... absolutely nailed it mate 🤟

I think I read somewhere that it's about someone on their deathbed. I love how he can sing through someone else's point of view. His songs aren't all autobiographical. But you can feel as if he experienced them all.

A little tribute tp the 50's music or early 60's especially Elvis Presley.....very nice song!!!! Good job!!!

Really good. One of my fav Smiths song

Best analysis of the lyrics ive heard!

It's probably about 30 years since I last listened to this song but it made a big impression at the time and I can still remember all the lyrics. Memory is strange, though, because the way Morrissey sings some of the lines is different from how I remember them! My take on the song is that the relationship was mostly in the narrator's head. Maybe he was a teenager and this was his first, unrequited love and he's being really overdramatic about it: thus his appeals to his Mum! The rest of the band give it a great atmosphere. I used to have all of the Smiths' albums on vinyl but never replaced them when CDs came along. I think this was my second favourite of theirs, the first being the early compilation Hatful of Hollow; I often find I prefer early records by bands over later more polished works. Example: Tigermilk by Belle and Sebastian; counterexample: The Beatles.

I love Morrissey's voice. Like swimming in a pool of warm butter. Struggling to swim, prolly drowning, but dang, I love butter.

To me, this song and the next song are a tandem and should always be listened to together.

I recall buying this album when it came out and rotating it with New Order on the turntable repeatedly for years. The B-52s were my antidote back then if this started to get me too depressed. Inner conversations, smooth but often tinged with sadness. Introverts (and probably teen) found The Smiths instantly relatable. Morrissey's lyrics can also be angry or bitingly funny (esp. in his later solo work).

A masterpiece of reaction.

Never depressive, this song was always very freeing to me. Love it, still listening 3 decades later.

I'm not crying! You're crying!

Fantastic song! Fantastic t-shirt!

How about ‘Barbarianism begins at home’ as a tribute to Andy Rouke (who sadly passed away recently)

In 1980s, 50s rock was still very popular in UK.

I love The Smiths this is my one time favourite tune thank you for doing it

Beautiful song, but so sad. 😭 I love the song but skip most times as I don't want to feel depressed. 🤣

I am yet to hear a better review of what is my favourite Smiths track , tvm .

The bass and Morrissey's voice make this song work. Beautiful.

The most brutal song that the smiths ever made

It’s a suicide note . Listen carefully, he’s talking to his mother or a third person re enacting a conversation with his mother .

So depressing and so so good.

Awesome song from an awesome album... great thanks JP!

Yes and Sonic Youth are favorites of mine. It's a weird combination, but it works for me. Hope you listen to more Sonic Youth.

Love this song....love this album...and we haven't even got to the best song of the album IMO...probably would be top 20 Smiths for me

Nice reaction…I haven’t heard this in a long time and it’s so so gorgeous. And I’m curious why you don’t get your videos blocked (knock on wood) cuz you don’t interrupt the song at least once? I love hanging with your channel especially because of your open mind and love of music, and it’s extra great cuz you don’t break it up.❤️

Morrissey was someone who took liberally from others work (novels, movies etc), to create his own. I think in this instance he was the muse for someone else. Jeff Buckley often sang I Know it's Over in his sets during his life, and the opening verse of Lover, You Should Have Come Over has a very similar overall theme, and also opens with a funeral scene (...soil falling over my head/...rain fall upon the funeral mourners), equating a lost love with death.

Re-watching this, and really enjoy your reaction. This is my favourite Smiths song, and The Smiths are one of five artists that really meant a lot to me during my late youth (and still do). Three of the the others are well known by you JP: Japan/David Sylvian, The Cure and Tom Waits, but not the darkest of them all: Swans. I would really like to see you react to something like «Sex, God, Sex» from «Children of God», which is possibly my favourite Swans song.

At heart it's a song from the 1950's (with words from later, and instrumentation, too). Predictably, I now abuse the excuse offered to say *Lighten up Morrissey* (again, I think?) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gt15pamF1JqdZXk.html

this is the song that got me into the smiths

This song is about depression

It is the best we listen to it back then listen to it now it’s still the same

The Smiths wrote the saddest songs history has known for a reason. At what 18? I'd just split up from after 2 years dating the model from heaven. It was mutual, but, I let loose on the tears for a month or two as the album was just out. I know it's over, was Mozza's finale as far as the band were concerned. Brilliant live - see Derby Assembly rooms for the best live set. Cheers JP.

Roy Orbison would have made a great artist to cover this.

Great song. I first heard it covered by Jeff Buckley.

I always thought it was that his triumphs and charms were in each others arms tonight … I.e his ego has created the illusion of triumph in the past through his charms, but it’s all fake and on these nights he can’t escape that reality

There is a version of this by Jeff Buckley that he recorded as a demo tape that is somehow, in his magical way, just a touch more achingly sad than Mozzer even can be.

try "Last Night I dreamt that somebody loved me"

Jeff Buckley did a sublime cover of this.

The Smiths!!! 👏👏👏, anything from their, or Morrissey's discography is welcome!

Moz.. Genius. Simple!

Bruh- Sooo close😢 Hes depressed, lamenting a love, but wishing the DUDE chose him over marrying the girl... 😢😢

But not for such as you and I...my love.

First!!

Isn't it beautiful

If you’re ever wanting to review more moody/depressing music with great lyrics, I’d shout out the album “The Midnight Organ Fight” by Frightened Rabbit.

Great song. Before the internet came along, melancholic teenagers found comfort in the Smiths and Morrisey's poetry. And this beautifully recorded song is a great example of why the Smiths were so popular.

It took me a while to get used to the whiny, self-pitying teen angst-y tone of the Smiths, but I love this album. Morrisey's lyrics can be stunning at best and Johnny Marr can write a pop tune like nobody's business. Morrissey has turned into an intolerant jerk, however. Morrissey actually used to keep a notebook of phrases he liked, primarily from old novels that he would string into lyrics. That explains phrases like jumped-up stable boy, which is something you won't hear in any other song ever, but you'd read it in a Victorian novel.

Best album of the 80s.

Great reaction to a great song, but you are way too literal about the lyrics, perhaps because this is so British. He's NOT talking to his mother: he's talking to himself, and also the lonely people listening to him sing. Nor is the mother talking to him! That is him facing the truth in the mirror. "Oh Mother", perhaps derived from Catholic prayers to the Virgin Mary, is like an exclamation, as in OMG! The relationship was all in his head, too: it never really began. Wonderful that you also name-checked Peter Hammill's album Over, which would fit very well alongside this. Utterly different approaches to song writing and singing of course, but curiously similar in mood and effect. In some parallel universe I can imagine Morrissey singing Hammill's lines from Betrayed, "All of the efforts I've made to be gentle and kind Are repaid with contempt Degraded with sympathy and worthless kindness And love that isn't meant".... Actually, Hammill used that talking to yourself in the mirror device in Mirror Images, and these lines, too, could be from Morrissey: "With your infant pique and your angst pretensions, Sometimes you act like such a creep."

please react to can_vitamin -C

Not bad, haven’t been pulled into the Smiths world yet. Wish it had more guitars but, so be it. If I had a Smiths mix, this would make it.

I think the queen just died.

Beautiful song! Please react to Tears for Fears new album? It is getting really good reviews and I really love it.

I love Jeff Buckley's live rendition of this song.

Proof positive that no one does melancholy quite like The Smiths. A classic song, played, and sung to perfection (well nearly), and full of atmosphere. If I were to get nit-picky (who me!, surely not), maybe a tad overlong. That extended outro, a little gratuitous imho.

I'll subscribe if you send me a signed photo....to England

I’ve always thought this song was purely a conflict within your own head. No other person involved in a ‘relationship’ just a conflict between how you want to be and how you really feel about yourself. Asking yourself the question ‘if you’re so very entertaining, why are you on your own tonight’. Persecuting yourself, in bed alone asking yourself those questions. Whilst the soil of depression starts fall over your head.

I am not sure he is loving a girl.

Sorry, Morrissey not my thing.

the incel theme song

No you don’t get it you’re not English I don’t even know why you’re trying to synopsis is it

Songs like this prove why Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce should have gotten at least 20% if not a full 25%. I mean, at least go 30/30/20/20 if you want to take extra credit as writers, 40/40/10/10 is just super greedy. Although not as bad as some Perry Farrell BS, as it turns out.

Musically , insipid band for me.

The faux-comraderie-of-self-haters in the line "Not for such as you and I", the spiteful cynicism of "She needs you more than she loves you", etc... This is the OP incel anthem.

Musically it's ok but nothing more and I've always had a hard time with Morrissey's affected miserabilism. Just not my thing I guess.