Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

Things seem to be going well. A very attractive girl had asked me out on a date on Sunday morning and after an initially slow first date the second was progressing much better. However, it had come to the point in this relationship where I had to come clean about myself. She had asked the fatal question; "So, what sort of bands are you into?" "Well", I replied, "I'm quite into The Smiths." Then I realised I might as well tell her the truth and save bother later on. "In fact, I more than just like them, I sit in my room listening to their songs over and over trying to work out the meanings of the lyrics." Fortune was shining on that day and she seemed intrigued about this and willingly requested to learn more about the songs.

This is where Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One before comes into it. It was not until I played this song to her that I suddenly heard an alternate meaning to these words.

I feel that is song is an expression of the frustration of Morrissey being told similar stories over and over again, that were never that interesting to start with. This interpretation becomes apparent when you treat each verse as a different tale, rather than one long one that seems to be telling the tale of a break up.

Take this verse,

so I drank one,

It became four,

And when I fell on the floor

......I drank more

How many times has someone regaled you with just how drunk they were the night before? Which, if you were not there, is not most interesting of stories. And then we have:

Nothing's changed,

I still love you, oh, I still love you

...Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love

Once again, something that most of us will have heard (or said) once or twice in our lives. Attempting to break-up with someone whilst trying not to hurt them too much. All of which is probably a lie intended to make them feel better.

Hence, the chorus,

Stop me, oh, stop me,

Stop me if you think that you've,

Heard this one before,

Stop me, oh, stop me,

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before

Is Morrissey frustratingly saying this over and over in his mind whist the person he happens to be conversing with drawls out a conversation that he has heard many times before, and was never that interested in the first place.

Album: Strangeways Here We Come (1987)
Highest Chart Position: Never released to due the sensitively at the time around serial killer Michael Ryan and the songs reference to mass murder.