On The Streets I Ran question

[Bluebirds]

Oh my god can't believe I'm actually going to post something like this:

Anyway the song On The Streets I Ran is assumed by most scholars on this website to be about Manchester/ Stretford etc.

However I am of the opinion that the song is inspired more by Moz's time in LA. I am now going to pith on my own argument by admitting that the lines "turing sickness into popular song.." and that are possibly about Manchester.

And all these street's can do
Is claim to know the real you
And warn if you don't leave
You will kill or be killed
Which isn't very nice
Here everybody's friendly
But nobody's friends
Oh, dear God when will I
Be where I should be?

I reckon this bit is about LA, and the last lines relate to Moz the eternal wanderer

And when the Palmist said:
"One Thursday you will be dead"
I said "No, not me, this cannot be,
Dear God, take him, take them, take anyone
The stillborn,
The newborn
The infirm,
Take anyone
Take people from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Just spare me!"

Here Moz is on about his living, breathing self. As he is now. Not as a teenager. He wants to live but due to the age process knows that death is fast approaching. More than 20+years ago anyway.

SO maybe its inspired by Manchester and LA?

 

[Busy Clippers]

Now you may know that I avoid the "what Morrissey meant" discussions as one would avoid disembowelment, but this one interests me.

I think that maybe he perceived some similarities between the mean streets of Manchester and Los Angeles. The pretty petty thieves and the people being told to "get back to the ghetto" are only superficially different from the people among whom he was raised. I'm not going to drag in films like "A Taste of Honey" and the poetry of Langston Hughes, but I could. It would be valid.

In short, you've got a point.

 

[lovemorrissey]

Yeah id say the second part was about L.A

I was reading an article in an old City Life Magazine where Morrissey had said that L.A is a very frightened city, if someone accidentally bumps into someone in the street they think they are going to be killed and if someone puls up and asked someone for directions they'd leg it. He also said that in the uk if someone came up to you in the park and sat on your knee you wouldnt remotely mind (which i found hilarious!)

 

[Busy Clippers]

He also said that in the uk if someone came up to you in the park and sat on your knee you wouldnt remotely mind (which i found hilarious!)

Well now we all know what to do when we next see him in the park.

 

[nugz]

Yeah id say the second part was about L.A

I was reading an article in an old City Life Magazine where Morrissey had said that L.A is a very frightened city, if someone accidentally bumps into someone in the street they think they are going to be killed and if someone puls up and asked someone for directions they'd leg it. He also said that in the uk if someone came up to you in the park and sat on your knee you wouldnt remotely mind (which i found hilarious!)

it's actually like this in ALOT of big US cities, unfortunately...