Children in Pieces

skull

Well-Known Member
Can you please help me understand what the line "Kid, you must be bad luck..." means?

Thank you!
 
Maybe it's an allusion to a presense that keeps him from getting lucky with the ladies and the boys. Calling the presense a "kid" could be a reference to a force to maintain innocense or something. He references it in All You Need Is Me as well.
 
Maybe it's an allusion to a presense that keeps him from getting lucky with the ladies and the boys. Calling the presense a "kid" could be a reference to a force to maintain innocense or something. He references it in All You Need Is Me as well.

:confused:

The song is about child abuse in Catholic Church.
 
In Children in Pieces, the same presence of "kid" he sang about that had the shit kicked out of it he also sings about in Let Me Kiss you. He's chasing a spirit that in this song he senses is alive but not alone.

There's a place in the sun
for anyone who has the will to chase one
and I think I've found mine
yes, I do believe I have found mine / so
Close your eyes
and think of someone
you physically admire
and let me kiss you
let me kiss you
I've zig-zagged all over America
and I cannot find a safety haven
say would you let me cry
on your shoulder
I've heard that you'll try anything twice
Close your eyes
and think of someone
you physically admire
and let me kiss you
let me kiss you
But then you open your eyes
and you see someone
that you physically despise
but my heart is open
my heart is open to you


He's not the first artist to chase this spirit, Crosby Stills & Nash sang about her, it, in their song Southern Cross. The difference is they didn;t exactly find their kid, the fell instead because it was easier.

Got out of town on a boat
Goin' to Southern islands.
Sailing a reach
Before a followin' sea.
She was makin' for the trades
On the outside,
And the downhill run
To Papeete.
Off the wind on this heading
Lie the Marquesas.
We got eighty feet of the waterline.
Nicely making way.
In a noisy bar in Avalon
I tried to call you.
But on a midnight watch I realized
Why twice you ran away.
Chorus
Think about how many times
I have fallen
Spirits are using me
larger voices callin'.
What heaven brought you and me
Cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world,
Lookin' for that woman/girl,
Who knows love can endure.
And you know it will.
And you know it will.
When you see the Southern Cross
For the first time
You understand now
Why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from
Is so small.
But it's as big as the promise
The promise of a comin' day.
So I'm sailing for tomorrow
My dreams are a dyin'.
And my love is an anchor tied to you
Tied with a silver chain.
I have my ship
And all her flags are a flyin'
She is all that I have left
And music is her name.
Chorus
Think about how many times
I have fallen
Spirits are using me
larger voices callin'.
What heaven brought you and me
Cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world,
Lookin' for that woma/girl,
Who knows love can endure.
And you know it will.
And you know it will.
So we cheated and we lied
And we tested
And we never failed to fail
It was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being bested.
Somebody fine
Will come along
Make me forget about loving you.
At the Southern Cross.

Morrissey, because of having bad luck in the long run, doesn't fall and so can find his spirit because he doesn't settle, but it doesn't make things any easier on him leading up to the point when he is reunited with the kid who turns out not to be bad luck afterall...or so the story goes if the kid is the one. Kids are also baby goats. Goats are frequently linked to El Diablo because of their horns and cloven feet, but goats are also the Greatest Of All Time, so you kinda want to have one around if you live in a world with a lot of spirits, which maybe MOrrissey does.
 
:confused:

The song is about child abuse in Catholic Church.

Not his first song about this. VERY upsetting to think about. :tears::tears: My heart goes out to the victims. Catholic church child abuse can and does ruin a person's potential for happiness for a long long time.

Damn the Catholic Church for their *active* criminal complicity. (seemingly referenced in the song) I'm uncertain how they're qualified to give anyone moral advice ever. How can you claim you have a direct line to Gawd or know the true interpretation of the Bible better than anyone else, when your top people acting on your orders help this kind of CRAPOLA continue??????????????? Why do people give them money after this? Hang the vicar, I say.
 
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I think it's to do with the "they bought it on themselves" attitude some people have to the victims of sexual abuse. "Get your hands off me, it's your fault" is how I've translated the line.

That's awful. :( But makes sense. Maybe he's quoting something he overheard.

I suspect that often in Morrissey songs, he switches the "I" and "you" to make the song more interesting, funny, ironic or oblique. E.g. sings in the first person but it's really someone else's perspective.
 
Can you please help me understand what the line "Kid, you must be bad luck..." means?

Thank you!

I think that Morrissey is singing from the point of view of someone who should protect the child and instead of doing so refrains saying "kid you must be bad luck, my sentimental hard hardens." The person from whose point of view is sung could be either police, cardinals, judges and priests all referenced in the song, or possibly even relatives. This is a factually accurate account of institutional sexual abuse in Ireland as the Irish police (Gardai) have been found to have grossly mishandled allegations of sexual abuse against priests and christian brothers of the roman catholic church. i.e. left the church to deal with such complaints as an internal matter for the canon law of the church rather than bringing criminal prosecutions against the alleged abusers.

It was this climate of regarding the church as pedestalized and untouchable that allowed such abuse to continue and I think that this is what Morrissey is getting at, the way everybody turned a blind eye, not just the perpetrators of the abuse.

Not his first song about this. VERY upsetting to think about. :tears::tears: My heart goes out to the victims. Catholic church child abuse can and does ruin a person's potential for happiness for a long long time.

Damn the Catholic Church for their *active* criminal complicity. (seemingly referenced in the song) I'm uncertain how they're qualified to give anyone moral advice ever. How can you claim you have a direct line to Gawd or know the true interpretation of the Bible better than anyone else, when your top people acting on your orders help this kind of CRAPOLA continue??????????????? Why do people give them money after this? Hang the vicar, I say.

You are quite right. A recent legal report in Ireland found that the sexual, physical and emotional abuse was "endemic" in Irish catholic institutions dating from the 1930's up until recently. Another recent legal report found that the church were only concerned with covering up these crimes, they relocated priests to different parishes where they re-committed such acts instead of going to the police or expelling the priests from the organisation. Such unconcern went all to the way to the current pope, Razinger, known to others as Pope Benedict. The archbishop of Dublin tried to contact the Vatican to request their co-operation into the inquiry into abuse in Catholic run State institutions in Ireland and were twice told they were using the wrong channel of communication and twice received no reply at all from the Vatican. In fact, the current Pope has wrote more public letters denouncing Harry Potter than he has condemning child sexual abuse.

These two reports I refer to are the Ryan Report and the Murphy report, the latter which can be found herehttp://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504 Both were published this year after Morrissey's "Children in Pieces" although it had been widely believed for some time that such was the manner of the Church's handling of complaints in the past.

p.s. on a lighter note, my great uncle was in a film with James Cagney :thumb:
 
p.s. on a lighter note, my great uncle was in a film with James Cagney :thumb:

Cool! Can I ask who? My grandfather is some kind of cousin to Leo Gorcey, one of the Dead End Kids in Angels With Dirty Faces. Though I learned this after I already liked Cagney. What is it with those cool Irish blokes...

Yeah, I knew about one or both of those reports and about previous such problems in America. No fan of Ratzinger here, the dude does not seem to be pope-worthy or a good person by my definition of the word.

I believe the problem of the Catholic Church hiding child abuse is over yet. If it was, we would have seen a new transparency to the Church, with new rules expressly forbidding child abuse, a zero-tolerance stance (I believe they are still for rehabilitating the abusers on the job), and an immediate and intensive search for abusers who may still be on their staff to cut them out. They still seem to be more interested in preserving the church, its size and its money against those money-grubbing self-important abused children. E.g. "Deliver Us From Evil" (2006) About "Father" O'Grady, and his protector, Roger Mahony, who has currently risen in the Church to be the current Archbishop of LA, escaping any successful prosecution. Fsck you, Mahoney, and the Church you rode in on.
 
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We are quite cool :lbf:. This is the person in question http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1546214/

Cool! Also noteworthy on the CV are appearances in Dr. Who and An American Werewolf in London.

When we were in the UK it seemed to us that the people were usually not average in looks. People either had the looks of a Morrissey, or the looks of a Susan Boyle.
 
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I think that Morrissey is singing from the point of view of someone who should protect the child and instead of doing so refrains saying "kid you must be bad luck, my sentimental hard hardens." The person from whose point of view is sung could be either police, cardinals, judges and priests all referenced in the song, or possibly even relatives. This is a factually accurate account of institutional sexual abuse in Ireland as the Irish police (Gardai) have been found to have grossly mishandled allegations of sexual abuse against priests and christian brothers of the roman catholic church. i.e. left the church to deal with such complaints as an internal matter for the canon law of the church rather than bringing criminal prosecutions against the alleged abusers.

It was this climate of regarding the church as pedestalized and untouchable that allowed such abuse to continue and I think that this is what Morrissey is getting at, the way everybody turned a blind eye, not just the perpetrators of the abuse.



You are quite right. A recent legal report in Ireland found that the sexual, physical and emotional abuse was "endemic" in Irish catholic institutions dating from the 1930's up until recently. Another recent legal report found that the church were only concerned with covering up these crimes, they relocated priests to different parishes where they re-committed such acts instead of going to the police or expelling the priests from the organisation. Such unconcern went all to the way to the current pope, Razinger, known to others as Pope Benedict. The archbishop of Dublin tried to contact the Vatican to request their co-operation into the inquiry into abuse in Catholic run State institutions in Ireland and were twice told they were using the wrong channel of communication and twice received no reply at all from the Vatican. In fact, the current Pope has wrote more public letters denouncing Harry Potter than he has condemning child sexual abuse.

These two reports I refer to are the Ryan Report and the Murphy report, the latter which can be found herehttp://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504 Both were published this year after Morrissey's "Children in Pieces" although it had been widely believed for some time that such was the manner of the Church's handling of complaints in the past.

p.s. on a lighter note, my great uncle was in a film with James Cagney :thumb:

This is an excellent interpretation as well.
 
Cool! Also noteworthy on the CV are appearances in Dr. Who and An American Werewolf in London.

When we were in the UK it seemed to us that the people were usually not average in looks. People either had the looks of a Morrissey, or the looks of a Susan Boyle.
Don't be mean to Susan Boyle. :mad:
 
Don't be mean to Susan Boyle. :mad:

Because she can't help it?

Not making fun... It's just a fact her beauty lies in her voice and her talent and possibly other areas.

A friend has suggested that Children in Pieces may more specifically be based on Magdalen Asylums / Laundries and perhaps specifically based on the 2002 documentary "The Magdalene Sisters" or a similar work. Morrissey does seem to reference having watched recent documentary films from time to time. The reference to "Irish industrial schools" seems to somewhat go along with this interpretation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magdalene_Sisters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum
 
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Folks, basically. Priest = Pedo. End of.
 
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