This actually helps me like the song more, as I've always thought it was pretty mean, if it's about a specific other person. But if it's about him then, yay self-loathing!
That's the thing - I don't think this song is self-loathing either. It's actually a rare case of Moz giving his younger self a sly thumbs-up. The narrator for the majority of the song isn't him, or at least doesn't reflect his real views. Rather, it's a pastiche of the various naysayers he would have encountered in his youth. A sensitive young man growing up in unpretentious, self-deprecating Salford with poetic ambitions would have been a common target for exactly this line of criticism (although possibly delivered in less florid terms).
The "publisher" part also makes sense. Recall that prior to being a Smith, Morrissey was a struggling music writer (remember the New York Dolls book?)
I actually think "peas" makes more sense than "thieves" in this context.
"Standing around the shops with peas" works as a particularly scathing send-up of the "kitchen-sink" songs from the early Moz canon (many of which were written pre-Smiths).
In this reading, I think the change in tone towards the end of song is when present-day, famous Moz takes over.
“
There is a different mood all over the world
A different youth, unfamiliar views”
As a teenager, Moz must have felt hopeless. Even though he enjoyed the (very brief) punk explosion, I'm sure he would have felt his careful, over-enunciated style of writing and singing was completely out of place in that genre - and we all know how removed he felt from the glitz of the new-wave that followed.
At some point though - either before or after "taking up" with Johnny - he must have sensed that, zeitgeist or no, there was an audience for the music he was writing. After all, at the risk of being reductive, there were plenty of reasons to be gloomy in the early 80s, particularly if you didn't live in the United States (or even London).
I think this is a common realisation for many people as they enter early adulthood. If you're an outsider during your school years, it feels insufferable. Once you enter the wider world, you come to see that there are sufficiently many other 'outcasts' around to form a community of sorts - if you want it.
Ultimately, these lines are portentous. Young Morrissey realises that there could be market for the dreary stuff he's been writing, and thinks 'to hell with it!'
‘
And dearest it could all be for you
So will you come down and I'll meet you
With no more poems, with nothing to hit home
Darling it's all for you
Darling it's all for you
And here we have the fateful meeting between Morrissey, famous singer of the Smiths, and the lonely dreamer of his younger years. He gives up the poetry, and brings his almost-completely unprecedented lyrics - honed on John Betjeman and Alan Bennett - to the world of rock and roll.
"Darling it's all for you" has two meanings. There's a general "the world is yours" idea here, but also a message of giving. Morrissey is saying that he 'did it all' for his younger self - the young, tortured and widely-mocked 'girl (or boy!) least likely to'. In some ways, this is reminiscent of
Rubber Ring, but more personal - he is singing to himself, rather than the fanbase.
All told, a robust 9/10!