‘Never Had No One Ever’: The Smiths song written by a “fucked up” mindset
The Smiths were no stranger to dark times. The band emerged in the 1980s, a deeply divided era exacerbated by the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and significant socio-economic change.
The societal climate seeped its way into their music, with frontman Morrissey lauded as one of the generation’s prominent voices, a legacy he has since undone with remarkable ignorance. The Smiths might have been one of the foremost indie bands, but they came from the punk tradition, and their music was deeply political. Morrissey managed to vocalise what many of his generation were thinking and feeling, imbuing their jangly indie with a disdain for the antithetical politicians and established order that made existence such a burden.
One of the songs in which this inextricable link to ill feeling emerged was ‘Never Had No One Ever’, a track from the 1986 album The Queen is Dead. During an interview with Melody Maker that year, Morrissey explained that the track was written about the feeling of unease in his hometown of Manchester. It was a manifestation of frustration in the city as a young man of Irish descent, where he didn’t feel at home because of The Troubles raging across the sea.
He explained: “I never really felt, ‘This is my patch. This is my home. I know these people. I can do what I like, because this is mine.’ It never was. I could never walk easily.”
Yet, it wasn’t just socio-political issues that made their way into the song. According to guitarist Johnny Marr – another from an Irish background – the group’s status at the time was stressful, putting significant pressure on him and Morrissey. At the time, they didn’t have a manager, with the duo trying to run the band in the face of being on an independent level and being so famous. Marr says that the song emerged from this adversity and the “fucked up” mindset needed to deal with such obstacles.
Marr told Guitar Magazine in 1997: “It was a very dark album that came out of a very dark period. Once was enough, making an album like that – I was really putting myself out on the edge. I know that sounds very humourless, and we did have a good time making it, but it was a bit like that.”
He continued: “We had no manager, so me and Morrissey were trying to run the whole band, plus we were still on an independent label, but out of all that adversity we still managed to make this great album. A song like ‘Never Had No One Ever’ could only have come out of that mindset – f–ked up.”
Listen to ‘Never Had No One Ever’ below.
