What does “I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar” mean?
One of the best things about Morrissey has always been his poetic flair when it’s dosed with intense self-deprecation.
But it’s also probably why we love to hate him. Because, at the crux of it, he thinks like the majority of us but doesn’t necessarily have the humility that attracts long-term respect, or as much as a musical great should. But we stay endeared because he has this unique ability to spotlight life’s wicked sense of humour, and provide space where it’s okay to laugh at things like loss, survival, even death.
Like when we listen to ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ and find amusement in the clash of the upbeat melody and the grim subject matter, or in ‘How Soon Is Now?‘ when he glosses over the impossible complexity of the words, “I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar”. Because what does that even mean, anyway?
It’s self-pitying in the usual Morrissey way, but does it scratch at something beneath his usual clever wordplay?
Trying to understand ‘How Soon Is Now?’
A closer look reveals it’s both. Because, if there’s one thing Morrissey absolutely loves, it’s using images of grandeur to back up his self-pitying ramblings. But when coupled with his usual satirical tone and self-awareness, it creates a sense of frustration aimed at the fact he feels he’s a victim of circumstance, a mind troubled with not being able to escape because everything that’s wrong with him has been built in from the start with no means to escape.
This despair reflects in countless songs, like in ‘Cemetry Gates’, when he asserts, “If you must write prose and poems / The words you use should be your own / Don’t plagiarise or take on loan”, all while borrowing lines from Richard III and The Man Who Came to Dinner. But with ‘How Soon Is Now?’, there’s a stronger sense of resignation in lamenting being the “son and the heir” – like he’s been given a role or duty without wanting it – of “a shyness that is criminally vulgar”.
Anyone hearing that line for the first time would have to sit with it a bit, turning it over to figure out what he’s actually getting at. Boiled down, he’s admitting he’s trapped by his own anxiety, with no real way out of it. What makes it hit harder is the way he likens it to being locked into an institution – the sense that he’s been unfairly tied to something that won’t let him move forward.
It also has his usual layering, with references to George Eliot’s Middlemarch, specifically the line, “To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer and inevitable heir to nothing in particular”. Lifting this line almost word for word strengthens both the royal imagery and the misplaced sense of grandeur, enhancing how Morrissey feels succumbed to a predetermined destiny haunted by doubt and paranoia, and frustration at his inability to break free.
And yet, there’s more. Because while the obvious reading is how he’s a prisoner of his own shyness, there’s also a duality in using the words “I am the son and the heir”, and how, when you hear those words and not see them written down, it can also sound like “I am the sun and the air”. Producer John Porter actually thought those were the words when he first heard Morrissey sing them, but the rest of the line gave it that spark that felt like a real light-bulb moment (“I knew he’d hit the bullseye there and then”).
