Lyrics for Nowhere Fast as interpreted by YtseJam

Nowhere Fast Lyrics
I'd like to drop my trousers to the world
I am a man of means (of slender means)
each household appliance
is like a new science in my town
and if the day came when I felt a
natural emotion
I'd get such a shock I'd probably jump
in the ocean
and when a train goes by
it's such a sad sound

I'd like to drop my trousers to the Queen
every sensible child will know what this means
the poor and the needy
are selfish and greedy on her terms
and if the day came when I felt a
natural emotion
I'd get such a shock I'd probably jump
in the ocean
and when a train goes by
it's such a sad sound

And when I'm lying in my bed
I think about life
and I think about death
and neither one particularly appeals to me
and if the day came when I felt a
natural emotion
I'd get such a shock I'd probably lie
in the middle of the street and die
I'd lie down and die

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muadDib76
12-05-2004

Rated 0 
What I interpreted, is that the protagonist is stifled by those surrounding him, and has contempt for those in authority who are implied as being corrupt. I also think this character considers it pointless to try and "escape" his current situation since neither extreme, represented metaphorically as "life or death", e.g. conformity or rejection is appealing.

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Libertween
01-25-2005

Rated 0 
and when the train goes by its such a sad sound

how true, how true

xo

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marblerye
01-28-2005

Rated 0 
I think the character is dying to do something completely crazy and unexpected, such as shocking the Queen by pulling his pants down in front of her, and exposing his honest self to the entire world. The character is tired of the false emotions around him, and the way the people around him marvel over small things like household objects. He is so used to these fake, unnatural emotions that if he ever felt a TRUE emotion, he doesn't know whether he could even handle it anymore.

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Oh_My_Beautiful_One
05-10-2005

Rated 0 
Wow, this song really appeals to me, for i sometimes feel like if i felt something then this monotony i feel now, i would probably drop dead because the feeling is so rare. I also find neither life nor death appealing, but spend a lot of time contemplating both. It's amazing how Morrissey can really draw emotions out of you that you didn't even know you had.

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1 Reply
Guerillabaabaa
08-22-2005

Rated 0 
I thought it was an attack on one of two things:

The first I thought about was a general attack on consumerism, and how products are shoved onto us ("Each household appliance is like a new science in my town") by marketing a lifestyle (maybe a modern phenomenon, I don't know) and how it makes us less real ("if the day came when I felt a natural emotion etc.")

THe other thing I thought, which is more my thoughts projected onto the song, is how people (mostly young people) melodramatise their lives in an attention seeking sort of way, and that's why he sings that if he felt a natural emotion he'd be shocked by it, because he's only used to the fake emotions he puts on himself for his image (the character, I'm not slighting him :P ). I also think the line "the poor and the needy are selfish and greedy on her terms" is about how people will make their problems seem so much more important than other peoples, even when they're very minor. For this interpretation, the last verse where he sings "I think about Death/I think about life/neither appeals to me" is how people will make it seem like life is not worth th hassle to themselves, but when they think about it they don't want to die.

Not sure if anyone would agree though :)

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Guerillabaabaa
08-22-2005

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I just realised a far more likely explanation, for the time it was written, is another of the smiths mildly anarchic post punk type things, how things like monarchy keep the poor and needy held down and things in a conservative society while everyone else strives to own more things. I still prefer my first two :P

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k0rkad
01-07-2006

Rated 0 
"each household appliance
is like a new science in my town"
I think he's just bored with the people around him, and how they talk about stuf he's totaly uninterested in, but can't do antyhing about it.

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IceMouse
05-21-2006

Rated 0 
I agree with k0rkad, in a way. I think this song is an expression with boredom in the world and the people around him.

"Each household appliance is like a new science in my town" - Every time something new yet unimportant happens, everyone talks about it like it cold fusion.

"I'd like to drop my trousers...(both lines)" - He'd like to do something extraordinary to give the people something that would be worth talking about.

"And if the day came when I felt a natural emotion..." - And if someone ever talked about something particularly interesting, he would probably be so shocked that he might jump in the ocean.
"And when I'm lying in my bed..." - Clear enough, when he thinks about living with the monotonous world that he does, it's not such a grand idea. Nor is the thought of dying.

"And when a train goes by it's such a sad sound" - The sound of a train likely gives him the thought of someone escaping to some far-off exotic adventure.

"The poor and the needy are selfish and greedy on her terms" - These are the only two lines I'm having trouble thinking of a meaning for. Possibly that he is so fed up with hearing about how bad these poor and needy people have it. Also, possibly what Guerilla posted.

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upthera44
12-07-2006

Rated 0 
I think there are a lot of things going on in this song, all of which have been mentioned already. I think the song is about indignation, which is clear from the very first line "I'd like to drop my trousers to the queen." The sense of indignation and dissatisfaction in the song is compounded by its angry, driving instrumentation.

I think the narrator is speaking out against the wealthy (symbolized by the Queen) for their lack of sympathy for the poor: "The poor and the needy are selfish and greedy on her terms." But he is simultaneously put off by the lower and middle classes for their bourgeois consumerism: "every household appliance is like a new science in my town." He feels isolated and unable to relate to anyone, and therefore unnatural all the time.

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upthera44
12-11-2006

Rated 0 
Actually, I'm going to completely go back on what I said before. I think this song is a straightforward song about being poor and hopeless and resenting the callous rich (e.g., the Queen) and their unsympathetic attitudes towards the poor. It's also about being deprived of 'natural' feelings because you are too unhappy and preoccupied with poverty.

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hoitsmith
12-25-2006

Rated 0 
i reckon this shows morrissey, or someone else, on the outside, a leader, brave and uncaring, "id like to drop my trousers to the queen/ every sensible child will know what this means... and if the day came when i felt a natural emotion..." but on the last verse, he lets you into his miserable bleak state of affairs, i feel it is not so much life that is troubling him, it is him troubling life and things would be a lot better if he would "lie down and die"

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WithSprinkles
02-26-2007

Rated 0 
i really love this song, and the train in the background really gets me. i sense a lot of sarcasm in this song. i love how morrissey expresses himself- lyrical genius, johnny marr is great in this song too those guitar riffs really just melt my face off.

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Mr_Soul
05-09-2008

Rated 0 
Outside Smiths fans this song is probably relatively unknown, yet its one of my favourites and possibly the most outspoken I feel.
It is an attack on society, how people nowadays (or I suppose in the 80's but just as relevant today) are obsessed with material things, the extreme falseness of people, and the structure of British society as a whole in the attack of the Queen and monarchy. It makes a point about poverty existing while Britain still has a monarchy.
Morrissey is so despairing about society that life is no longer any more appealing than death

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prettygirlsmakegraves91
09-30-2009

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i think that in this song it is more than one point of view. i think in the first verse its a peson of middle or upperclass and how all there life basicaly revolves around materialistic state of minds. then in the second i think he takes the P.O.V of a lower o working class person who doesnt really fit in with the upperclass "english" way of life. i always thought that it just meant that neither side is really getting anywhere because the richer people are all dumbed down and preoccupied with material objects and the poorer people are to busy just ashing the upper class.

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prettygirlsmakegraves91
09-30-2009

Rated 0 
i think that in this song it is more than one point of view. i think in the first verse its a peson of middle or upperclass and how all there life basicaly revolves around materialistic state of minds. then in the second i think he takes the P.O.V of a lower o working class person who doesnt really fit in with the upperclass "english" way of life. i always thought that it just meant that neither side is really getting anywhere because the richer people are all dumbed down and preoccupied with material objects and the poorer people are to busy just ashing the upper class.

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