Gay bashing, yes.

oh wow i really never considered those interpretations..well i dont really know much about the 80s ..

my take on it though is a bit more obvious straightforward though, i think....
i was pretty high the other day and my mind was spinning around rather quickly.
i was listening to this song at the time and it came to me as the death of something beautiful and somewhat untouched,
no one could ever imagine the idea of me abusing drugs and going off into this dark world.i was thought of a rather clean cut and positive
but now i really love morrissey's line,"and if you think peace is a common goal that goes to show how little you know...."
and it was what was going through my mind at the time,"love peace and harmony (the effect of the substance) very nice very nice (how i felt about it) maybe in the next world" (being off somewhere else mentally)
the death, everything i used to be and used to think,
gone.
and the neighbor part, yeah i'd rather not get involved too. i dont really go out of my way for strangers anymore.
"it happens alot round here"
that, yeah.this whole new found pleasure is catching on, to people who were once so....pure....

and plainly the beat of the music, the drums go well with what you're feeling inside.perfect song to the moment.

...little random but thats my take ....

oh and my main point was that it felt like the perfect music, the perfect soundtrack cause at the time my friend and i kept looking at eachother from across the room and she knew i was pretty gone and we both kept laughing...she tried it for the first time too and we know its bad but it feels so good.
hence was i was talking about, the death of what we were the death of ourselves.

out with the old, in with the new.

They did this song in a single take. Kick ass.

i think song is in reference to the dance scene that emerged in Manchester in the late 1980's and early 1990's and the problems of ecstasy use. The "Love, Peace + Harmony" line is perhaps a reference to the enhanced feelings of peacefullness and empathy when taking the drug.

I never talk to my neighbour
I'd rather not get involved

It's about the gay hating community at that time indeed.

Love, peace and harmony: gay movement words par excellence.
It's a reference to the gay cries for tolerance, which Morrissey
sees as VERY naive in the England of that time.

I always thought of terrorist bombings too, because I heard this soon after one of a disco in Israel and the line "I never talk to my neighbours, I'd rather not get involved" and "If you think peace is a common goal..." struck a chord. (It obviously would be IRA in this case.) But it's hard not to think of gay bashings, too. I definitely don't get the impression that the Smiths would equate disco music with the ideals of love, peace and harmony - see "Panic". I think it's more straightforward than that.

I agree with the one post that thought that this was IRA bombing related. There were IRA bombings of discoteques when this song was current. Peace is not a common goal when it comes to issues of peace in Ireland - or any other facet of human life. I always thought that it was about the Troubles, and was surprised to see the AIDS theory. I didn't draw the gay = disco dancer conclusion, but who knows. I wish that this site actually contained the real meanings, and not our imaginative interpretations. I will keep investigating. God Bless Morrissey -.