Never Had No One Ever

"On The Queen Is Dead, 'Never Had No One Ever', there's a line that goes 'When you walk without ease/on these/the very streets where you were raised/I had a really bad dream/it lasted 20 years, seven months and 27 days/Never had no one ever'. It was the frustration that I felt at the age of 20 when I still didn't feel easy walking around the streets on which I'd been born, where all my family had lived - they're originally from Ireland but had been here since the Fifties. It was a constant confusion to me why 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."

• Morrissey, Melody Maker, September 27, 1986

In reference to the above comment, Morrissey uses the stalker reference to illustrate how someone drowning in the depths of loneliness might feel -- always peering in longingly, but keeping one's shadowy distance. I love how Morrissey puts a deranged yet sadly truthful spin on a song that could essentially be "poor me." It is in Morrissey's solemn insightfulness and honesty that make it impossible to characterize The SMiths work as being simply depressing, maudlin, or doomful. Although these feelings are addressed, Morrissey always says something deeper about the human experience that goes beyond happy, sad. I love how this most inaccessible song (compared to the rest of THE QUEEN IS DEAD which is obviously extremely catchy) was plunged in the middle THE QUEEN IS DEAD, almost as if to say " we are the smiths and we do as we may." True artists. It is a song that grows on you so that after you've listened to THE QUEEN IS DEAD 200 times you can have a moment of deep reverence for this forgotten gem among alternative rock Diamonds.

My opinion of what i think Morrissey means by this "I had a really bad dream, It lasted 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days" is his life was shit for 20 years, 7 months and 27 days. I think he felt like this partly because he could not walk with ease on the streets where he was raised. For 20 years, 7 months and 27 days he felt he did not fit in and had never loved anyone or "had anyone ever." But after 20 years, 7 months and 27 days of a bad life he finally met someone he loved and was desperate for. "Now I'm outside your house, I'm alone, And I'm outside your house, I hate to intrude" He's outside the house of the person he loves and he still feels alone. And i believe the " I hate to intrude" bit means whoever he or she is that Morrissey love's does not love him back and does not want him there.

I'm guessing it's how old he was at the time. Kinda sad, but i can relate. Gotta love that about Smiths' songs.

This song is about isolation, about being an outsider ('When you walk without ease/ On these streets where you were raised'). I think the 'twenty years' reference is him saying that his life up to that point has been a nightmare.

I'd heard it was about the council estate where he grew up (the British equivalent to the 'ghettos' in America, for the non-British fans), which was a partiicularly rough area of Manchester. He was very lacking in confidence, and often found it hard to walk the streets for fear of being beaten up. This is about being in awe of people who could walk around there without that fear, and it's about just admiring them from a distance, most likely platonically.

It lasted 24 years , 8 months, and 23 days.... and I never had no one ever

I thought I had the song all figured out until I read everyone's own interpretation. I'm stumped now! I took it as something significant happening like losing his virginity and still finding himself alone. That really didn't do it for him. But the meaning is always depends on the listener.

Or I'm just an idiot.

I would love to know what this date meant to Morrissey 'I had a really bad dream , It lasted 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days'. Beautiful song, under-rated as many of them are.

I tentatively suggest that 20 yrs, 7 months and 27 days was his age when he lost his virginity. he is thinking about that first person because he has just broken up with someone else.